In unserer letztjährigen Analyse der Tops und Flops haben wir den Vormarsch skillbasierten Lernens und KI-gestützter Personalisierung besonders herausgestellt. In diesem Jahr nimmt KI umso mehr Fahrt auf. Im Fokus steht zudem die Entwicklung von Führungskompetenzen und die Erfassung umfassender Kennzahlen zu den positiven Effekten der Weiterbildung von Mitarbeitenden.

2025 setzen zukunftsorientierte L&D-Verantwortliche verstärkt auf KI-gestütztes Upskilling und darauf, Lernstrategien im Einklang mit Geschäftsanforderungen zu gestalten und in puncto Talententwicklung den Menschen in den Mittelpunkt zu stellen. Zugleich verblasst das Mindset, Lerninhalte nach dem Motto „viel hilft viel“ willkürlich ins Spielfeld zu werfen, immer mehr.

Welche Trends sind also angesagt und um welche sollten Sie einen Bogen machen? Werfen wir direkt einen Blick darauf.

Angesagt: L&D erweitert um KI

KI ist für L&D nicht weniger als revolutionär – von umfassender Personalplanung bis hin zur Gestaltung individueller Lernangebote für Mitarbeitende auch außerhalb klassischer Bürotätigkeiten. Der Grund dafür ist einfach: KI verspricht effizienteres Upskilling, gestärkte Motivation Lernender und kontinuierliche Mitarbeiterentwicklung im Einklang mit Geschäftsanforderungen.

Innovative Unternehmen nutzen KI auf verschiedene Weise:

• Ermittlung von Skill-Lücken und Optimierung von Talentstrategien für ihre Schließung 
• Abstimmung von L&D-Programmen auf Geschäftsanforderungen anhand KI-gestützter Skilldaten, Analyse der Belegschaft und Talentprognosen
• Implementierung von Lernstrategien für die gesamte Belegschaft zur schnelleren Erstellung von Inhalten, für intelligentere Inhaltsempfehlungen, personalisiertes Mitarbeiter-Coaching usw.

„Nach 20 Jahren der Revolution im Bereich des Wissens- und Skillerwerbs ist L&D erneut an einem Punkt angelangt, der alles verändert“, so Max Wessel, Co-CEO von Degreed. „Fortschritte im Bereich der künstlichen Intelligenz machen es erstmals vorstellbar, Lernenden Privatunterricht durch die weltbesten Fachleute quasi direkt in die Hand zu geben. Für jede Branche, jedes Unternehmen, jede Einzelperson sind die Möglichkeiten schier endlos.“

Um KI erweiterte Mitarbeiterentwicklung macht es möglich, Lernen exakt auf die bestehenden Skills der jeweiligen Person, ihre Ziele und die Prioritäten ihres Unternehmens zuzuschneiden. Bei Unternehmen stellt sich die Erkenntnis ein, dass der Schlüssel zu effektivem Lernen nicht darin liegt, immer mehr Inhalte anzuhäufen, sondern Inhalte zu kuratieren. Und sie setzen KI ein, um Inhalte zu finden, skillspezifische Lernpfade zu gestalten und Mitarbeitenden individuelles Coaching zu vermitteln. All dies verhilft den Lernenden dazu, hochwertige und relevante Inhalte ohne endlose, frustrierende Such-Arien zu finden.

Nicht angesagt: Ignorieren menschlicher Arbeitsfaktoren

KI ist kein abstraktes Konzept der Zukunft mehr, sondern nimmt bereits aktiv Einfluss auf Personalplanung und Lernen gleichermaßen. Dennoch ist sie nicht als Ersatz menschlicher Arbeitskraft zu verstehen. Vorausschauende CLOs verbinden KI mit menschlicher Expertise, um sicherzustellen, dass Mitarbeitende über die Skills verfügen, die für den Erfolg des Unternehmens nötig sind.

Technologie am Puls des Menschen

Unternehmen erweitern ihre Perspektive über das Learning Management System (LMS) hinaus auf einen ganzheitlichen Ansatz: Geschaffen werden soll ein Lernökosystem, das Mitarbeitende dort abholt, wo sie stehen, und sie dabei auch zu kontinuierlicher Weiterbildung anregt. An die Stelle unzusammenhängender Schulungsveranstaltungen und Informationsausgaben treten Investitionen in Lösungen, durch die Gelerntes im Zeitverlauf vertieft wird. Priorisiert wird Interaktion und Motivation sowie praktische Anwendung, nicht eine möglichst hohe Rate abgeschlossener Inhalte.

Moderne Lernstrategien stellen die menschliche Verbindung in den Vordergrund, umgesetzt durch Mikrolernen, Coaching und kollegialen Wissensaustausch. L&D-Verantwortliche fördern dies durch strukturierte Programme wie Degreed Akademien, Mentoring-Kreise und Diskussionsrunden mit Kolleginnen und Kollegen, die belegen, dass der Schlüssel zur Vertiefung von Skills und langfristiger Weiterentwicklung im gemeinschaftlichen Lernen liegt.

Gruppen- und klassenbasiertes Lernen

Ein kollaboratives Lernumfeld fördert die Übernahme von Verantwortung, tiefergehende Diskussionen und die praktische Anwendung von Wissen. Klassenbasiertes Lernen trägt zur Förderung von Problemlösungsfähigkeiten, Wissenstransfer und Austausch unter Lernenden bei und ist damit von herausragender Bedeutung für jede innovative, umfassende L&D-Strategie.

Verstärkter Fokus auf Soft Skills

KI kann komplexe Aufgaben übernehmen, wird jedoch niemals über Soft Skills verfügen. Und so sind diese dem Menschen vorbehaltenen Kompetenzen heute wertvoller als je zuvor. Vorausschauende L&D-Verantwortliche setzen daher darauf, Anpassungsfähigkeit, kritisches Denkvermögen, Kommunikationsstärke und ein Mindset kontinuierlicher Weiterentwicklung gezielt zu fördern.

Angesagt: Skillbasiertes Lernen für mehr Wirkung

Hochschulabschlüsse mögen Türen öffnen, doch nur Skills halten Unternehmen am Laufen. So messen Unternehmen klassischen Referenzen zunehmend weniger Bedeutung bei. Stattdessen setzen sie darauf, Mitarbeitenden durch skillbasiertes Lernen die Kompetenzen zu vermitteln, die für nachhaltigen Erfolg benötigt werden. So verlassen sie sich nicht mehr auf den Status quo, sondern auf Upskilling-Programme in Abstimmung mit Geschäftszielen, die Lernen relevanter, personalisierter und wirkungsvoller machen.

Arbeitgeber und Arbeitnehmer:innen profitieren davon gleichermaßen: Letztere können Qualifikationen präsentieren, die über den Lebenslauf hinausreichen, und Unternehmen können bessere Entscheidungen sowohl bei der Einstellung als auch bei der Entwicklung von Mitarbeitenden treffen. Mit KI-gestützter Skillerfassung und dynamischen Lernpfaden schlagen L&D-Teams Wege ein, die überholte Qualifikationsmodelle durch skillorientierte Strategien ersetzen, um Mitarbeitende bereit für die Zukunft zu machen.

Nicht angesagt: Nachlässige Entwicklung von Führungskompetenzen

Führungsstärke ist keine festgeschriebene Eigenschaft, sondern eine Kompetenz, die es laufend zu verfeinern gilt. Die Führungskräfte von morgen benötigen Praxisschulungen zum Aufbau von Entscheidungskompetenz und Soft Skills – etwas, das ein Management-Crash-Kurs kaum vermitteln kann.

