The latest L&D news, reports, research and updates, personally compiled by TJ’s Editor, Jo Cook. This week: New research sheds light on how the brain prioritises memories, the effects of diet on cognition, and worrisome remote work habits. Meanwhile, skills mapping, AI’s impact on hiring, and negative HR interview experiences
Facilitators urged to embrace silence, challenge comfort, and prioritise impact over likeability
The latest TJ podcast brings together different facilitators who warn against musing the ‘facilitation’ label in training delivery and call for better preparation and real-world practice to boost learning transfer.
Ground-breaking study uncovers how our brain learns
How do we learn something new? How do tasks at a new job, lyrics to the latest hit song or directions to a friend’s house become encoded in our brains? The broad answer is that our brains undergo adaptations to accommodate new information. In order to follow a new behaviour or retain newly introduced information, the brain’s circuity undergoes change.
Finding that neurons follow multiple rules at once took the researchers by surprise. The cutting-edge methods used in the studied allowed them to visualize the inputs and outputs of changes in neurons as they were happening.
Skills mapping can close talent gaps, Mercer research shows
Employers are steadily building skills-powered organizations, a critical development given that half of HR leaders see skills shortages as a top threat to their businesses in 2025, according to a March report from global consulting firm Mercer.
The positive news from insights of more than 1,100 talent, rewards and HR team leaders across 74 countries is that employers seem to have significantly greater knowledge of skills than in the past, the report found.
How the brain decides which memory gets more resources
Researchers found that two parts of the brain work together to ensure that more brain resources are given to remember a priority item when a person is juggling more than one item in memory.
The researchers found something when they analysed fMRI scans – the frontal cortex of the brain was communicating with the visual cortex, telling it the level of resources it should allocate to remembering.
Interviews for HR roles rated among worst by jobseekers
Job interviews for human resources roles have been rated as one of the worst by jobseekers, according to a new report. Reboot Online analysed more than 300,000 reviews in the Glassdoor profiles of the 100 best employers to reveal the experiences of jobseekers in their job interviews. It found that 24% of jobseekers who were interviewed for human resources (personnel) roles rated their experience as negative.
New research links fatty, sugary diets to impaired brain function
New research from the University of Sydney links fatty, sugary diets to impaired brain function. The findings build on a growing body of evidence showing the negative impact of high-fat, high-sugar (HFHS) diets on cognitive ability, adding to their well-known physical effects.
Dr Dominic Tran from the Faculty of Science’s School of Psychology led the research, which found HFHS diets have a detrimental effect on some aspects of cognitive function. It is likely those effects centre on the hippocampus, the brain structure important for spatial navigation and memory formation, rather than acting across the entire brain.
54% of tech hiring managers say layoffs likely this year, General Assembly report finds
More than half of tech hiring managers (54%) say their companies are likely to conduct layoffs within the next year, and 45% say employees whose roles can be replaced by AI are most likely to be let go, according to a new study by talent and upskilling leader General Assembly.
At the same time, 69% say it’s very likely that advancements in AI will create demand for new roles. And more than three-quarters of tech hiring leaders (76%) admit it’s very or completely likely that there’s potential to upskill or reskill the employees slated for layoffs.
Shopify CEO to staff: Prove work can’t be done by AI before you hire a human
At e-commerce platform Shopify, employees who feel such a strain can’t necessarily expect extra headcount on their teams anytime soon, according to their chief executive. Instead, CEO Tobi Lutke has ordered staff to prove they “cannot get what they want done using AI,” before asking for extra hires.
In the memo, first sent to staff in March, Lutke set out Shopify’s approach to AI usage in the workplace, calling it a “baseline expectation” for employees. “Using AI effectively is now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify,” the notice said. Staff were ordered to test AI in their daily work, with a much firmer mandate to use the tools than before.
Remote workers confess to napping, skipping showers, and even having sex on the clock, new survey reveals
As the tug-of-war between office mandates and remote working continues, a new survey is shining an unfiltered light on how some remote workers are really spending their 9-to-5. From midday naps and household chores to skipping showers and even having sex during working hours, the study suggests that the perks of remote work may come with a steep productivity cost.
The survey, conducted by book summary app Headway, polled 1,000 remote workers and revealed that 1 in 4 have taken an entire day off without anyone noticing, and the same number admit to logging off after just four hours or less on a typical day. Even more concerning for employers: 40% admit to faking activity to fool monitoring software into thinking they’re working.
Americans’ economic, financial expectations sink in April
Several measures of Americans’ economic mood, including their perceptions of the U.S. economy and their own finances, have weakened in April compared with their prior readings — in some cases, substantially.
Most notably, since January, Americans’ six-month outlooks for economic growth and the stock market have turned from positive to negative, while their forecasts for inflation, interest rates and the job market have dimmed.
Human memory is flawed. But a new book says that’s OK
Our memories are fallible and flawed, but these slips are features, not bugs. These imperfections are a product of a flexible memory system that allows us to learn from the past, plan for the future and respond to unexpected events. Forgetting may make our brains more efficient by jettisoning extraneous fluff so we can focus on the important memories. It may even keep us happier by allowing time to ease the sting of painful experiences.
