Comment les professionnels de la formation et du développement peuvent-ils donner aux employés suffisamment de temps pour apprendre au travail ?

Tout le monde veut gagner. Pour réussir, vous devez démontrer aux cadres, aux employés et aux dirigeants qu’il est essentiel d’investir plus de temps dans l’apprentissage au travail. Ils veulent tous savoir comment l’apprentissage les aide à terminer leur étape de la course, et la réponse est différente pour chacun d’entre eux. Les cadres ont besoin d’un alignement sur l’entreprise, les employés ont besoin de croissance et les managers ont besoin de stratégies claires pour développer les membres de l’équipe.

Obtenir l’adhésion à tous les niveaux peut sembler aussi décourageant que de courir un marathon. Mais si vous commencez par recadrer l’idée que les gens se font généralement du temps consacré à l’apprentissage au travail, il sera plus facile de la faire accepter.

Pour trouver d’autres moyens de gagner l’apprentissage et d’influencer la C-suite, téléchargez notre manuel gratuit pour obtenir l’adhésion des parties prenantes.

Recadrer le temps d’apprentissage au travail

Comment dégager plus de temps pour l’apprentissage sans ralentir le rythme de réalisation des objectifs de l’entreprise ? C’est la question que les professionnels de la formation et du développement reçoivent régulièrement de la part de dirigeants, de managers et d’employés. Cependant, cette question est problématique car elle part du principe que l’apprentissage au travail nuit toujours à la productivité.

Actuellement, les chefs d’entreprise et les managers considèrent souvent les heures d’apprentissage comme du temps consacré à la formation formelle. Mais si les dirigeants et les cadres (et même les employés) ne considèrent le temps d’apprentissage que comme séparé du travail, ils passent à côté d’autres formes d’apprentissage essentielles.

Si les entreprises investissent également dans d’autres types d’apprentissage, tels que l’apprentissage par l’expérience et l’apprentissage dans le cadre du travail, vous stimulerez l’apprentissage sans détourner les employés de leur productivité. Il est ainsi plus facile d’obtenir l’adhésion de tous.

Apprentissage par l’expérience

Lorsqu’un coureur effectue un parcours de 5 km tout en s’entraînant pour un marathon, il acquiert une expérience concrète de la course et obtient une médaille. De même, les programmes de formation et de développement qui incluent l’apprentissage par l’expérience donnent aux employés un apprentissage contextualisé tout en produisant des résultats pour l’entreprise. L’apprentissage par l’expérience peut inclure

• Projets spéciaux
• Missions d’observation
• Apprentissages internes
• Périodes d’essai

« Apprendre ne signifie pas toujours que vous consommez du contenu et que vous prenez un congé complet de vos heures de travail », note Stephanie Lyras, directrice de la gestion du changement, de l’engagement et de l’adoption chez Degreed. L’équipe d ‘experts dont elle fait partie aide les organisations à aligner l’apprentissage sur la stratégie de l’entreprise et à mesurer l’impact de l’apprentissage. « Lorsque nous voyons et pouvons prouver que l’apprentissage fait partie intégrante des résultats commerciaux, nous pouvons faire évoluer les mentalités au niveau de la direction pour qu’elle comprenne vraiment la valeur de l’apprentissage. »

Apprendre dans le flux du travail

Si l’apprentissage par l’expérience revient à terminer un 5 km, l’apprentissage dans le flux du travail revient à installer des gobelets de Gatorade le long du parcours. Les employés peuvent y puiser le jus dont ils ont besoin pour continuer à avancer à toute allure dans leurs tâches actuelles. De nombreux employés apprennent dans le flux du travail lorsqu’ils rencontrent et résolvent eux-mêmes des défis sur le terrain, mais le département L&D peut investir dans ces moments pour favoriser l’apprentissage tout en stimulant la productivité.

L’apprentissage dans le flux du travail peut ressembler à ce qui suit :

• Chercher un tutoriel sur Google : Beaucoup d’employés le font de leur propre chef, sans intervention de L&D.
• Demander à un collègue : Favorisez ces conversations en développant un programme de mentorat et de coaching.
• Le microapprentissage au moment où le besoin s’en fait sentir : Un contenu de la taille d’une bouchée que les employés peuvent trouver en quelques secondes et dévorer en quelques minutes.
• Nudges : De brefs rappels (généralement des notifications push ou des courriels) sur la manière d’utiliser les connaissances au travail.

L’adhésion des dirigeants

S’il est important de recadrer le temps d’apprentissage en termes de productivité au travail, pour les dirigeants, la valeur de l’augmentation du temps d’apprentissage au travail pour les employés réside également dans la réalisation de résultats commerciaux significatifs. Si vous pouvez expliquer à la suite C-suite le lien clair entre l’apprentissage sur le lieu de travail et les objectifs de l’entreprise, il sera beaucoup plus facile d’obtenir son adhésion.

De nombreux professionnels de la formation et du développement ont du mal à s’adresser à la suite des dirigeants, mais ils savent aussi qu’il est essentiel d’aligner les programmes d’apprentissage sur les objectifs de l’entreprise. C’est leur premier domaine d’intérêt en matière de L&D en 2024, selon le rapport de LinkedIn sur l’apprentissage en milieu de travail. Mais vous aurez également besoin d’un plan pour suivre le succès de votre programme.

« Si vous voulez que les employés consacrent du temps à l’apprentissage, les dirigeants ont besoin d’indicateurs », explique M. Lyras. « Qu’il s’agisse de l’engagement des employés, de la productivité, du taux de rétention ou de la rapidité d’intégration d’un nouvel employé, vous avez besoin d’une stratégie de mesure solide pour effectuer un suivi régulier afin de pouvoir répondre aux besoins. Vous avez besoin d’une solide stratégie de mesure pour effectuer un suivi régulier afin de pouvoir réagir aux informations recueillies. »

Les indicateurs clés de performance de l’apprentissage en cours d’emploi

Rétention des employés

Selon le rapport 2024 Workplace Learning Report de LinkedIn, les entreprises qui accordent la priorité à l’apprentissage voient leur taux de fidélisation des employés augmenter de 27 %. Celles qui s’engagent résolument dans cette voie enregistrent une hausse de 57 %.

