Training Industry Magazine - November/December 2017 - 61

WHAT'S NEXT IN TECH
ERIC SHARP

BUSINESS BEST PRACTICES FOR

IMPROVING LEARNING

Early in my career, I worked for a midsized, mostly stagnant company. The
business had an unhealthy culture
focused on margins and cutting costs in
some of the worst ways. At this company,
I had a coworker, let's call him Dustin,
who would spend most afternoons
propped at a certain angle to give the
illusion he was working while he took a
nap. Dustin had long ago decided that
he had reached a level of knowledge
where he didn't need to learn anymore
(this is in technology, mind you).
I wish I could say that I was able to get
Dustin excited about learning, but,
unfortunately, it was not meant to be.
Recently, I have been reflecting on
whether Dustin was failing the business,
or if the business was failing Dustin.
This person indirectly taught me a few
lessons: run learning like a business;
treat employees like customers, seek
their engagement, plot a strategy of
personalization and be data driven to
improve continuously.
Let's dive deeper into each aspect of
learning that should be treated like
a business.

brand, garnering the passion of
employees to look at training holistically
as part of their career development.
STRIVE FOR ENGAGEMENT
Gone are the days when posting training
materials on a company intranet
accompanied by a short email is going
to drive employees to engage. L&D
would do well to treat learning initiatives
as product launches. At Degreed, we
evaluated four different clients and their
adoption campaigns. Many learning
leaders are advised to go small, and to
start with occasional drip campaigns

L&D SHOULD VIEW
EMPLOYEES AS THEIR
CUSTOMERS.
due to the low cost and effort. However,
the results for our clients clearly showed
that the most successful campaigns
included broad rollouts tied to a larger
organizational goal or initiative. The
broad and compelling initiatives served
as a catalyst to engage employees,
resulting in better usage and higher
activations with learning.

TREAT EMPLOYEES LIKE CUSTOMERS
When it comes to training and learning,
L&D should view employees as their
customers. Best practices in business
such as user research, marketing and
customer development should be key
tactics. The brand of L&D will naturally
move from a strong corporate brand to
an employee-driven and aspirational

PERSONALIZATION IS NO
LONGER OPTIONAL
The most successful tech companies
have learned that personalization
unlocks greater value for the user. The
future of learning is personalization for
the employee. As an employee, I should
be able to gain an accurate view of

my skills and provide that as context to
a learning platform with the best learning
content in the world. The platform can
then present me with a personalized
experience to help me develop my
skills and see opportunities for growth
in my company. The personalization
will engage employees and result in a
huge increase in employee interest in
training and learning.
DATA-DRIVEN
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Early startup businesses and large
multinational businesses alike are using
data to drive customer engagement,
new products, and more. It is time
for learning to also get this focus by
identifying meaningful and actionable
learning analytics before launching an
initiative. Then, over the course of the
initiative, proactively reviewing the
analytics and iterating or pivoting as
needed. In a world where the amount
of potential learning sources has
exploded, it becomes critical for L&D to
be data driven to identify and react to
their employee learning.
As I remember Dustin, I like to believe
that he would have thrived at a company
that treated training/learning as a
business. Not only would his engagement
at his job improve, but his career would
have developed much differently. By
using business best practices, the future
of learning looks positive for L&D and
each employee.
Eric Sharp is the co-founder and chief
technology officer at Degreed. Email Eric.

T R A I N I N G I N DUSTR Y MA GAZ INE - BUSINESS OF LEARNING 20 1 7 I WWW. T RAI NINGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

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