Allzu oft bleibt es aber bei einem eben solchen Management-Kurs oder einem Führungskräfteseminar, das einmal abgehalten und von dem dann erwartet wird, das es langfristig wirkt. Zielführendere Konzepte setzen dagegen nicht allein auf formelle Kurse, sondern bieten Mitarbeitenden mit Führungsambition ebenso wie bestehenden Führungskräften ein breites Spektrum an Möglichkeiten zur Weiterentwicklung.

Genauso wie jeder andere Skill erfordert auch Führungskompetenz dauerhaftes Lernen, Coaching und Mentoring. Nicht weniger wichtig ist praktische Übung und unmittelbares Feedback, um Führungspersönlichkeiten zu formen, die neuen geschäftlichen Herausforderungen gegenüber anpassungsfähig sind. 

Angesagt: Präzise ROI-Darstellung

Weiterbildungsverantwortliche, die den Einfluss von L&D-Investitionen auf den Geschäftserfolg klar vermitteln, können nicht nur ihre Budgets, sondern auch ihren Einfluss sichern. Tun sie das nicht, wird ihrem Funktionsbereich der Ruf als Kostenstelle auf ewig anhaften.

Um den Beitrag von Weiterbildung zu Produktivität, Innovation, Mitarbeiterbindung und Unternehmenswachstum zu quantifizieren, sind klassische L&D-Kennzahlen jedoch ungeeignet. Smarte L&D-Verantwortliche setzen dafür auf Skill-Analytik und Leistungserfassung mit Priorität auf klaren Daten, die Lerninitiativen und zentrale Geschäftsergebnisse in Zusammenhang setzen.

Nicht angesagt: Lerninhalte in Masse statt Klasse

Lernerlebnisse können sich ganz unterschiedlich gestalten. Eine Flut von Inhalten, unstrukturiert zusammengestellt in einer Ansammlung von Artikeln, Videos, Dokumenten usw., sind nicht selten eher überfordernd als hilfreich. Auf den ersten Blick mögen sie zwar wie ein großartiger Wissensfundus erscheinen, doch ohne Struktur, Kuratierung und Kontext bleiben die Inhalte kaum dauerhaft im Gedächtnis.

Ohne Anleitung oder logische Abfolge geraten solchen Sammlungen eher zu frustrierenden Schnitzeljagden, als effektive Lernerlebnisse zu vermitteln.

Sind Sie bereit für den nächsten Schritt?

Für Mitarbeitende wie für Führungskräfte lässt sich Lernen heute am innovativsten nach einem skillorientierten Ansatz gestalten. Er verstärkt das Potenzial des Menschen durch die Möglichkeiten von KI. Zugleich setzt er auf umfassende Quantifizierung, um geschäftlichen Erfolg gezielt zu fördern.

Sind Sie dafür bereit? Finden Sie es bei einem persönlichen Gespräch mit unserem Expertenteam heraus.

The post Top oder Flop? Das ist 2025 angesagt in Sachen L&D appeared first on Degreed.

This is the second post in a series on building skills for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI). See the first.

DEI skills—such as critical thinking, cultural intelligence, and psychological safety—are no longer optional; they’re essential to a thriving, resilient organization that can adapt to rapid change.

By developing DEI skills, leaders and employees can create inclusive environments where diverse perspectives thrive, fostering a culture of belonging that boosts resilience, engagement, and innovation. Key DEI skills bridge the gap between rapid technological advancements and the human connection needed for collaboration—and they might just prove essential in helping your organization meet its most important objectives. 

Organizations looking to navigate periods of significant change need DEI skills to remain agile and resilient. Navigating change means more than responding to technology shifts; it’s about ensuring your people are equipped to thrive in an inclusive, fast-paced environment.

As periods of change become the norm, prioritizing DEI skills is key for organizations to stay competitive and agile. Whether it’s enhancing knowledge sharing or building resilient teams, focusing on DEI skills is the path to a truly adaptive, inclusive, and thriving workplace.

The Leader’s Role in DEI Skill Development

Leaders in particular play a crucial role in championing DEI skills. Why? Leaders empower individuals and managers to support inclusive practices and create a culture of belonging that drives engagement, grit, and resilience at a time when people need it most. Executive Leaders can prioritize DEI skills to foster an environment where psychological safety and diverse perspectives drive growth.

Engaging managers and leaders in DEI skill conversations begins with equipping them to act as skill coaches, fostering open dialogue and modeling inclusive behaviors. This process involves providing targeted training and tools to help leaders recognize and mitigate bias, facilitate psychological safety, and encourage diverse perspectives within their teams.

By embedding DEI into regular performance discussions and aligning it with business goals, managers can actively support their teams‘ growth while driving a culture of inclusion and belonging.

Choosing DEI Skills to Prioritize at Your Organization

As you assess which DEI skills need attention at your organization, let’s explore a few examples to get you started.

Remember that skills should be measurable and developable.

You might be tempted to choose skills like compassion or empathy. These are important, but under scrutiny they’re revealed as inherent human traits. In other words, how can an employee get better at empathy? On the contrary, DEI skills allow for the evaluation of proficiency and improvement over time. To find out more on this, take a deeper dive into skills vs. competencies.  

Key DEI skills and the benefits they offer include:

• Critical Thinking. This helps employees recognize and address biases, question assumptions, and make fair, reasoned decisions that align with inclusive values. It helps them understand how best to utilize and evaluate AI tools. It’s not only about problem-solving; it’s essential for uncovering and addressing unconscious biases in decision-making and enabling fairer, more inclusive practices.

• Psychological Safety. This is about creating an environment where individuals feel secure sharing ideas without fear of judgment, and it’s vital to inclusion. Psychological safety builds trust and encourages diverse perspectives, allowing innovation to flourish while creating a foundation of trust and respect. Psychological safety is pertinent to all levels of an organization.

• Resilience. This is the ability to adapt to challenges and recover from setbacks. It supports employees as they navigate change, including shifts toward greater equity and inclusion. Resilience is about equipping teams to thrive even during difficult times, which is essential for fostering a workforce that remains engaged and supportive.

• Cross-Cultural Agility.  This is about understanding and adapting to diverse perspectives in a way that drives better team collaboration. It helps individuals work productively across different backgrounds, enhancing communication and collaboration.

• Inclusive Communication. This involves learning techniques to actively listen, mitigate biases, and foster open dialogue. Inclusive communication allows for better understanding among team members and creates an environment where all voices are heard and valued.

• Equitable Decision-Making. This involves systematically ensuring fairness in processes like hiring or promotions through choices that are both inclusive and unbiased. Equitable decision-making lays the groundwork for fair practices that help attract and retain a diverse workforce.

Each of these skills is developable, actionable, and measurable. The important action is identifying skills to develop that are essential to DEI  as well as accomplishing your company’s goals.

How to Develop DEI Skills Aligned with Company Goals

Rather than viewing DEI as a standalone initiative, savvy organizations will recognize that DEI skills are directly tied to broader business objectives—for example, boosting innovation, increasing employee engagement, or improving customer satisfaction.

Step No. 1: Identify DEI skills that align with business goals.

Start by identifying a few essential DEI skills that align with your company’s strategic objectives. For example, if your goal is to foster innovation, focus on skills like creativity and cultural awareness, which support diverse thinking and collaboration. If the goal is to improve team resilience during times of change, prioritize skills like psychological safety and adaptability.

Step No. 2: Define clear outcomes for skill development.

