Working in L&D at a big company is a great distinction and privilege. The job - to help lift the performance, capability and sense of fulfillment and purpose of thousands of people - is crucial. It’s also difficult. Red tape, globally distributed workforces, multiple languages, diversity of cultures, tall hierarchies, and the pressures of a public listing are just some of the challenges faced by large firms. These high-level challenges are palpable for those working in learning and development. And L&D faces specific problems too.
Talking in-depth to frontline staff, L&D/HR and board over the past few years, we’ve observed some patterns with regards to how learning happens (and why it doesn’t happen) at large firms. We’ve focussed on five which we understand pretty well and for which we can be of help. Seeing that others are often in the same jam may be helpful to feel reassured that these issues are common, and to find answers.
1. Content overload
Most firms have bought several large libraries of content. Each of those libraries contains thousands of learning resources. Typically they’ve been bought in by different L&D staff over a number of years and there’s a degree of dissatisfaction with the choices made. Evidence of the usage, enjoyment and impact of these assets is severely limited and distrusted (see next section). Contract lengths and dates vary so it’s impossible to make a clean break.
There’s a lot of proprietary content too. Also amassed over many years, pdfs, videos, PowerPoint decks, word docs, and other digital (and non-digital) content lies on LMSs, SharePoint sites, intranets, extranets, communications platforms, cloud storage sites and local hard drives around in, around and beyond the company. Most of it is obsolete but a sliver of it is immensely useful. Almost all of it goes untouched.
Between these two classes of assets (libraries and company-owned), there are usually tens of thousands of mostly unused content assets.
The solution
Cull, curate and personalize. Before we even think about putting a client's content up on our LXP, we take a scythe and reduce, reduce, reduce. We do this using our groundbreaking technology: Content Intelligence. This software automatically runs through a client's entire content provision and picks out (and ranks) the content that best fits their skills needs.
This cull is the most important part of the curation process and usually gets from 10k+ assets to under a thousand. We preach less. Of course 1,000 is still far too much for an individual to make sense of so you’ll need some further prioritisation / personalization which is what our recommendations algorithms do. And so the user experience goes from 10,000 to more like 10. Cognitively feasible.
2. Bad data
There are usually some issues with data. Missing data is common, even for obvious fields like job role. There’s also a lot of bad data (by which I mean difficult to use). Data can become bad for a host of reasons e.g. business process changes (like changes to names of departments), corruption, or it renders in the wrong format.
Combine this with a lack of data skills in L&D and it’s hard to achieve the outcomes L&D professionals would like.
The solution
Fix your data! We do this in a few ways. For user data, we built a configurable chatbot. We use it to get fresh data from users which inform our recommendations. Although the data should exist in a HR system somewhere (and we can ingest this when it’s good), it’s often not complete or ideal. So as long as the context and UX is clear and positive, users don’t mind a small, one-off batch of questions in a quick chat dialogue.
For content data we also use Content Intelligence. By bypassing existing tags and replacing them with ours - which are informed by company information, our own master skills framework, a foundation build from human expertise, and algorithmic tagging - in a couple of weeks of hard work you can transform a bad data situation into a good one.
3. Platform fatigue
Almost every member of staff we’ve spoken to says ‘please - not yet another system to log into’. L&D people get this and yet there’s still an average of over 20 learning technologies in large companies and this number is growing. There’s an unfortunate irony that the overwhelmed modern worker is not helped at all by the overwhelming array of technologies designed to reduce the load. Even multiple content libraries with very different user experiences can be off-putting.
The solution
Only consider new platforms and programmes which blend in by design. We built Filtered to make existing learning ecosystems work better rather than to add to the technology clutter. Single sign-on and APIs enable us to condense the vast majority of a learning ecosystem into a single location. Learners, on average, have 24 minutes a week to learn. With Filtered bringing it all together, they don't have to waste any of it searching for, or acclimatising to, clashing platforms.
Our seamless Microsoft Teams integration takes this a step further. Learner's don't have to leave the place they're already working to access learning content. If L&D wants, we can even run engagement campaigns through channels and individual bots on Teams.
4. Compliance
The spectre of compliance looms larger at big firms. In some sectors it’s almost everything L&D is concerned with. The issues with compliance are many, varied and deep-rooted (they involve the regulators, society, history and culture) but the upshot is that staff just don’t like it. No-one - neither L&D, HR nor line managers - like administering it either (but if you have 10 minutes, do read this extended HBR article about improving compliance programmes). That’s not good in itself of course. But what’s worse is that it tarnishes the reputation of positive, proactive, elective learning, skills development and personal empowerment.
The solution
Separate mandatory compliance initiatives from elective development. They are diametrically opposed: one is reactive to a set way of doing things (regulation); the other is proactive and infinitely open-ended. This is so important. We often get asked if we are willing to have Filtered point to mandatory training. In the past, we have (mistakenly) considered this (though we’ve never actually done it). Reactive training resources look, feel and are completely different to the things your staff might choose to learn, given the right circumstances. It’s misleading and undermining to cage them in a single LXP.
5. Lofty aspirations
Despite the issues (and no doubt many others) described above, the aspirations of CLOs (and some CEOs) for learning are lofty. Most would like to inculcate a culture of learning, curiosity and self-determination. They would like the technologies and content they buy to reflect that, to seed people’s working days with just the learning they need, just when they need it, just where they are. They would like learning to happen more and become a more accepted member of the work family.
Digital transformation - both attached to and separate from COVID-19 - has turned many of these ambitions into necessities. With 1 billion jobs set to transform as a result of digital evolution, many leaders are working on borrowed time to get real business results from change programmes.
What's next
Deliver that vision and aspiration. Filtered's intended flight path goes well beyond L&D. We believe, as many others do (Jane Hart, Josh Bersin, Charles Jennings, Nick Shackleton-Jones to mention just a few), that learning happens better if it’s more intelligently interwoven with work.
To that end, Filtered's smart LXP is built to make learning simple and ubiquitous. Through data backed skills frameworks, content intelligence, integrated engagement campaigns, smart learning pathways, and learning data insights, we aim to put learning front and centre, and to tether it to business goals.
If any of this is interesting to you (the issues or our solutions) and you’d like to talk about it, please drop me a line. (marc@filtered.com)