Si l’apprentissage augmente la rétention de moitié, il permet à votre entreprise d’économiser de l’argent. Vous économisez de l’argent parce qu’il est six fois plus coûteux de remplacer quelqu’un que de le former en interne. Prenez le pouls des taux actuels de fidélisation des employés et commencez à faire les calculs pour l’avenir de la fidélisation.

Changements dans la productivité des employés

Bien que l’engagement soit un indicateur de base de la formation et du développement depuis des années, les dirigeants ne voient pas de lien clair avec leurs résultats. Transposez donc l’engagement dans un indicateur qu’ils connaissent et apprécient déjà : la productivité. Une étude Gallup montre que les entreprises les plus engagées sont 17 % plus productives – et 21 % plus rentables – que celles dont l’engagement est faible.

La mesure de la productivité est propre à chaque fonction et peut varier en fonction de la manière dont votre entreprise suit le travail. Si vous avez mis en place des objectifs et des résultats clés (OKR) ou des points d’histoire Scrum, vous disposez de mesures de productivité intégrées. Vous pouvez également vous concentrer sur des livrables spécifiques, tels que des projets achevés ou des produits finis. Quelle que soit la mesure, tenez compte à la fois de la quantité et de la qualité du travail.

Impacts sur l’activité pour des rôles spécifiques

L’impact sur l’entreprise varie d’un service à l’autre. Pour le service clientèle, il peut s’agir d’une augmentation de la satisfaction des clients ou d’une diminution des escalades. Pour les ventes, il peut s’agir d’un plus grand nombre d’affaires conclues. Déterminez les indicateurs que les dirigeants souhaitent voir apparaître et assurez-vous que vous concevez des expériences d’apprentissage qui les favorisent.

L’adhésion des salariés

Les résultats commerciaux suscitent l’adhésion des dirigeants, mais qu’en est-il de l’apprentissage des employés ? L’apprentissage qui répond à la question : « Qu’est-ce que j’y gagne ? » Si les employés ne voient pas la valeur de l’apprentissage dans votre organisation – ou s’ils ne se sentent pas soutenus – vous aurez du mal à les faire adhérer, comme une patate de canapé a du mal à se lancer sur la piste d’athlétisme.

Montrer la valeur du temps d’apprentissage

Les deux principales raisons pour lesquelles les employés consacrent plus de temps à l’apprentissage sont la progression vers leurs objectifs de carrière et la mise à jour de leurs connaissances dans leur domaine.

Relier les parcours professionnels, les compétences et l’apprentissage

Documentez et partagez un plan de carrière clair afin que les employés puissent voir exactement quelles sont les possibilités qui s’offrent à eux. Documentez ensuite les compétences dont ils ont besoin pour progresser à chaque niveau, ainsi que les activités d’apprentissage qui leur permettront d’y parvenir.

Communiquer la pertinence

Expliquez comment vous envisagez que votre entreprise réagisse aux progrès de l’industrie, tels que l’IA et la robotique, et comment leurs rôles changeront en conséquence. Insistez sur les compétences dont les employés auront besoin et sur le fait que vous vous engagez à les aider à les acquérir.

Support de signalisation

Lorsque je m’entraîne pour une course, le soutien de mes amis, de ma famille et de mon entraîneur me motive à continuer à faire des kilomètres. De même, les employés ont besoin qu’on leur rappelle régulièrement que l’organisation accorde de l’importance à l’apprentissage. Vous pouvez soutenir la culture d’apprentissage de l’entreprise de plusieurs manières :

• Nudges : les courriels et les notifications push qui rappellent aux employés d’apprendre signalent que l’organisation accorde de l’importance au temps d’apprentissage.
• Micro-apprentissage : l’élaboration de petites leçons plus faciles à intégrer tout au long de la journée permet aux employés de consacrer du temps à l’apprentissage.
• Programmes de coaching et de mentorat : les collègues qui consacrent du temps à l’épanouissement d’un employé montrent que leurs collègues adhèrent également à l’apprentissage.
• Réflexion et partage : en réservant du temps pour réfléchir à la formation ou aux expériences, les employés ont le temps de consolider leur apprentissage.
• Faites-en un sujet de conversation : les managers qui discutent de l’apprentissage dans l’apprentissage dans leurs conversations quotidiennes signalent l’adhésion et le soutien de la direction.

L’adhésion des gestionnaires

Le soutien des cadres commence au niveau de la direction et se répercute ensuite sur les cadres et les employés. Les dirigeants peuvent faire l’éloge des réussites en matière d’apprentissage, tenir les managers responsables de ces réussites et encourager l’investissement dans les technologies d’apprentissage. Ce sont là autant de signaux qui indiquent aux managers qu’ils doivent monter à bord du train de l’apprentissage.

Mais vous ne pouvez pas vous arrêter à la salle du conseil d’administration. Vous devez montrer aux cadres eux-mêmes comment plus de temps d’apprentissage leur permettra d’obtenir leurs propres médailles-AKA, d’atteindre les objectifs de leur équipe et de leur service et d’obtenir leurs primes. Si vous y parvenez, vous aurez des alliés.

Souvent, votre responsable des ressources humaines est un bon point de départ, car une formation efficace permet de résoudre de nombreux problèmes de ressources humaines, comme la réduction du besoin d’embaucher des talents dans le contexte actuel de pénurie de compétences, la fidélisation des employés et l’attraction des personnes les plus performantes. Mais vous ne pouvez pas non plus vous arrêter aux RH. Vous devez impliquer tous les managers, et pour cela, vous devez changer de tactique.