It’s essential to clearly define what success looks like. Do you need employees to gain deep proficiency in one area, or is a broader understanding of multiple skills more valuable? Asking for both breadth and depth can lead to burnout, so keep the focus on a few key skills and make sure progress is measurable. This specificity will also help you track progress and make adjustments as needed.

Step No. 3: Take action with small, scalable steps.

Don’t wait for perfect data or a lengthy approval process to get started. Quick wins like engaging employees in discussions about skills or launching targeted training programs can build momentum. Analyzing employee skill profiles, for instance—to identify gaps in psychological safety or cultural awareness—might quickly help you pinpoint where to start. This in turn could help make your overall implementation process more responsive and agile.

Step No. 4: Provide targeted resources and training.

Asking employees to develop DEI skills without adequate resources is a recipe for failure. Ensure they have access to workshops, peer-to-peer learning groups, stretch assignments, and learning content that supports their growth. Be wary of blanket training programs, as these often lack the focus necessary to address specific skill gaps. Instead, opt for tailored learning experiences that address your organization’s unique needs.

A Note About Creating Lasting, Measurable Mentorship Programs

A mentorship program is a wonderful tool in the DEI toolbox. But if it’s your only tool, you’ve made a mistake. While many mentorship programs created during the DEI push of 2020 had good intentions, they often lacked long-term sustainability. To create lasting impact, mentorship initiatives must have clear goals and ongoing support. 

Leaders should be accountable for fostering inclusive cultures and providing mentorship aligned with measurable outcomes. Specific skills tied to a program can help define clear goals. By establishing structured, goal-oriented mentorship that complements other DEI initiatives, organizations can sustain DEI momentum and build a stronger, more inclusive talent pipeline.

The Measurable Impact of DEI Skills

Organizations that invest in DEI skills are building a foundation for sustained performance and adaptability, creating a workforce that’s not only more diverse but also more agile, innovative, and resilient. Integrating DEI skills into company strategy isn’t just about “checking a box.” It’s about making an investment in the long-term health and competitiveness of your organization. 

With the right DEI skills in place, your organization is better equipped to navigate change, embrace diverse perspectives, and drive lasting progress.

Degreed Professional Services

Hali Linn is a Learning Strategy Consultant on the Degreed Professional Services team.

Degreed Professional Services partners with business leaders and learning pros to explore learning strategies, technology goals, and questions. Book a free and private consultation.

The post DEI Skills in Action: A Step-by-Step Guide to Driving Change appeared first on Degreed.

Watching the Olympics every four years was a big event in my family. But it wasn’t until 2023 that I even considered I’d have a chance to participate in anything remotely related to an Olympic event. That’s when I learned organizers of the 2024 games in Paris had created opportunities not only for elite athletes, but also for the rest of us—including amateur long distance runners like me.

The Marathon Pour Tous, or Marathon for All, sounded incredible. Amateur athletes could run the same course as the elites on an original and historic 26.2-mile loop linking Paris and Versailles—winding from the Hôtel de Ville through nine city districts to the Esplanade des Invalides—a path traveled by Parisian mothers during the French Revolution who marched for food amid famine. 

But there was one big catch. I literally had to win a lottery to get into the race. The chance to participate came down to a series of lucky draws—and winning a spot took me dozens of tries over several months.

After I crossed the finish line early Sunday morning with more than 20,000 other runners from around the world, clocking in with a respectable time of 5 hours and 32 minutes, I reflected on this journey and kept coming back to one simple yet powerful concept—being persistent and showing up.

Is being persistent a skill?

“Keep showing up” were the words two-time Olympian Des Linden said after winning the 2018 Boston marathon, when she was asked how she stayed motivated after years of narrowly missing a chance to ascend to the top of the podium. “Every day I make the choice to show up and see what I’ve got and to try and be better. Keep showing up.”

Winston Churchill said that “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

Hellen Keller said that “A bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you fail to make the turn.”

While the notion of being persistent as a buildable capability might seem a bit fuzzy, research suggests it’s a skill people can develop—in their work and in their personal lives—by shifting their attitudes and dialing in their points of view. 

Writing in Inc., author and motivation expert Jeff Haden cites a wealth of research explaining that persistence derives from decision-making. Data came from who else but long distance runners, specifically 200 participants in 155-mile multistage desert ultra-marathons.

Evidence emerged showing a causal relationship between the participants‘ coping strategies and whether they finished their races. As Haden notes, some of the runners “used what the researchers called ‘adaptive coping strategies.’ Instead of seeing suffering as happening to them, they decided to see their extreme discomfort as a challenge: As something they chose. (Which, of course, they had.) Or finding ways to ignore or distract themselves from the pain.“

On the flip side, Haden notes, “some participants fell prey to ‘maladaptive coping strategies.’ Like feeling scared by the discomfort and pain they experienced. Or seeing a certain level of pain as a clear signal to stop. (Which, to be fair, seems a reasonable response.) 

“The bottom line? A single occurrence of a maladaptive coping strategy tripled the chances a participant would drop out of a race.”

Persistence: My Ticket to France

I couldn’t just sign up for the Marathon Pour Tous and get a race bib. Nobody could. Would-be participants had to complete running challenges tracked by an official app that entered them into the selection lotteries.

I downloaded the app, synced it to my Garmin watch, and began participating in as many challenges as I could. Over the span of 20 months, I completed a whopping 55 challenges.

All that effort got me into 55 lotteries—and I didn’t win any of them. But I never gave up. What I didn’t know was each completed challenge gave me another entry into one final draw.

Finally, in April, at the last possible moment, I received the email I’d been hoping for—and it was time to start training for THE marathon.

The Rigors of Getting Ready

My training regimen included five days of running each week, with a mix of long runs, hill tempos, track sprints, and easy runs based on heart rate. As marathon prep demands, my training at times got rigorous, pushing my weekly cumulative distance to 50 miles during peak weeks. I paid close attention to my overall health, weight training twice a week and monitoring my body composition.

One of the more challenging aspects was adjusting to the time zone and preparing for a night race. My group’s start time was 10:10 p.m., meaning I would be running until around 3 a.m. This required careful planning around sleep, nutrition, and hydration, especially considering the physical toll of long-distance travel and jet lag.

Crossing the Finish Line

I was blown away by the crowds and spectators! In some places, they were eight to ten people thick, and their cheers felt deafening. There were definitely places along the route where I struggled, but hearing people shout “Allez, Lynn!” (French for “Go, Lynn!”) helped me stay excited, and I forget how much it hurt to run a hilly, 26-mile race. 

Finishing the race, my fifth marathon since I began running 14 years ago, reaffirmed my strong belief that the key to training for and running a long distance event—like so many things in life—is being persistent.

With dedication and the support of my loved ones, I worked to meet a goal that sometimes seemed out of reach.

The road to this marathon was not straightforward. It was filled with setbacks and moments of doubt. Some days, I didn’t feel like running, but I reminded myself of my objective.

Being persistent is a skill that has not only made me a better runner but also a more resilient person. 

Persistence can turn your dreams into reality.

The post Being Persistent: How I Crossed an Olympic Finish Line appeared first on Degreed.

With no margin for error, we kept calm, evaluated our options, and chose the least awful exit plan. I slowly backed over the unexploded mine, steering in reverse along my original tire tracks while paying the utmost attention to every minutiae. We got lucky that day.

Years later, after I’d left Iraq and Kuwait and transitioned out of the military, I worked in instructional design. Our team was hosting a highly visible internal training webinar. We had senior leaders watching, presenting, and attending. But shortly after the event began, technical difficulties brought the whole thing to a halt.

