The latest L&D news, reports, research and updates, personally compiled by TJ’s Editor, Jo Cook
Lack of soft skills in managers stunts employees’ career growth
Managers’ skillsets are a key determining factor in their workers’ career success, according to a new study by STEM specialists SThree.
- 6 in 10 see managers’ soft skills as reason for teams’ high performance
- 56% think leaders with only hard skills hinder business growth
- 100% want more to be done to balance hard and soft skills in promotion decisions
An entrepreneur must build connections as well as study business
There is a significant gap between traditional entrepreneurship education and the practical ways in which entrepreneurs actually learn. Liverpool John Moores University carried out research to explore how entrepreneurs learn. They observed working practices in five co-working spaces, held discussions with 41 people and carried out more structured research interviews with six entrepreneurs.
The findings suggest that relationships and social networks play a vital role in entrepreneurial learning. These networks provide support, advice, and opportunities that are often missing from traditional education settings.
Skills inequalities are larger in the UK than in other countries and are holding back growth, new report warns
The UK has larger gaps in workforce skills between different parts of the country than most other European countries, finds new research from Learning and Work Institute (L&W).
The research shows that two thirds of adults in London have higher education qualifications, compared to just one third in Greater Lincolnshire. You are three times as likely to be qualified below GCSE level in the West Midlands (27%), the area with the worst qualification profile, than in West London (9%), the area with the best qualification profile.
Pupil size in sleep reveals how memories are sorted, preserved
Cornell University researchers have found the pupil is key to understanding how, and when, the brain forms strong, long-lasting memories. By studying mice equipped with brain electrodes and tiny eye-tracking cameras, the researchers determined that new memories are being replayed and consolidated when the pupil is contracted during a substage of non-REM sleep.
When the pupil is dilated, the process repeats for older memories. The brain’s ability to separate these two substages of sleep with a previously unknown micro-structure is what prevents “catastrophic forgetting” in which the consolidation of one memory wipes out another one.
Working some days from the office promotes happiness, new research finds
A new report of over 2,000 working adults by office consultancy experts, Making Moves, has found that working from the office at least some days a week promotes happiness.
The report found that just 19.23% of workers said they are unhappy working from the office any day of the week, a figure that drops to 7.95% for Gen Z workers. These findings suggest that most (80.77%) UK office workers are happy working from the office at least some days a week.
“Good” cholesterol plays a role in grey matter maintenance
High-density lipoprotein (HDL), or “good” cholesterol, may play a vital role in conserving healthy brain matter in middle-aged adults, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report. The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, could give doctors and patients more insight into factors that affect cognitive health in aging adults.
“Our study has identified a novel role of HDL cholesterol function in maintaining gray matter volume in the brain, which is important for cognitive function in middle-aged adults,” said the study’s first author, John Giacona, Ph.D., PA-C, Assistant Professor of Applied Clinical Research and Internal Medicine in the School of Health Professions at UT Southwestern.
Learning News Bulletin
A bite-sized news round-up: Leading the use of AI in L&D – interview with the LPI’s new AI chief; Talent management tech – David Perring; Aligning L&D – Henriette Kloots’ revised world map; John Helmer has news about the new season of the Learning Hack podcast; Rob Clarke looks ahead to 2025; Plus all the headlines from Learning News.