Gestion de la parole

Lorsque vous abordez les managers sur les avantages d’un temps d’apprentissage plus long, adaptez votre message. La manière de procéder dépend de la structure de votre entreprise, mais voici ce que les managers voudront savoir :

• Ventes : Comment le fait de disposer de plus de temps pour apprendre aidera-t-il les employés à atteindre leurs objectifs ?
• Assistance à la clientèle : Comment cela va-t-il améliorer le NPS, la fidélisation des clients, les délais de résolution et les taux d’abandon des conversations ?
• Le marketing : Comment aidera-t-il les employés à se tenir au courant des nouvelles tendances, des nouveaux canaux et des nouvelles technologies ?
• La production : Comment réduira-t-il les déchets, les erreurs, les problèmes de qualité et les coûts de production ?

Le retour sur investissement de plus de temps pour apprendre au travail

Il est trop facile de se retrouver dans une impasse en matière d’apprentissage. L’ancienne façon de penser oppose l’apprentissage aux objectifs de productivité, et c’est la même mentalité qui considère la formation et le développement comme un centre de coûts et non comme un centre de valeur. Mais si vous considérez l’apprentissage comme un complément à la productivité, vous êtes sur la bonne voie pour augmenter le temps d’apprentissage sur le lieu de travail. Plus important encore, vous aiderez votre entreprise à considérer la formation et le développement comme une initiative essentielle pour l’entreprise – et c’est la clé pour gagner la course aux compétences.

Vous souhaitez découvrir d’autres moyens de gagner l’apprentissage et d’influencer la suite des dirigeants ? Téléchargez« Un manuel pour obtenir l’adhésion des parties prenantes« .

The post Le temps d’apprendre au travail : Obtenir l’adhésion est un relais de l’entreprise appeared first on Degreed.

That’s the missed opportunity facing many organizations. But it doesn’t have to be.

« The future of higher education is one of pluralism. It’s one of many actors, many organizations contributing powerfully, dynamically, and compellingly to a world where you as a learner are able to achieve whatever it is that you want to achieve,” said Michele Spires, Assistant Vice President at the American Council on Education (ACE). “It’s about a network of organizations that collectively work together… and you get a new framework for lifelong higher education.”

Lifelong learning resonates at the core of the Degreed mission. And it’s why we’re introducing the Degreed College Accreditation Service, powered by our new partnership with ACE and Credly by Pearson. It means your people’s internal learning can go further—earning college credit, formal credentials, and long-term value.

Workplace Learning That Counts Beyond the Workplace

Let’s be clear: This is more than a new feature. It’s a strategic lever for workforce transformation, designed to help you build, validate, and mobilize skills that matter to your business.

And make no mistake: This isn’t just a benefit for employees. It’s a strategy for organizations that want to attract, grow, and retain top talent in a skills-first world.

With Degreed College Accreditation Service, your learning programs in Degreed Academies can be evaluated for college credit. The Degreed Professional Services team works with you to align content to ACE standards and issue formally recognized, transferable credits via Credly.

Your people get more than just a course completion. They get:

• Credentialed learning programs that support internal mobility and reduce attrition
• Verified, portable credentials that boost talent visibility across and beyond your organization
• Frictionless access to continuing education, with no extra time, testing, or tuition costs

“We need a future where everyone gets recognition for all lifelong learning and skills,” said David Blake, Degreed Co-CEO and Cofounder. “This partnership with ACE represents a significant stepping stone in that journey—enabling workers to gain verifiable, transferable credentials that follow them throughout their careers.”

The Business Case for Recognized Learning

Organizations already invest millions in learning and development—but without formal recognition, those investments often fall short.

Today’s savvy learning leaders seek to provide their people with verifiable credentials to boost employee engagement, strengthen the employee value proposition, and reduce attrition. They aim to transform L&D from a support function into a strategic growth engine, delivering measurable ROI across the talent lifecycle.

Skills That Stick. Credits That Count

When skills are the currency of work, credentials are a key way that currency is verified. Formal recognition gives your workforce the power to advance—whether it’s into a new role, a different industry, or a formal degree.

With ACE and Credly, you gain not only credibility but also measurable proof of performance.

And with Degreed, these credentials don’t exist in isolation. They’re fully integrated into your skill data ecosystem—making it easier to benchmark learning progress, analyze workforce capabilities, and report ROI across the enterprise.

Giving Learning the Recognition It Deserves

Your people put in the work. It’s time that work works harder for them. Let’s discuss how your company can turn internal learning into accredited pathways that drive business results and lifelong impact.

Learn more.

Let’s discuss skill building at your organization. Schedule a personalized, one-on-one call with a Degreed expert today.

The post Say Goodbye to Siloed Learning. Hello, Accredited Skills appeared first on Degreed.

That’s why we sought to provide as many insightful perspectives as possible at Degreed VIEW: Creating a Learning Culture. The first in our new on-demand series meant to bring insights to L&D professionals at all stages of the upskilling journey, was hosted by Kelly Palmer, Chief Learning and Talent Officer at Degreed. She was also joined by leaders from Cargill.

From its unexpected start at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the upskilling journey at Cargill has been wildly successful. Julie Dervin, Head of Global Learning and Development at the global energy company, and Shawn Stavseth, Digital Learning Experience Lead, shared how Degreed has surpassed goals and provided learning leaders with an abundance of useful skill data. 

With all this expertise in one place, attendees were bound to have good questions. Lots of ‘em. These are 12 of our favorites (and the ones we thought you’d like too):

1. What are some ways to assess how learners are feeling when moving to a different learning culture? 

Degreed: Employee satisfaction surveys can be helpful to establish a baseline of how people perceive current learning opportunities. Ask your learners what they want and need.

2. What can we do to encourage people to reskill and upskill when many of them feel like they don’t have the time, resources, or just the overall interest and motivation to engage in learning?

Degreed: A key to that is providing a « What’s in it for me? » for upskilling. One way to do that is to provide opportunities for people to move up in their careers using the new skills they’ve learned. This can be with stretch assignments or even full-time roles. Connect upskilling to career mobility.

3. In a digital learning space, how do we close the gap between content and experience?

Degreed: Content should be part of the experience. We know that users want a few core things: guidance, diverse experiences, feedback, insights, and content. It’s about finding balance and the right combination. 