A sense of panic spread. But I fell back on my training and went into troubleshooting mode. I knew how to stay calm under fire, a skill I’d honed on the battlefield.

We got that webinar back online. Getting myself to a point in my career where I could succeed in the private sector wasn’t so easy, however. For former service members like myself, the path to civilian employment is often fraught with uncertainty at nearly every step.

We all can do more to help veterans—business and L&D leaders alike.

Transitioning from military work and life to civilian work and life is a challenge faced by 200,000 military personnel who leave the U.S. armed services annually. That equates to nearly 550 people every day.

An alphabet soup of federal agencies including The Department of Veterans Affairs, and The Department of Defense provide a wealth of support through 45 government programs.

“Helping veterans overcome challenges to transitioning to civilian life—such as unemployment, homelessness, mental health issues, and disability-related issues—is essential,” according to the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO). “However, agencies could improve some of these supports and services.”

In some cases, lackluster outreach, stifled collaboration, deficient monitoring and data, and ambiguous goals hamper the success of the federal assistance programs, according to the GAO.

In addition, a wide range of state programs and nonprofit groups including the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) provide similar services. For many former service members, admirable initiatives like Civilian Ready, Veterans Transition Support, and Fourblock are lifelines to a new life chapter.

Like any newly-hired employee—whether it’s someone fresh out of college or already in the civilian workforce who’s coming from another company—newly-hired, transitioning veterans need support. They’re acclimating to not only civilian sector norms but also an unfamiliar company culture as well as the unique expectations of their new workplaces. 

As company culture champions, business leaders and L&D pros are well positioned to help vets acclimate. And they’re increasingly recognizing the benefits of hiring former service members.

Still, business leaders and L&D pros can do more.

Military skills are transferable skills.

For the tens of thousands of veterans facing the uncertainty of what’s next, it’s important to understand that identifying transferable skills, and then explaining how they’re transferable, is critical to career reinvention.

If you’re in L&D, there’s a big insight for you in that statement.

For starters, L&D leaders can lend support to their HR colleagues and promote an expanded, skills-first approach to hiring veterans.

As the analysts at McKinsey & Co. recently noted, “Traditional ways of hiring make it harder for many service members to land civilian jobs.”

However, “A hiring strategy that focuses on expanding the pool of potential talent can help communities by creating more and better job opportunities for a broader, diverse pool of workers. It can also provide upward mobility for millions of workers—including veterans—at a crucial time for the U.S. economy.”

Perhaps more importantly, L&D can create focused learning experiences that help former military members refine, expand, and apply the transferable skills they bring. The more L&D works with veterans, the more businesses will realize former service members are highly trainable. Why? If there’s one thing the military does well and a lot of, it’s train. We were constantly training. In modern day civilian terms, we were constantly upskilling and reskilling.

By embracing skills-first employee learning, companies “can build skills and retrain their existing workforces to prepare people for new roles,” McKinsey said. “Retention improves when workers find more opportunities to advance internally. Skills-based practices have a greater impact when they’re implemented across the whole talent journey, including in sourcing, hiring, and career development.”

Leaving the military wasn’t the only decision I faced.

When I separated from the U.S. Air Force, Security Forces with an honorable discharge in 2008, I had obtained the rank of E-6, or Technical Sergeant. It’s part of a grouping of ranks referred to as Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) who are also leaders. Along the way, I attended some of the world’s best leadership academies.

During my 10 years in the service, I led teams in daily state-side operations as well as combat operations in Iraq during the 2003 U.S.-led offensive. I also completed two tours in Kuwait. All told, I completed seven overseas tours including six in the span of three years.

Air Force Security Forces are responsible for safeguarding base entry points, flightlines including runways and tarmacs, aircraft, conventional and nuclear munitions, and all the people and other physical resources on a base. During my tours, we also provided off-base buffer zone patrols, convoy escorts and security to and from Kuwait City International Airport. 

In the second half of my military career, I taught basic and advanced ground combat tactics at the U.S. Air Force Security Forces Academy in San Antonio, Texas. 

As I approached my seven-year mark, I thought about my future. Would I reenlist? If I did separate, what would I do? I considered a civilian police force or private security, but realized I was doing those things already.

My outlook evolved when someone asked me what I was passionate about. It was an easy question to answer. I’d always loved any kind of technology. And in my final years in the Air Force, I had also found a passion for teaching. That’s when I was introduced to the field of educational technology. I decided to make edtech, which married my passions, a big part of my future.

I would have loved more guidance early on.

My out-processing included a few classes on resume writing. They covered the differences between military and civilian writing, “business professional” and “business casual” dress, and common pitfalls to avoid like jargon or swearing.

While there were some good tips, those classes left a lot to be desired. I found some resume writing services in the private sector, but they were beyond my personal price range. Fortunately, I had a network of accomplished civilians around me who helped tweak my resume from military to civilian speak.

I also knew I needed formal education. That was (and all too often remains) the currency upon which talent is hired. I already had two associate degrees, one in criminal justice and another in technology and military science. But I knew those wouldn’t be enough. Indeed, I didn’t think a bachelor’s degree would even be enough, so I set my sights on a master’s degree.

Within three years I earned a bachelor’s degree in occupational education, focusing on criminal administration, and a master’s degree in educational technology. Ironically, this is where I began to learn that a degree was just a ticket to ride.

Civilian work challenges roiled me.

I quickly realized culture was the biggest difference between military and private sector employment.

In the military, I was in a position of leadership, so I was expected to speak clearly and directly to avoid misunderstandings and confusion.

After the military, I continually received feedback that I was too direct, which came off as harsh. I was shutting down conversations before they had a chance to get started, because I was quick to share my opinions when asked. My input wasn’t always well received. It was considered brash and authoritative and closed off to counterpoints. I had to soften my approach.

Then came the challenge of explaining my military experiences during civilian job interviews. Clearly connecting my ability to shoot at long ranges and clear buildings in urban environments to designing elearning and hosting webinars was unsurprisingly difficult.

I wouldn’t realize until years later that the biggest obstacle I faced during my transition was overcoming silent stereotypes of the military. Many civilian recruiters and hiring managers considered officers educated leaders and relegated enlisted personnel to less educated, less refined order takers. In my experience as an enlisted, noncommissioned officer, that equated to less desirable.

I don’t entirely blame recruiters or hiring managers for the misperception. It’s a byproduct of simply not having much if any experience with former military members. After all, less than 1% of all U.S. adults are active-duty service members and, in 2022, only about 6% of the U.S. adult population was veterans.

I had to learn to tell my transferable skills story.

On the day I drove over that mine, we headed off base in the afternoon, crossed some open desert into nearby oil fields, and traveled toward an old, abandoned police outpost. There wasn’t anything special about our Humvee. It wasn’t armored, and we probably had the doors off to counter the heat of the day.

I caught a glimpse of something dark shaped like a large dinner plate in the sand. But by the time I saw it, it was too late. We had to assume it was not random ordnance. How deep we were into the minefield was anyone’s guess. 

And so, we had a decision to make. Drive forward? Turn around? Retrace our tracks and drive over the mine again?

To be a good leader, you also have to be a good follower. You need to work with others to overcome challenges like we did that day in the desert.

As my civilian career progressed—as I made more connections, had more job interviews, and got more feedback along the way—I realized that talking about my skills in ways that highlighted how transferable they were made a huge difference.

Every advanced combat and specialty school I ever attended wasn’t really about advanced tactics. Obviously, we learned new things and practiced those new tactics, but it was more about leadership. Can you lead, whether formally or informally, under harsh and stressful conditions, with little to no sleep, food or water for days on end?

