Maine’s leading hospitality industry group released a five-year plan Wednesday that aims to change how restaurants and lodging establishments attract and keep workers by focusing on education and career-building.
The nonprofit Hospitality Maine Education Foundation released the plan, which envisions the industry, government and educators collaborating to align education with needed job skills. The hospitality industry lost 13,000 workers during the pandemic as restaurants and hotels curtailed business and laid off employees. After the state lifted restrictions, many hotels and restaurants saw business return to or even exceed pre-pandemic levels this summer, but worker shortages continue to limit activities.

3 areas L&D professionals will need to focus on post-pandemic

The landscape of learning and development has experienced accelerated change in the past year, similar to other aspects of the HR profession.

Now, a number of trends could conspire to make things even more complicated as organizations move past the coronavirus pandemic. In an interview, HR Dive sought insight on L&D's path forward from Jason Wingard, dean emeritus and professor of human capital management at Columbia University's School of Professional Studies.

How corporate universities fit into hybrid learning strategies of the future

Companies have spent decades perfecting brick-and-mortar corporate learning and development universities, but many of these facilities shuttered in 2020 because of COVID-19. For L&D professionals, 2021 was a year of experimentation, and it only proved that hybrid learning is here to stay.
Like most other learning organizations, the COVID-19 pandemic was the first time professional services firm KPMG took its learning strategy completely virtual. “You cannot simply shift a multiday, in-person program to a virtual classroom,” says Corey Muñoz, chief learning officer at KPMG. “So what we focused on was answering the question of, ‘How do you translate that type of program into a virtual environment while maintaining a very robust, high-quality learning experience?’”

Cultivating curiosity: Novartis’ chief learning officer on why it matters more than ever

In this podcast, Simon Brown, chief learning officer at Switzerland-based Novartis, a leading pharmaceutical company discusses the importance of developing a culture of curiosity and how it benefits employees’ well-being, team effectiveness, and overall organizational success. Brown explains how, especially given today’s challenges and the rapid pace of change, the process of curiosity enables resilience, helping us to adapt to new environments by constantly learning and acquiring new skill sets.