The above information was taken from our recent research report, How the Workforce Learns. Download the full report for more!

4. What are your thoughts on upskilling vs. job opportunities?

Degreed: Job opportunities are key to successful upskilling. Similarly, application and practice are important parts of learning and perfecting new skills.

If you’re interested in learning more about developing on-the-job opportunities across your organization, our Vice President of Degreed Opportunities, Oli Meager, addresses this during his Degreed VIEW session: How to Create an Opportunity Marketplace.

It’s also important to think about « job opportunities » differently. A new job opportunity isn’t necessarily a full-time job. It helps to put short-term projects, mentorships, coaching, and more into the mix. For more information, check out our blog on the differences between a talent marketplace and opportunity marketplace.

5. How does one develop a learning culture in an organization with people from very diverse and unequal backgrounds where some cohorts have not had access to technology?

Degreed: Creating a learning culture starts with the culture itself and the example set by leadership. Technology is secondary to that. You can start by meeting your people where they are and creating an environment for social learning and peer mentoring using whatever communication tools you have in place.

6. Aside from gaining buy-in from employees, how do you gain executive stakeholder buy-in for building a learning culture?

Degreed: Demonstrate the connection between having a strong learning culture and the benefits to your business’s bottom line. When your people are proactively upskilling themselves, they then channel those improved skills toward contributions to the business.

7. What role does « demand generation » play? Or how do you get people to care enough to come and participate in your learning programs?

Degreed: It’s incredibly important. Marketing and end-user adoption are key to the success of any upskilling program. We encourage ongoing campaigns that tie back to the purpose and the “What’s in it for me” idea.

8. How do you address soft or human skills?

Cargill: In our skills work, we’re differentiating between human skills and specialized skills. We continue to explore the best ways to go about gathering meaningful skill data on each, as we believe both are important for the success of our businesses and functions. We have several learning experiences, both collaborative (cohort-based) and self-guided (curated), that people can engage in to improve their human skills.

9. With your leaders being strong enablers, did you have to prep or train them?

Cargill: Our L&D lead partnered with leaders who were ready and willing to engage in our newly developed learning strategy and vision. We also engaged these leaders in creating learning personas and conducting hackathons to make them part of the process.

In addition, we launched a new senior leadership development experience using the new digital learning technology to help them quickly realize the benefits of learning in this new way. With each of these engagements, they became more assured that our efforts were in the best interest of Cargill and its employees, and they became champions on our behalf with other leaders.

10. When moving from spoon-fed to self-led, do you just rip the bandage off, or is “going slow” and transitioning employees to a new learning culture better?

Cargill: No matter how quickly you want to go, creating a learning culture takes time. Some people embrace it right away, and others hold tight to the old ways of doing things. To help late adopters, we created several assets that illustrate the benefits of switching to a new way of learning, such as video success stories, written case studies, and participant testimonials. Each of these resources shares a different aspect of how the person or team leveraged the new technology to build their skills or solve a business challenge.

11. What’s the benchmark for exact data? Are you successful if you have 15% active learners? Is 50% returning users average, good, excellent?

Cargill: We track first-time, return, and repeat visitors as well as adoption and active learner metrics. We benchmark these metrics against similar companies in industry, size, and more. But the true benchmark will be when we’ve built an invisible L&D program — where businesses and functions are equipped to design, develop, and deliver their own learning experiences and employees drive their own skill-building to remain relevant and competitive in their careers.

12. Was language an issue for Cargill trainings across the globe? How did you manage it?

Cargill: We value people and thus meet them where they’re at to ensure they feel included. Having content available in multiple languages and learning modes is critically important. Therefore, translation isn’t an afterthought. Rather, we begin our content build with translation in mind to ensure it can be easily translated or applied in different learning modes. 

One of our most successful learning experiences included creating interactive overviews, short courses, job aids, and learner and facilitator guides in HTML. The HTML design has the clean look and feel of web pages, and learners can easily navigate through the content. A key benefit of HTML is that all content can be auto-translated using the Microsoft Edge Translate Tool. This feature makes the content instantly accessible in over 50 languages.

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Creating a learning culture can be a huge undertaking, but the time and effort can reward your organization with improved employee engagement, a growing inventory of skill data, and a more experienced workforce. 

The post How To Build a Learning Culture: You Asked, We Answered appeared first on Degreed.

So what is that? What is that X factor that makes someone else’s words stick to your brain and alter the way you think? How can you present ideas in ways that really truly engage your teams? I realize I’m biased (I’m a speaker coach and speechwriter), but from my perspective, that X factor is really more like a communication superpower. And lucky for all of us, it’s a superpower we can learn to wield.  

There are many tried-and-true (and heavily researched) tools that can help make your next speech, presentation, 1:1, board meeting, sales call — or any other communication — engaging, persuasive, and memorable. Here are some of my favorites and, not coincidentally, many of the same tools that make TED Talks so sticky.  

Audience before content. Always.

Most of us actually communicate in the wrong direction. By wrong direction, I mean we draft our talking points, we build our Powerpoint slides, and fire off emails before we stop and ask ourselves, “What does my audience expect out of this communication? Why are they taking time out of their busy days to listen to me?” Here’s the deal: If your audience doesn’t see themselves in your presentation, or doesn’t care about your meeting or, worse yet, if they don’t understand how your pitch applies to them, then there’s no point to opening your mouth! That’s why the best communicators always think about their audiences before their content.  

Here at TED, we always ask our speakers to identify the ‘gift’ they want to give to the audience. If you want to knock your next communication out of the park, ask yourself that same question.  

Frame your communication around a unique idea.

I’ll never forget the moment I realized everyone in business was saying the same thing. I was reviewing draft talking points for three different CEOs from three different companies and each one was planning to talk about how culture eats strategy for breakfast. I remember thinking this was so funny at the time.  But it’s no laughing matter.  

There’s so much content out there and as a result, everyone’s attention spans are practically below zero. So, if your audience thinks they’ve already heard what you have to say, they’ll move on. Or let’s say you’re on a sales call with a potential new vendor, and they don’t articulate why their offering is unique or helpful to your specific needs. Would you buy? 