To lead and operate as part of a team requires discipline and an unwavering work ethic. To survive in an environment where anything that can go wrong can and usually will go wrong demands problem-solving and adaptability. Communication and decision-making are equally critical.

More and more, I extrapolated transferable skills from my experiences. 

Veterans, learn to tell your skills story.

Explain how your military skills translate to the civilian sector,  because they are 100% transferrable and relevant.

Part of that story will be written on a resume, and there are so many more options to help with that than there were 15 years ago, from Microsoft Word templates and generative AI tools to thought leadership posts on LinkedIn and even professional resume writers.

Just like in the military, train and get feedback. Use LinkedIn to find veteran groups and other veterans, and don’t be shy about asking for help. Connect with anyone who will listen as you practice sharing your transferable skills story out loud. Ask people to pay attention to your tone and the phrases you use. Military people like you sometimes have a way of speaking you might not always be aware of.

Hiring managers, listen below the surface.

Think more broadly about who you’re evaluating for new positions. Past experiences can serve as valuable indications of future performance. When evaluating former military personnel, or anyone for that matter, think about what people’s past experiences can tell you about their infinite potential.

I can do more than drive a vehicle in and out of a minefield. That was luck. But I can remain calm in a high-pressure situation. I can think critically and formulate a plan of action on my feet. I can consider options based on their merits, adapt, and act. I can lead.

Decipher those types of skills and you’ll find the talent you’re looking for. Remember, you can teach business practices, specific product knowledge, and PowerPoint. But you can’t teach potential, tenacity, or unwavering commitment.

Think about the value in someone capable of following orders and executing a plan. Whether the person was a commissioned officer or a noncommissioned officer, or even a lower rank, they have experiences and resilience forged in some of the toughest environments imaginable, and that doesn’t always mean hostile combat.

L&D pros, create space for trial and error.

People gain knowledge by consuming content—courses, articles, books, podcasts, lectures, and more. They’re always learning.

Workers gain skills by taking their newly-acquired knowledge and putting it into practice.

My favorite illustration of this dynamic goes like this: Who would you prefer perform your operation? The recent med school grad or the hand with 10 years surgical experience? They’re both doctors, so what’s the difference? The difference is skills acquired and honed through practice.

People build skills through practical application guided by a supervisor, a mentor, or a more knowledgeable, seasoned expert. Apply that to your instructional designs. Develop experiences alongside your instruction and create space for learners to try, make mistakes, fail, and then try again. That’s when knowledge is transferred and begins to morph into a skill.

As an instructional designer, instructor, and learning consultant, I witnessed the most significant changes when my students put knowledge into practice. Asynchronous learning opportunities can disseminate a lot of information, but it’s workshops and academies that drive meaningful behavior change and skill building.

Veterans are accustomed to upskilling and reskilling on the job. A new assignment? An entirely new career field? Unlike many businesses, the armed services makes time during work hours for people to reengineer themselves. As a result, the veterans at your workplace might be uniquely positioned to embrace upskilling—and even help you think through and design experiential learning programs at your organization.

Remember, we’re all more than just one thing.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe I’ve been out of the military for longer than I was in. While that time is firmly in my past by more than 15 years, it’s shaped who I am as a person, dad, partner, friend, and professional.

If there’s one thing my career journey has taught me, from the military to marketing, it’s that we’re all more than our degrees. We’re more than our skills. We’re more than our failures. We’re more than our successes.

We’re tenacious creatures capable of immense growth and adaptability.

When learning leaders believe this about their people, especially veterans who might need some extra support, there’s no stopping them.

Degreed Content Manager Tom Schultz contributed to this blog post.

The post Veterans in Civilian Roles: A Business Challenge and Big L&D Opportunity appeared first on Degreed.

Why? Social interaction encouraged attendance and engagement. The approach saved the Dallas-based residential management firm (a Degreed client) tens of thousands of dollars. (And earlier this year, the company’s L&D team won Learning Innovator of the Year Gold at the first annual Degreed Visionary Awards.)

How does your workforce learn?

Chances are your people are like workers across the globe, which means they embrace a wide variety of learning resources, situations, modalities, and options. It’s quite certain many of them, like the people at Associa, rank among the 75% worldwide who, we’ve found, gravitate toward some form of social engagement.

What motivates your employees to grow professionally?

Good news! More than anything else, they’re likely motivated to learn in order to perform better for your company, according to the latest Degreed research.

These are just some of the key insights bursting from the latest installment of our semi-annual How the Workforce Learns report. It’s a comprehensive, multinational look at the prevailing attitudes and behaviors compelling people to develop.

Building on those insights, the report doubles as a guide focused on how business and L&D leaders like you can use strategies and technologies to meet critical learning needs.

We’ve found L&D can drive business impact in four key ways:

• Access, by ensuring learning tools that facilitate growth in the flow of work are available to everyone.
• Motivation, so you’re inspiring people to learn in meaningful — and effective — ways.
• Variety, by providing employees with every chance to learn in their favorite ways.
• Collaboration, so learning becomes social, so comradery breaks silos.

In addition — and for the first time — we’ve included tips for how you can use generative artificial intelligence (AI) to quickly elevate your L&D initiatives.

“This is a critical time in learning and development,” the report acknowledges, noting that today’s rate of technological change is outpacing the workforce’s ability to learn and upskill, exacerbating the skills gap at an unprecedented pace. “Smart L&D leaders know their companies — in order to succeed — must strategically align employee skill building with core business objectives.”

Access: What Does the Report Say?

We want you to download the full report, of course, so we’re not going to give everything away. But suffice it to say, it explores the importance of a democratized approach to learning.

The report covers how you can:

• Assess how well your organization is democratizing learning.
• Strive to make learning 100% accessible.
• Help your people pay for learning opportunities.

Motivation: The Key to Engagement

Let’s pull back the curtain and consider this much: We found people are, first and foremost, motivated to perform and contribute.

Find out how you can:

• Use learning to connect their motivations to the big picture and your company’s key objectives.
• Use new, on-the-job learning opportunities to further inspire employees.
• Figure out how to share learning success stories.

Variety: The Grease in the Gears

For talent development to remain appealing and help meet development imperatives, it’s important learning takes many forms — classes, videos, mentorships and more. Why? People like to learn in a wide range of ways.

Find out how you can: 

• Understand your critical learning needs
• Adjust your strategy to help meet those needs
• Embrace variety

Collaboration: Social Learning People Love

When learning with others, people especially appreciate a small group or a one-on-one session with a colleague or peer.

Find out how you can:

• Promote collaboration
• Use technology to facilitate collaborative experiences
• Make managers collaborative learning champions

Find out more:

In today’s world of work, in which the demands on your company can seem endless, making L&D a strategic partner is critical. Take a deeper dive into the report and put learning at the heart of your business.

The post How the Workforce Learns: Our 2023 Report on Driving Business Impact Through L&D appeared first on Degreed.

“We want to instill a growth mindset.” 

And . . .

“We want to make learners take responsibility for their own learning.” 

To . . .

“We want to grow skills critical toward our business’ future.”

When I look at all of these, my takeaway is they all have a vision around enhancing and accelerating learning agility.

What is learning agility? 

Learning agility is the ability to learn, unlearn, relearn and remain flexible on all three afore-mentioned points. Learning agility is incredibly relevant for your individuals, teams, leaders and business divisions.

Learning agility is a key organizational skill when it comes to creating a learning culture, which results from many decisions made by people across your organization over time. Think about it:  Your organizational culture didn’t just emerge with a big bang when your company was founded. It’s grown over years and may vary a bit from location to location or one business unit to another.

