HRD professionals are leaders across many faucets of the organization through interventions, design and development of programs and processes, and improvement of knowledge, skills, and attitudes (behaviors).

Professional development ensures each person continues to build upon the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for sustained professional growth. During these current times, it is necessary to develop skills related to using technology and for leaders to learn how to lead in a digital world. HRD professionals will need to ensure they are also looking into their professional development while the world reacts to working during restrictions caused by a global pandemic.

The pages on this website for technology and leadership have covered free tools that a leader can use to help with leadership, but some of the tools not listed include instructional design programs like Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline. These programs can be used to design online training that can be uploaded to a learning management system (LMS) platform or through applications for your smartphones and tablets. This includes microlearning segments that can help leaders with employee engagement and professional development.

Flowdock, GoToMeeting, Slack, and WebEx are collaborative tools that can help leaders better manage their teams, encourage engagement, and inspire performance.

Finally, Microsoft has several tools beyond the common Office Suite applications, including but not limited to, Microsoft teams, SharePoint, Planner, OneDrive, Visio, Publisher, Forms, Access, Project, and GroupMe.

This is just the beginning as there are many more programs that can help you with your professional development needs and e-leadership.