So, to identify your unique idea, it’s helpful to think about the difference between an idea and a topic:

• A topic is the general guidance you’re given before a presentation, meeting etc.  Topics are high level.  But, if you create your communication around a topic, you’ll end up with too much information.
  • Example Topic: “Could you give us a presentation on the future of work?”
• An idea is a unique angle of your topic. When you share your idea, your goal is to make your audience see your topic in a new or nuanced way.
  • Example Idea: “When robots take over our jobs, we’re going to be happier and more creative. Today, I’m going to tell you why.” 

It’s time to ditch the jargon.

No one probably thought twice when the first person said “we need to shift the paradigm.” But when catchphrases are used too often, they lose their meaning. This means, when too many of them sneak into your communication, your entire idea can lose its meaning. Yikes!

The best way to avoid jargon is to ask yourself how you would articulate your message if you were having coffee with a friend. Would you really say “we need to shift the paradigm”? Or would you say “we need to make some changes”? 

Use data – but put it in context.

Data can be a great way to add credibility to any communication.  But, too many stats can actually diminish the weight of the really important ones.  So if you’re going to use data, force yourself to edit! Then, try to put each number in context. For example, what does $10M in annual sales really mean?

I find TED’s astrophysicists do this really well. I remember one speaker helped us understand light year distances by explaining that if someone lived 4.4 light years away, they wouldn’t get their Amazon delivery for 50,000 years!  

And finally, stories are great, but only if they’re apropos.

I’m sure you’ve heard the story about storytelling.  

Our ancestors sat around the campfire telling stories. As a result, we’re “hardwired” to connect with each other through stories, so you must tell stories in order to connect with your audience.  

Yes, stories help us connect. But I’ve met so many speakers who feel they must tell very personal stories in order to create that connection.  But you don’t need me to tell you that sharing a story about your grandmother during a strategy meeting is more distracting than helpful, right?   

The real reason we’re “hardwired” for stories is because it’s easier for our brains to understand information in narrative format vs. a list of facts. Which means effective stories don’t always have to be deeply personal, but they do have to be apropos to your idea. And, they must always follow the correct narrative structure: Setting → Characters → Conflict → Climax → Resolution.  

Let me leave you with one last thought. You don’t have to wait for a turn on TED’s big red carpet to test your new superpowers. Try them tomorrow at your daily stand-up, try them in your next meeting! Opportunities to turn mundane words into delightful, persuasive and memorable communications are all around us. And I, for one, hope you use your powers to do so.  

Learning teams! Want to share inspiring and sticky TED ideas with your learners? Visit get.degreed.com/tedatwork to learn more about TED@Work for Degreed!

About the Author

Briar Goldberg is TED’s Director of Speaker Coaching and is a public speaking and strategic communications expert. In addition to coaching hundreds of TED speakers, she’s worked with leaders from some of the world’s largest companies including the CEOs of Facebook, Ford and Levi’s. She’s also coached and written speeches for Grammy winners, Nobel Prize winners and several government officials. She also conducts training for companies on behalf of TED. Briar formally taught communications at Stanford University and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. Her advice on public speaking and effective communication has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Muse, The Huffington Post, Fortune, CNN and ABC News. 

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In our fast-moving world, we rarely sit down, eat some Cheetos, drink a Pepsi, and think, “What if this ‘wisdom’ isn’t true anymore? Do we need to think about things differently? Who’s going to bust the myths?”

But that’s exactly what we had to do to turn our learning culture around.

A New Promise

At PepsiCo, our thinking changed when we got Degreed. We started to re-examine our internal catalog of learning myths and we re-defined our L&D promise to employees. Our new promise looks like this:

• We will obsess over employees the way PepsiCo obsesses over consumers.​ 
• We will make learning available in the flow of work.​ 
• We will help you excel in your current job and prepare for your next one.​ 
• We will prepare you for the future of work.​

You might think this sounds like a Frito Lay Variety Pack — something for everyone. But actually, it’s a promise that’s centered around a decision to inspire, not mandate, learning. We wanted our global associates to initiate their own career growth by choosing how, where, and when to grow their own skills because employees didn’t want us to select learning for them or give them a “shopping list.” At the same time, our learning ecosystem was evolving.

A New Kind of Curation

Our new “front door to learning,” Degreed inspired change and new thinking because it felt more like a playground than a running track. So we reached out to our partners on the Degreed team to figure out how we could make magic.   

Our learning center of excellence, PepsiCo University, or PEP U, connected with our best content curators, encouraging them to build in Degreed to create a great content ecosystem that makes it easy for employees to find what they need when they need it. The curators started learning how Degreed works and then brainstormed the most effective ways to help employees discover new learning content. 

Next, we shared these possibilities and processes with an even wider audience, allowing all employees to be experts. Our new model achieved an important milestone: By creating and sharing great content, all employees could be leaders regardless of their title or location. But we didn’t stop there. We put together a monthly forum to share curation successes and enlightening failures. Our curators now have the power to choose internal and external content with multi-modalities to engage employees. 

And we no longer worry about counting completions, because we know our employees have embraced a new way of doing things, one in which they’re free to pop in and out of Degreed to quickly find an answer or explore an idea, not sit through hours-long e-learning modules. 

Busted: 4 Learning Myths

Myth No. 1: We should have only one “version of the truth” on a subject, otherwise employees will get confused. 

Truth: It’s ok to have a different view from each region or business unit. We should enable employees to curate their own content and share it. This reinforces autonomy, inspires curiosity, and accommodates regional and cultural nuances. One version of truth is like one book in the library. It might be a great and important read, but it won’t help employees explore a topic from all angles. To keep content organized and helpful, we teach our curators to title, tag, and write a clear description — so employees can decide if they want to dive in. 