At the risk of overstating the obvious, change to culture and ways of working doesn’t happen overnight. Even switching your learning tech ecosystem to the best platforms available on the market today only enables change to begin. It doesn’t constitute full growth and change.

How to Create Learning Agility 

You could say culture change is a bit like climbing your mountain of choice. As with any mountain, it’s necessary to take one step at a time. If you leap forward too fast, you run the risk of tripping over your own feet. 

So what’s the first step? It’s to set up your “base camp,” which includes your team and tools. Do quite a bit of this work before you shortlist technology vendors. Next, engage your people, iterate to always be improving and, lastly, drive positive business results. 

Let’s take a closer look at each step: 

Set up your base camp.

This is all about preparing your initiative.

Talk to your business leaders: This isn’t optional. Read corporate strategy documents and connect beyond your L&D or talent colleagues. Ask: What are the strategic objectives for the organization as a whole? What skills do teams need to meet these objectives? Where are people struggling?

Perform a learning audit focused on your employees: Find out how they learn, where they get the information they need for work as well as for their personal interests, and what platforms they’re using. Are your employee’s taking formal courses outside of work? What are their favorite blogs, influencers or magazines? What skills do they view as critical to their career goals?

You’ll get a lot of data. Do your best to analyze and structure it. Put your best plan forward with data in mind, but don’t let the perfect become the enemy of good.

Shortlist business critical skills: Get the necessary buy-in from key leaders. This is not the same as recycling your existing competency models. Instead, think about what skills are key to your entire organization’s business strategy. This data will give you the basis for a skills strategy.

Consider technology: Notice we didn’t lead with this! Consider whether your current technology supports learning agility or whether you need to evolve your learning tech stack.

Upskill your Learning and IT departments: We see it time and again — teams charged with implementing a learning culture need additional technical skills as well as a shift in mindset. It’s a huge change and takes time. 

How comfortable are your learning professionals with Agile methods? Does your organization embrace a true minimum viable product to help kick off your learning tech ecosystem? Are your learning designers in the habit of testing designs with actual learners, and do they market their products across your organization? How about your team’s basic knowledge of your business and people strategies? These are probably areas ripe for upskilling.

Engage.

Once you’ve prepared your base camp, it’s time to plan your ascent. Ideally, you’ll have a good idea of your skills strategy before engaging with your technology vendors; it will be the first thing they ask you for. When you are keen to „get going“ on a technology implementation, it can be disconcerting to stop and be asked to formulate a strategy. That said, Degreed is certainly be happy to assist you with this.

I see our clients choose one of four basic skills strategies for their first rollout of Degreed:

1. Strategic skills: These are a limited set of skills applicable to most of the target launch population and critical to the business strategy. 
2. „Future of Work“ skills: These are popular forward-thinking skills defined as important for all organizations. 
3. Focus on one function: You may have a strategic need to upskill your sales force or line managers. Choose these populations to focus on in your first launch.
4. Job family framework: Do not lift and shift your competency model when rolling out your learning tech. If you allow the scope to get too big, you’ll get bogged down in the detail of content curation. Keep it simple, and iterate.

Whatever your strategy, it’s fine to select and test on a pilot population, but make it as broad as you can. A pilot population will give you data for your wider launch.  

Once you have the first launch, it’s time to get your learner population and the business excited about what they can do with it. Learners often say they „don’t have the time“ to learn, they aren’t sure what to learn, and they believe their manager doesn’t encourage it.  Managers and individual contributors alike can fear their teams will judge them for „not working“ if they’re seen to spend time learning.

_{Source: Degreed and Harvard Business Publishing, How the Workforce Learns, 2019}

Overcome these common objections with trusty techniques:

• Get buy-in from senior management to earmark a certain amount of time for learning.
• Ask senior management to promote your product and share that learning isn’t a „nice to have,“ it’s expected.
• Ask leaders to publicly share what they have been learning lately, and the impact it has on them.
• Create communities of practice, which are nurtured by recognized experts.
• Consider a „Champions“ group of enthusiastic learners from the business (NOT L&D!) to promote your product.
• Run contests and award prizes to encourage a learning mindset.
• Ensure you have a product roadmap and marketing calendar for your upcoming initiatives.

As part of your implementation strategy, create a reporting and value realization plan. What will you measure in the first three to six  months? Afterward? What is the business interested in measuring? (Hint: It’s not hours spent consuming learning content.)

Iterate.

You’ll probably read this and say, „Iterate? Of course!“ But when you get pressure from the business to be all things to all people, your resolve may fall apart. Recognize your work is never really done. Your first launch doesn’t have to be perfect. It needs to be good enough to gather data and tweak.

Experienced Degreed clients say their No. 1 piece of advice to newer clients is „Don’t put pressure on yourself to get it all out there on your first launch.“ If you do, you don’t have anything new to pique learners‘ interest later.

Develop prototypes, test with a smaller group of real learners, gather feedback and adjust. You can do this!

To hear about how real learning leaders at Cargill do this, check out our on-demand masterclass. 

Drive business results.

You may wonder, „What does the view look like when I reach the summit?“ The easy answer is: The business drives learning. That simple statement is made up of a lot of everyday behavioral changes from individuals, teams, and the organization’s leadership, with some structure.

Clients who’ve made it to the summit eventually equip their L&D teams to become enablers of learning, not the executors. Picture this story from a successful Degreed client: This client runs a champions program with representatives from around the business who are formally certified in how to use Degreed as well as the basics of good learning design. Champions assist business leaders to rapidly deliver learning value to business-critical skills.

Meanwhile the L&D department coaches the champions to identify learning objectives and success criteria, curate (not just develop) great content and measure results. This “master curator” approach brings learning closer to subject matter experts in the business. Ultimately, it enables high-quality, business-critical learning much more quickly than was ever possible with SCORM courses or classroom training.

Conclusion

We at Degreed have helped hundreds of clients navigate the learning agility journey. We’re excited to help you too. Let’s connect, put together your packing list and ascend the summit together, whenever you’re ready. 

The post How to Create a Positive Learning Culture Using Learning Agility appeared first on Degreed.

Like a delicious jus, hollandaise or demi-glace, learning can be your “secret sauce” to employee engagement.

Employee engagement has played a big role in recruiting and retention throughout the pandemic. To increase engagement, companies have enhanced benefits and perks, embraced flexible work schedules, expanded paid time off, focused on mental health programs and held events that cultivate workplace relationships.

And they’ve embraced learning. When you create a positive learning culture and invest in your people’s ongoing development, they feel greater ownership of their careers and increased alignment with your company. In other words, when you put effort into developing your employees, they invest back.

“Learning creates opportunities to obtain and enhance skill sets, knowledge and capabilities,” said Ben Cardenas, Sr. Manager of Enterprise Learning & Talent at Harbor Freight Tools. I contacted several learning leaders to get their views on engagement and the role learning can play.

“Developing these components in a learning environment enables the employee (learner) to practice in a safe space what they have acquired and or enhanced,” Cardnesa added. “When the employee applies the learning experience back into the workplace, it enables them to contribute to work that is meaningful to them, which in turn helps the employee feel included in the organization and the process.”

So how can you use learning to keep your people engaged?

1. Create a meaningful onboarding plan.

Consider what information you would want to know during your first day, week, month and 90 days. Then think through the best ways to build learning experiences that deliver that key information. What stakeholders would you want to include to share that information in a new-hire welcome series? What items would be on your critical learning agenda? What information should be self-paced and online versus instructor-led, whether it’s presented in person or virtually?

