Naomi Kinney, a Spanish language instructor with LingoBits Learning Services, is the author of a chapter focused on training delivery and facilitation in the ATD Talent Development and Training in Healthcare Handbook. In this spotlight Q&A, learn more about Kinney and her contribution to the book.

How have your experiences in training delivery shaped the best practices you shared?

I tried to capture and share the training delivery techniques that have been the most effective for me in my daily work of providing training and development in a hospital setting. Sometimes there have been some challenging moments because of this unique work environment, but I tried to stress how important it is for clinical and nonclinical staff to collaborate often for maximum productivity and patient care and services.

How do you foresee advancement of talent development within this area for healthcare? In an ideal world, how do you see this area flourishing for employee or organization development?

Clinicians have always been educators at heart; it is the essence of the medical profession (continuing education and sharing best practices for more positive outcomes of care). To ensure consistent best practices of care, procedures, processes, and so on, clinical and nonclinical staff require annual education and training to coordinate their efforts across the organization. This is where talent development and workplace learning professionals come into play, examining the learning needs of the “human assets” of the healthcare organization that is normally so busy with daily patient care as its priority. In my experience, training’s role in organization development in healthcare (and in many other industries) has increased substantially during the last two decades.

What is something unexpected you learned while working on this book?

Considering the size of this project, the geographic distances of all the authors, and the task at hand, it seemed daunting at first, but it went faster and smoother than I thought it would. We had amazing editors and leaders in Greg Rider, Niranjani Chidamber Papavaritis, and Jacque Burandt (and Ryan Changcoco’s vision) to guide us to an amazing finish.

It was also a bit of a surprise that the publication came out just as I am celebrating my 15 years at a Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD/CPLP) as a “Pilot Pioneer” of ATD’s Certification Institute. My certification renewal date crept up on me, and my CPTD anniversary date did not “click” until I began to look closely at the publication dates inside the handbook.

Is there something professional or personal you are proud of accomplishing in the past year?

Besides this publication, I also wrote a memoir called Kids of King that is an inspiring story of triumph over tragic loss at a young age. (I became an orphan at age 16.) It also contains a lot about my career in training and development; much about diversity, equity, and inclusion concepts; and about my love of the Spanish language. (I am fluent in Spanish and have studied in Mexico.) It is a project I worked on for many years well before the pandemic hit, but only during the pandemic did I get the opportunity to sit still for a bit to be able to finish writing my personal story as well. I continue to teach the Spanish language to all who want to learn, and LingoBits Learning Services came into existence in the past year as well, helping many others learn the Spanish language. I try to stay in continuous learning mode with Spanish and in all that I do.

What is a fun fact about yourself or one sentence of advice you’d like to share?

I am the youngest of nine children and come from an absolutely wonderful loving, faithful family. Treasure and love your family. We don’t pick our family members, but they’re put in our lives for a reason. I’m blessed to have mine.