Myth No. 2: Focusing solely on creating great learning content is enough. « If you build it, they will come. » 

Truth: Nope. While great content is a crucial part of our learning strategy, it’s the quality of the experience that drives the best learning behaviors and habits. Start with why and communicate across multiple channels creatively, and try to engage internal marketing or comms partners when possible. We also try to demonstrate how learning directly helps our associates become future-ready, build skills, and grow their careers because that’s a worthy goal. At PepsiCo, we have innovative product marketing teams to build customer experiences. Why should learning not have the same?  

Myth No. 3: Professional Learning and Development is primarily about formal workplace courses or sessions. 

Truth: Amid COVID-19, we can’t do as much formal workplace learning. Working from home has helped us become smarter and realize that we all play a role in creating an engaging learning culture. With Degreed, we can now share books, videos, articles, and podcasts we love with others at the click of a button. And we can find answers to questions that pop up during the day: For example, what’s a Lean Six Sigma black belt? How can I use data to make better decisions?

If one of our employees is a subject matter expert in a particular skill, it’s easy for that person to curate a content Pathway for others to follow. Employees can also build a community around a topic, by creating and joining a Group about it and sharing content.  

Myth No. 4: Reskilling and upskilling employees is 1) not my responsibility, 2) not a priority, or 3) not possible. 

Truth: Now we know, due to a growing field of research, that skill-building is the best way to future-proof our organization for everything and anything coming our way. We even launched a Skill Plan called “Future Ready Workforce” with the now, next, and new skills that our research indicates employees will need to be effective in their roles, regardless of title, level, or function. To that end, Degreed allows employees to inventory and measure their skills, identify priority skills to develop, and connect to the content they need to build in those areas. The Degreed artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning component is built upon skills data; It becomes the foundation of a personalized experience for each learner.  

A New Culture

At PepsiCo, we’re building a new learning culture focused on a key principle: Always question the status quo. We’ve dumped the old myths and we’re inviting many partners to help us create a new learning experience. We have new ways of thinking about learning, and we’ve got a big adventure ahead! 

About the Author:

Alison started her career in human performance consulting, working with large clients to make organizational change transitions smooth. There, she learned why communication and learning programs are important and what makes them effective. She spent 10 years at a global consumer goods company in learning, recognition, and global marketing roles. 

For the past five years, she’s been a director in the PepsiCo global learning center of excellence, Pep U. Her team focuses on improving the global learner experience at PepsiCo, ensuring associates have engaging learning experiences in every format and delivery mechanism. Her team provides learning program consulting to the rest of the organization and curates high priority content to prepare associates for current and future roles. In addition, her team maintains a clear view of its content ecosystem and collaborates closely with external partners to deliver learning that’s fun, engaging, and impactful.  

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Today’s workforce demands more flexibility. In 2018, the US Census indicated 5.2% of the US workforce works entirely from home. According to a 2017 Gallup Poll, 43% of workers have spent at least some time working remotely. The best companies need the best talent and that talent is no longer confined to major cities. 

Remote work has a unique set of challenges, especially when it comes to navigating the benefits and challenges of a remote workforce. To help your organization create a successful remote work culture, here are six tips, including some that have been tried and tested here at Degreed.   

1) Hire for Culture

Hiring for culture has become more important than ever. With remote workers, businesses rely on individuals who embody cultural principles without the daily traditions and rituals reinforced in a physical office. Each employee is an evangelist and remote workers need to emulate those principles. Reinforcing culture creates a sense of community and a shared vision among coworkers, even if they don’t share the same office.

2) Always Overcommunicate 

In a remote workforce, employees rely substantially more on written communication, which means they can’t take advantage of visual cues to understand the intended meaning. Companies need to overinvest in internal communications and training employees to communicate effectively. Important news and communicating goals should be repeatedly enforced in multi-channel communication.

As an example of this practice at Degreed, we strive to make sure that critical messages are reinforced three times in three different communication channels.

3) Utilize the Right Tools

Tools, especially those that facilitate collaboration, communication, and organization, are critical for a remote workforce. Think about a typical whiteboarding session: with a remote workforce, you can’t pull everyone in a room and sketch on the wall together. However, tools are becoming better and better at simplifying and emulating this collaboration.

One of our recent favorites at Degreed is a free Slack plug-in. Donut is a Slackbot that randomly pairs you with a coworker for a virtual coffee date. These types of tools can promote cross-team collaboration. 

We also use Degreed extensively to develop employee skills and keep the workforce engaged in career development. Many of our clients are using Degreed to engage a global workforce with consistent training on the most critical skills for the business.

Both Degreed and Donut help to create a sense of community, collaboration, and social learning, which help to keep employees from feeling isolated or unmotivated. 

4) Use Video for Meetings

Requiring video in meetings is one of the simplest yet most important rules for successful remote work. Seeing the facial expressions of your colleagues creates more effective communication and cohesion. Video conferencing has matured to the point where it often feels as though the person is in the room with you, and that helps to cut down on multitasking. In fact, 82% of employees are less likely to multitask if they’re on a video call as opposed to an audio call. Participation in calls increases drastically when employees have to appear frequently on camera.

5) Establish a Performance-Based Culture

Remote workforces are not for a command and control environment. You won’t be able to force people to sit at their desks during work hours. Instead, you must place the emphasis on the results. It shouldn’t matter what hours employees work if their output remains the same. What we’ve seen is that giving people the trust and flexibility to work when and where they want gives them the ability to produce their best work. Employees should be held to a higher standard when it comes to their work outcomes.

But not being able to constantly watch employees means you must have an objective structure in place for monitoring their progression, both for the sake of promotions and to ensure they are still delivering high-quality work. Performance review software and learning experience platforms can track upskilling, development, certifications, progress, and accomplishments.

6) Host the Occasional Onsite

For company alignment, significant changes, or rallying the team for new goals, an onsite can accelerate understanding and collaboration. For remote workers, onsites can be rare but we’ve found that Degreed employees fully embrace the time together to reload on company culture and alignment. Staying Power

Enabling remote work is not only possible — it’s becoming essential. Remote workers say they are likely to stay in their current job for the next 4 years, that’s 13% more than onsite workers. Aside from employee retention, remote work is also a competitive work benefit that will attract top talent away from even the most prestigious competitors. The world is moving towards better supporting a global workforce. Will your company be a remote work trailblazer, or will it be left stuck at the office?