• Prior to onboarding, curate a learning pathway employees can use to familiarize themselves with your company’s vision, mission, values and organizational structure. It’s a great way to showcase your positive learning culture.
• During onboarding, fuse online asynchronous learning with face-to-face (or screen-to-screen) learning. Include job aids or quick reference videos.
• After onboarding, continue providing learning opportunities for new-hires to build their skills and acquaint themselves with their job responsibilities. 

Throughout the onboarding process, encourage new hires to build relationships, ask questions to gather information and set up time with their managers to align and calibrate on key priorities.

2. Infuse learning into your one-on-ones. 

People managers are a key population in your company and can make sure learning is a priority. Managers are your front line for making sure employees have opportunities to talk about learning on a regular basis; managers can build learning opportunities into day-to-day conversations. 

One-on-ones can also be an opportunity for managers to help your people  learn and reflect, because they can ask guiding questions and create a psychologically safe environment where employees can fail forward. 

What went well? What didn’t go well? What might you want to change next time? Asking some basic guiding questions can turn your managers into coaches.

3. Include learning goals in performance reviews and your company’s talent management process.

Performance conversations are a powerful moment in an employee’s journey and an opportunity to check in and evaluate progress. What better moment to build in goals related to learning that reinforce your company’s commitment to learning?

Learning goals can vary depending on the resources at your disposal. Are there stretch assignments your employees can work on? Are there key skills and capabilities your employees can build? Are there-in-house or external courses they can take to get those skills? Engaged employees will appreciate opportunities to learn and grow.

These strategies can set your employees up for success, especially if you make them available from Day One.

“The link between learning and engagement isn’t a foregone conclusion,” said Kristen Fyfe-Mills, Director of Employee Development and Engagement at Farmer Focus. “The learning experiences need to be well-designed and relevant to work and growth — for the learner and the organization.”

Onboarding provides a first impression of your company to new-hires now on the payroll and a great opportunity to build a positive learning culture. Include content that shows how committed your company is to talent development. 

“Learning helps create space for curiosity and conversation,” said Lisa Dubler, a career coach at General Assembly. “This can often lead to breaking down silos and having people more engaged and invested in their work.”

A recent LinkedIn Learning report suggests extending engagement across the entire employee journey. When you emphasize learning in performance reviews and get managers “bought in” to your learning culture, you can make learning fun and relevant, ensure their experiences at your company are meaningful and generate real return on your L&D investments. 

Like a great chef, your company can mix up a great combination of flavors that make your employee engagement strategy sweet, savory and delectable. 

The post Cooked to Perfection: Learning Elevates the Employee Engagement Recipe appeared first on Degreed.

A majority of Gen Z U.S. workers ranked learning new skills as the third-most important driver when evaluating new job opportunities, behind health insurance and disability benefits, reads a 2021 Gallup survey. And Degreed research found nearly half of workers around the world said they are more likely to leave their employer if they don’t see a commitment to upskilling and reskilling.

Whether it’s the desire to try something new or the knowledge that the workforce is changing, workers are ready and willing to acquire new skills. They’re seeking out companies with a culture focusing on workforce learning — and ditching those that don’t.  

How to Create a Lifelong Learning Culture

Companies with cultures that prioritize learning, development and career growth will reap the benefits of a happy and loyal workforce.

Employers that excel at internal mobility retain employees for an average of 5.4 years, nearly twice as long as companies that struggle with it. Even those employees who’ve plateaued in their current role tend to stay loyal to their employer if they’re encouraged to forge new internal paths.

“Professional development has become a top priority for workers when determining their interest in or loyalty to a company,” says Janice Burns, Chief People Officer at Degreed. “Specifically, workers are yearning for more educational options that align with their professional purpose and growth. Companies that provide these types of benefits will attract, engage and retain the best workers.”

There are a few steps L&D professionals should take in order to develop and sustain a successful culture of learning: 

• Get leadership on board. It’s one thing to want more development opportunities for your workforce, but it’s another thing to actually implement them. For your L&D program to truly succeed, you need adoption and buy-in at the highest level. Come to your meetings armed with data to support the ROI of a learning experience platform (LXP) and a plan for how you’ll roll it out at your organization. 
• Don’t try to be everything for everybody. Your employees have diverse interests and differing career goals, and your learning content should be just as varied. Aim for an intersection between what workers want and what will best meet your business’s needs when planning your learning strategy.
• Commit to a continuous culture of learning. A positive learning culture is more than just offering disparate classes a few times a year or promoting employees here and there. Instead, invest in a learning experience platform (LXP) like Degreed that operates on an open ecosystem, where workers can learn anytime and anywhere and track it on their profiles. Employees and their managers can see their skill development, view internal opportunities such as a new job or a stretch assignment, and work on the skills they need to succeed. 
• Offer employee training incentives: While workers may say they want educational opportunities, mounting to-dos can make learning less of a priority. By offering rewards for completed programs, such as a gift card or the ability to earn certifications, you’ll give your workers the extra push needed to grow their skills. 

The Business Benefits of a Learning-Focused Workplace

Not only will upping the education ante at your organization lead to attraction and retention, it’ll help grow your bottom line. In our research report, How the Workforce Learns, workers who rated their company learning cultures as positive are 166 percent more likely to say their companies grew revenue faster than their competitors. 

It’s clear that in order to attract and keep top talent, companies must implement and promote a positive learning environment. By getting the right buy-in, determining the best learning model, and partnering with the right learning experience platform, you’ll keep your current workers happy and widen your candidate pool. 

Trying to Keep Your Best Talent?

Degreed clients can achieve up to five times reduction of attrition in key roles. Read about all the findings in The Total Economic Impact Of Degreed study conducted by Forrester Consulting. Download it today.

The post How a Positive Learning Culture Can Impact Attrition and Attraction appeared first on Degreed.

While the world largely shut down, healthcare workers continued to work long hours filled with mental and physical stress as well as daily life-or-death situations. A need for new knowledge, especially regarding the coronavirus, surged. And the traditional in-person learning format healthcare organizations often relied on was no longer a safe option. 

How did L&D professionals in healthcare help their people adapt to this change?

Experts from Fraser Health Authority and UnitedHealth Group shared their strategies during our recent Curing the Healthcare Skills Gap webinar. Leading an engaging discussion, Degreed Chief Learning Strategist Annee Bayeux uncovered how these organizations excelled despite the difficulties of the past two years.

Here’s what these organizations did, and what you can do too:

Prioritize a Better Learning Culture

A lack of time for professional development is one of the biggest obstacles to learning, according to our recent How the Workforce Learns report. 

To help address that challenge, you can shift your people to a learning-focused mindset. It isn’t easy, but when Deborah Wiest, Vice President of Learning and Development at UnitedHealth Group, sees concerns about time arising in her organization, she offers a thoughtful response: “Everyone has time. We all have time. How are you choosing to spend it?”

Learning leaders are powerful forces in guiding culture change. If people don’t feel time spent learning is valued by their company and team, they likely won’t make time to do it, Wiest said.

A positive learning culture embraces multiple learning methods, not only virtual options. At Fraser, learning leaders expanded beyond online learning, especially among frontline workers, said Daryl Page, Leader of People Development. The organization now sets aside time in morning huddles for workers to share new knowledge with colleagues and team leads. 

Giving teams time to share their learnings during the workday shows people their organization prioritizes and encourages their learning, which helps create a more positive learning culture.

