Crawl, walk, teleport

Machine learning algorithms categorizing billions of employee behaviors, natural language processing tools reading (and understanding) every piece of content, Siri-esque Artificial Intelligence directing you to the right ILT course; this is the future folks - and it is here. At least that's the picture I see being painted every day, by almost every voice in the HR tech space and it scares the hell out of me.

I’m not scared because I fear change or think the robots are at our doors. I’m scared because the hubris with which our industry believes it is ready for this type of change is on such ready display. Having been witness to, and participated in, the growth of the Learning Experience Platform market over the last 4 years, one truth has become abundantly clear to me: the simplest steps often have the biggest impact.

Learning and development has had an engagement problem since the first user logged into an LMS and it has drastically impacted corporate learning cultures. What I’ve come to understand though is rather than trying to connect learning at a human level, L&D leaders are deciding to throw more and more technology at the problem in hopes that the next breakthroughs in our digital transformation will be the panacea for all their development problems.

I know how hypocritical this sentiment may sound given I work for a learning technology company that believes in using technology to solve learning challenges. However, I felt compelled to speak up and remind our industry not to lose sight of some fundamental (and cheap) ways that they can drive real learning results without Siri telling you how. Our VP of Marketing once made an analogy about marketing automation that I think is applicable to this current trend of technology solutions. It would go something like this:

Building a learning culture is like building a house; you need a foundation, frame, walls, and a roof. Implementing machine learning and artificial intelligence is like buying the $80,000 Mercedes and parking it in the driveway before laying your first brick.

For many L&D teams, they desperately need to learn how to crawl and then walk before they can learn to teleport. Below are just a few examples of how L&D professionals can take those first steps on the long road toward excellence. 

Build a Brand

I cannot stress enough the importance of building your learning brand. Your target audience is a generation that has been influenced more by brand identity than any other in history. That means you should be thinking long and hard about how your company’s learning program is currently perceived and how it could be perceived. If you are able to define your brand, instill its value(s) in your employees, and connect that value to your organization’s goals, I promise you will see learner participation, satisfaction, and engagement rise. We saw this with HP, who dedicated an entire work stream during their Pathgather implementation to creating a brand. Logo concepting, Instagram accounts, branded swag were all components of creating excitement and changing the perceptions of professional development within their organization. 

This also allows you to interface with a new stakeholder - Marketing. Use your marketing team to help brainstorm, identify, and develop your learning culture’s brand identity. As capable as I know you all are, they are experts in this and can elevate your ideas to a level you did not think possible. 

Announce Cool Stuff

I know this sounds ridiculous but you should be announcing cool learning stuff when it happens. About to partner with a new content vendor? Send out a slick marketing email about it. Have an upcoming HiPo program? Host a lunch n learn about it. Re-launching your learning tech stack? Get your exec team to create a video about it. A corporate communications strategy can play such a critical role in changing the learning culture at your organization and ensuring your employees adopt and embrace it. We all get a million emails a day but a thoughtful, focused, and visually appealing awareness piece about how I can grow my skill set is going to get my attention. Your team should have a regular channel of communications about the fun and innovative stuff you’re providing. 

Every time the team at Visa sees an evolution to their learning offerings they announce it. They went as far as creating what amounts to a movie trailer about their corporate university to educate their employees and create a buzz.

Engage Your SMEs Around Informal Content 

Informal content is by far the most accessed and consumed content across Pathgather’s client base. Why you may ask? Because it’s being shared by people who know what they’re talking about, in a format that is super consumable, to an audience who understands its value. You will always have to deliver formal and/or required training but you shouldn’t make that the sword with which you fall on. Engaging your SMEs, influencers, and business leaders will do more for your learning culture than almost anything else you devote time and resources to. This population is dying for a way to scale their intelligence and L&D should be the channel through which they do that. Your team can never build learning around every skill that makes your organization successful so don’t try to. You should be shifting your mindset to one of business consultant and project manager not content creator and task master. Rely on this population and see your learning culture flourish. 

It is best practices at every one of our clients to pre-launch Pathgather to a population of SMEs because we know that when a regular employee comes into our platform, they expect to see a relevant and engaging learning experience. If they don’t they are not going to return. By collaborating with these populations early in the process, our clients ensure a standard of excellence is maintained in a way few social tools are capable of doing. 

Now I know there are innumerable components to building and maintaining a successful learning culture. And I firmly believe that the technology being introduced today will drive significant results for L&D in the near future. But what I don’t want our industry to lose sight of is that we are fundamentally built around people and it is the honest, unique, and sincere human interactions that will make your learning culture truly world-class. As you think through the challenges you face in building your learning culture, I would love to hear what solutions you've come up with to overcome those issues and drive toward success.