The post Six Tips to Keep Your Remote Workforce Engaged appeared first on Degreed.

Based on data from our recent How the Workforce Learns Report, 43% of contributors said they didn’t have the time to learn. Additionally, 30% reported that they lacked proper guidance and that their companies didn’t recognize or reward learning. This is on top of the 22% who said their managers don’t enable learning and the 20% who said they were overwhelmed with too many choices. The majority of these challenges can be traced back to the learning culture and environment of the organization, along with a lack of acknowledgment or reward system.

When Options Become Overwhelming

When thinking about how we could work toward solving these learning barriers, we considered the leaders in online shopping. While this may seem like a leap from online learning, both can cause people to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of options. For example, my latest online purchase was a Wi-Fi signal booster, which yielded over 1,000 results on Amazon. How can I sift through all of these options and feel confident enough in my choice to make the right purchase? 

In looking for resources on developing a particular skill, the results can be overwhelming and offer little guidance as to which ones to choose. Learning, like shopping, requires an investment, in both attention and effort. Just like we don’t want to waste money on something that doesn’t work, we don’t want to waste time on something that’s not effective. 

Amazon, like most e-commerce sites, has pulled together a variety of indicators to help narrow the results and assist in the decision-making process. With features like product reviews, buyers can find guidance from reputable sources to help narrow the selection.

How Reputation Indicators Can Help Employees Find the Right Content

The parallels between e-commerce and e-learning have not escaped experts in learning technology. In fact, the concept of “badges” in learning platforms has been largely influenced by the behavioral science behind reputation systems across the web. Look no further than eBay’s Top Rated Seller Badge. 

Similarly, Degreed has developed a reputation system, starting with the new “Active Learner” status. The status pulls together a combination of actions and behaviors into one simple indicator to both Active Learners and the other users who come across them on Degreed. The Active Learner status requires users to have completed at least five items, shared at least one item, have at least three skills, and log in monthly in order to be awarded a colorful circle around their avatar. This combination of actions provides a visible reward for the user to complete key engagement activities and it also gives recognition to those who are the most active. Immediately, you can see what the most productive users are learning on Degreed, making them much more likely to follow and consume similar content, and helping to increase employee engagement.

Another reputation indicator on the organization level comes in the form of endorsed Pathways, Plans, and Skills. Back to the Amazon example, there’s typically a filter to narrow results to Amazon Prime products only. From there, the shopper’s attention can be drawn to products with flags like “Best Seller” or “Amazon’s Choice” based on feedback such as customer reviews.

Similarly, Degreed offers visual cues to filter the best options, which also help the algorithms that power Search and Recommendations. Leaders and managers can leverage this feature to elevate their Pathways above other options, offering both guidance and support.

Seeking Guidance  

This emphasis on guidance also aligns with the research in our How the Workforce Learns Report, which shows that employees prefer to learn independently and socially. This means a combination of visiting websites and following the guidance of a mentor, team, professional network, or social platform. 62% of survey contributors said they consulted their professional network for guidance or recommendations when they needed to learn something for their job in the last year.

Narrowing down these options and offering guidance from Active Learners creates more social, personal, and curated learning experiences for your workforce. Our Endorsed and Active Learner status features are just the beginning. In the future, we plan to expand on these as we continue to track the impact of user behavior on additional statuses and ways to indicate preferred learning content in order to increase employee engagement with learning technology. Features that leverage and highlight the expertise of leaders and subject matter experts within a company not only take some of the burden of content curation off busy L&D leaders, they also tie the learning platform into what people naturally do when seeking advice or coaching.

Connecting employees with these tools and opportunities to pursue learning and upskilling is the first step to motivating them to do so independently. With an overabundance of online content, bringing the experience of a trusted social network into the LXP will help motivate users, increase employee engagement with learning and development, and keep them from feeling overwhelmed by choices.

For more information on how to leverage Degreed to motivate your people and increase engagement, contact your CX Rep or request a demo today. 

The post Use Your LXP to Motivate Learning and Increase Employee Engagement appeared first on Degreed.

66% of enterprise L&D leaders have trouble getting employees to engage with their training programs [Bersin by Deloitte].

Here’s the good news.

Degreed has a team dedicated to helping drive engagement and we have some proven tactics we can share that have improved the metrics at client organizations.

But first, the right mindset.

As the old saying goes, “takes one to know one.” So, let’s think about your personal online habits. You might notice there are certain things that drive you back to the same websites and apps day after day. In many cases, this repeated behavior is encouraged by way of a reminder in the form of an email or pop-up. These notifications provide a one-click option to visiting the site like you have probably received from sites like Amazon and Facebook.

Without having to think twice, a habit is born.

As it turns out, this notification tactic works for learning too. You can get in front of your audience on a regular basis by Degreed’s system generated engagement emails.

Degreed’s emails notifications notify your team of important learning events and suggested learning, making it easy to create a daily habit of learning.

*MailChimp 2017

Need more than just metrics? Degreed client, Xilinx, has driven much of their adoption success through email communication.

Here’s a play by play of their strategy.

1. The Xilinx team made marketing and communicating to their learners a top priority from day one of their launch in November 2016.
2. They implemented a cascading communication roll out approach – beginning with executives and their staff, then introducing it to the rest of the organization with live briefings, demos, and videos.
3. The communications strategy also included a message from the CEO prior to the official launch.
4. These were followed by an email from the Senior Vice President of HR, and supporting collateral materials including posters, table tents, demos, videos and several webinars to ensure employees understood their new strategy, Learn to the Power of X (LearnX) and what it would mean for each employee’s professional and technical development.
5. Based on pilot user feedback, they enabled daily reminders at launch, automatically generated by Degreed to provide a reminder to their team to encourage learning daily – and it’s working.  Over 43% of employees have logged in more than 5 times and 88% have visited. 