Acclimate People to Self-Guided Learning

A major change that occurred due to the pandemic was a swift shift of focus to virtual learning options. The need created an exciting opportunity for healthcare organizations — especially those lagging behind in technology — to “leapfrog into a different paradigm of learning,” said Gabriele Cuff, Director of Leadership and Talent at Fraser Health Authority.

Easing the transition to virtual, self-guided learning also changed the role of L&D professionals in healthcare. At Fraser, the learning team tried a new tactic to help people acclimate. They now provide managers with content-based questions to ask their teams, which encourages conversational learning.

“We’re just curating the path, and they’re actually hosting the conversations,” Page said.

L&D professionals weren’t the only ones who had to adapt to new ways of learning. Healthcare workers did too. They were used to learning teams providing them with the exact knowledge set they needed or wanted and are now adapting to serving themselves, Wiest said. 

Encourage Collaboration

While L&D professionals create and guide learning opportunities, there’s also a large social component they alone cannot provide. For example, development can come from experiential learning opportunities like mentorships, peer-to-peer discussions, special projects or stretch assignments.

“Developing people is everyone’s job,” Bayeux said.

To acknowledge the different ways people learn, the Fraser L&D team built collaboration into its strategy.

“We’ve shifted now to much more of that peer learning and connecting,” Page said. “So content is there, or they find it, and then we’re providing more opportunities for them to share with each other as opposed to it coming from us.”

Helping your people see what knowledge can look like in action can help them create better outcomes. And when that notion is prioritized, people start connecting to content in new and stimulating ways.

It’s true people need content. But, as you can see, great content alone won’t always encourage the learning and engagement people need to excel. 

“We want people to learn from each other, not just from content,” Bayeux said. “So we’re shifting from this focus on knowledge acquisition to actually creating an environment where knowledge actually comes from a lot of different places — from people, content and the experiences that we have.”

L&D professionals are using all these methods and more to help healthcare workers continue learning effectively in a timely manner. 

Want to Learn More?

This type of agility is something you can bring to your organization as well. For more details, reach out to a Degreed representative. We’d love to chat.

The post Transforming Learning Across Healthcare Organizations appeared first on Degreed.

Workplace engagement is the emotional connection and commitment employees feel toward your organization and its goals. And according to Gallup, workplace engagement has declined for the first time in five years. It’s no longer enough to simply talk about how your workplace values permeate. Connection happens and commitment becomes real when input and action come from all levels of your organization — including senior leaders and individual contributors.

At Degreed, we boost workplace engagement by celebrating the strengths of all our colleagues. One key approach has been formalizing our Business Resource Groups (BRGs), which work to create an inclusive and safe environment that empowers people to be their whole selves and to drive innovation and performance. They even tackle issues like nonverbal communication, which is all the unspoken cues between people, including facial expressions, gestures, body movements and nuances of the voice.

The Impact of a Strong DEIB Culture

In collaboration with RedThread Research, we sought to understand the relationship between a strong DEIB culture and business outcomes.

After speaking with more than 100 people and surveying more than 1,000, we created a DEIB index that measures how diverse, equitable and inclusive an organization is based on respondents’ input. We found if an organization has a strong DEIB culture, it has better business outcomes. Specifically, respondents were 81% more likely to indicate high customer satisfaction. 

Other research shows simply integrating DEIB training methods isn’t effective in driving equitable outcomes. At Degreed, we’ve found success by normalizing a respect culture through a combination of:

1. Creating opportunities for our employees to learn personal, interpersonal and technical skills.
2. Supporting these efforts by enabling employee-led resource groups sponsored by senior leaders.

Building a DEIB Culture: The Business Case for BRGs

Why do BRGs boost engagement and help drive productivity? It’s because they build trust across an organization.

As our own Chief People Officer Janice Burns described during one of our internal BRG summits: “Focusing on DEIB in the workplace isn’t new, but where many companies struggle is thinking that DEIB is simply about a diverse representation of employees. Representation is an input and a first step in inclusion. But without the practices and the conditions where people feel included, the representation falls flat.” 

At Degreed, our first step to creating a culture of inclusion was establishing five Business Resource Groups (BRGs).

BRGs are led by employees — for employees. At Degreed, these groups enable our leadership team and individual contributors to learn new skills and share diverse perspectives. 

While each group has an executive sponsor, the responsibility of driving these programs falls on individual contributors at all levels of our organization. These groups are not an extension of HR but instead report to the CEO directly. Why? It gives a voice to all employees and authentically integrates diversity, inclusion and belonging strategies into our business practices at all levels. 

Co-chairing or participating in one of our BRGs encourages individuals to put learning into practice. It allows people to gravitate toward their passions and educate and challenge one another to think outside of their norms. 

Our research with RedThread found individuals are just as important as managers in driving change. Organizations score much higher on the DEIB index when individuals:

• Put skin in the game by showing up authentically and demonstrating courage in what they say and do.
• Influence others by managing nonverbal communication, empowering people and engaging in calculated risk-taking.
• Help design a new future by recognizing patterns, accurately interpreting data and information and using that insight to envision a different tomorrow. 

Since launching our BRGs we’ve seen positive growth across our organization. We have demonstrated a clear commitment to social responsibility and as a result have seen our annual workplace engagement survey score in relation to these efforts increase by 12 points.

We have also seen a positive increase in the number of our colleagues reporting that they believe Degreed helps them to make a positive difference. We continue to seek gender balance, overall our company is at 47% female and 53% male. Our leadership team is now more representative — we have seen the number of women in leadership roles increase by 13% and our leadership is also now more diverse in terms of ethnicity, race and geographical location. 

Integrating BRGs Into Your Learning Culture

Launching BRGs won’t drive lasting change on its own. But it can be a great tool to add to your arsenal — especially when combined with workplace development.

To start, get managers involved. We learned managers are responsible for creating the conditions that allow a culture of DEIB to thrive. Managers who succeed at this:

• Create psychological safety within their teams.
• Set clear expectations that hold employees accountable.
• Model appropriate behaviors and lead by example.
• Foster an inclusive workplace by raising awareness for the needs of team members, ensuring equitable practices and development of their teams.
• Proactively seek out different perspectives, understand people’s challenges, and enable employees with tools, resources and technology.

Our research shows the important skills for managers at high DEIB orgs are:

• Be open to new ideas by being curious and willing to envision a different future.
• Drive and monitor change by challenging the status quo, demonstrating grit in following through, and engaging in calculated risk-taking.
• Navigate social complexity by using negotiation, persuasion and influence skills as well as effective nonverbal communication.

You can endorse these skills at an organizational level by giving your workforce insights and technology to build the capabilities they need to create an inclusive culture.

Focus on centralizing your technologies so they’re easily accessible. This lets people continue discovering the content they need, aggregate it, organize it and share it. Embrace learning pathways to encourage DEIB skill-building. Degreed Pathways can be shared, built by anyone and used for personal or collective learning. Encourage everyone to share their expertise and build Pathways that help others. 

“Traditional approaches to improving DEIB have fallen short at many companies,” said Susie Lee, SVP, Global Business Transformation & DEIB Executive Officer at Degreed. “This new actionable skills data on inclusive organizations can be the catalyst that will finally drive change. And what’s really exciting is the actionability not just for HR, but across the entire business and for all job levels, because it’s only through making DEIB part of holistic business operations that true systematic change will occur.”

Our world is changing. Taking assertive action to create a more inclusive workplace is critical to business success. It’s the responsibility of individuals, managers and senior leaders to drive this change. And providing your workforce with the right resources is essential.  

Want to Learn More?

Download our new guide, 4 Ways Every Manager Can Create a Positive Learning Culture, to discover what managers can do to build a positive and inclusive learning culture. 

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