Even though their metrics say a lot, feedback from the Xilinx team says even more:

“For us, the Daily Email has been a key part of our implementation success. Employees appreciate the personalized preview and the daily nudge to engage in learning.”

Start driving learner engagement today with Degreed!

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We take for granted the personal experience presented to us on Facebook and Linkedin, the recommendations on Netflix, and personalized playlists on Spotify and Pandora. We assume online retailers will only promote relevant products to us, and get frustrated when promotions aren’t relevant.

What is personalization?

Perhaps the best example of personalization is what you experience when you log-in to Amazon. Amazon’s product recommendations seem to hint at telepathic abilities. I see recommendations for products I had no idea existed, but once seen, I must have them.

Personalization is a movement with a lot of momentum among consumer websites, and the approach has been wildly successful. In 2012, Amazon reported a 29% increase in sales in its second fiscal quarter, largely due to the personalization strategy it incorporated into every part of the purchasing process. Amazon isn’t the only one- nearly 80% of all marketers say personalization has boosted revenue.

The personalization movement for consumer websites is now spreading to enterprise software. The trend to consumerize enterprise software – making enterprise software more engaging for the end-user – is only in its early stages, but it’s on the rise. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for enterprise software companies to gain traction in organizations without creating a great user experience.

Personalization is an especially critical issue in corporate learning. Traditional learning solutions have been corporate-centric, focused on mandatory training and compliance which has resulted in low employee engagement. Half of people surveyed said they use their LMS for voluntary development once a quarter or less. Workers are more likely to turn to a colleague or Google to satisfy their on-demand learning needs [Degreed].

Personalization and an employee-centric approach to learning is an often cited trend for 2016 [L&D Global Sentiment 2016]. Research from Bersin by Deloitte highlights that improving the user experience is a main buying criteria for new HR solutions for 67% of people surveyed.

Bersin by Deloitte has published several research reports about the overwhelmed worker. We’re all bogged down with too much information, meetings, and emails. Employees cited not having enough time as the most common obstacle to workplace learning, but at the same time we all know that learning is a critical competitive advantage – something we all need to be doing to compete in today’s market. The solution is a set of tools that can streamline the learning process – deliver the right content, to the right person, at the right time.

Personalization and Corporate Learning

Personalization in corporate learning has the potential to revolutionize what companies can offer their employees in terms of tangible career growth. Similar to the product offerings you see on Amazon, what if you were offered courses, articles, and videos that perfectly aligned with your current and future career goals – saving you the time of searching online, subscribing to blogs, or hunting across various intranet sites at your company? So why aren’t more corporate learning solutions offering a personalized approach to learning tailored to each individual’s needs? A few are.

There are three main ways to accomplish the goal of a more personal approach to corporate learning:

1. Manual recommendations – the more traditional form of personalization, L&D directed suggestions based on employee’s roles and business units. An admin or learning professional sends course recommendations to groups or individuals in the organization. Perhaps marking certain courses as mandatory. Some platforms allow managers to create personal learning plans for their direct reports.

2. Social recommendations – from friends, colleagues, or managers.

3. System recommendations – based on data about the user.

Most traditional learning solutions can answer personalization using manual tools, where L&D professionals are assigning mandatory training based on roles and business units. But this type of personalization only covers the training that is happening periodically throughout the year.

“Social” is another hot buzzword in corporate learning, and tools to facilitate social learning recommendations are on the rise. But most of these tools lack the ability to aggregate social trends, such as learning content that is popular in your network, or popular among people who are similar to you.

With the advent of big data and better algorithms for gaining insights, algorithmic or system generated recommendations will become more prevalent, streamlining L&D activities while allowing workers to take charge of their own learning.

The future of corporate learning will also need to include personalized recommendations for more than just the formal and mandatory courses traditionally offered in an LMS. If a personalization engine only makes suggestions for formal courses, this will only benefit the user periodically throughout the year. Based on our research, we know that when workers need to learn something new for their job they don’t go to their LMS first.

Degreed’s Approach to Personalization

Degreed has taken a new approach to corporate learning – with a platform designed to enable and empower the learner. We are facilitating personal development, in the literal sense of the word, anywhere, anytime, from any device. To accomplish this, the experience is unique for each user by leveraging all three tools of personalization: manual, social, and system generated.

Like Amazon, Degreed is able to recommend learning content you may not know existed, but once seen you know you’re interested in.

1. Manual Recommendations
Degreed offers the ability to send recommendations to an entire group or an individual. An admin can request rules so employees are assigned to pertinent groups and enrolled in relevant Pathways. An admin can also request which organization Pathways are featured more prominently in the library.

2. Social Recommendations
Degreed offers social tools for viewing and following what others are learning, so you can learn from an expert or a colleague you admire. Degreed makes it easy to join groups with like-minded learners, rate content, and join conversations, and send and receive recommendations from friends, colleagues, and managers. Not sure who to follow? Degreed will offer suggestions for people with similar interests.

3. System Recommendations
The first thing a user sees when she logs into Degreed is a dashboard of system recommendations – five items of personalized learning content tailored for each user, and refreshed daily, called ‘Today’s Learning’. These recommendations can come from either external resources or internal content sources proprietary to the organization.

Degreed also offers a browse experience in the library similar to Netflix. The first thing a user sees when navigating to the Degreed library of content isn’t just a blank search page, the user will be given system generated recommendations by default, with the option to search if you don’t see what you want right away.

The result is a learning solution that employees actually want to use. The average LMS has a net-promoter-score of -31%, while the average net-promoter-score for Degreed is 70.

Takeaways

There are only a few enterprise learning software providers that utilize personalization, but just as this trend has taken over the consumer market, expect it to revolutionize the world of enterprise software as well.

In the market for a new corporate learning solution? Look for a tool that takes an innovative approach to corporate learning by building more consumer-like features, such as personalized recommendations. Today, nearly half of all online shoppers search on Amazon before making a purchase. Imagine a future where your corporate learning solution beats out online search as the most popular place for learning in your organization.

Learn more about how you can offer personalized learning at your organization here. 

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