Webinar: Digitizing HR & IT Workflows to Unlock Employee Productivity

We’ve all been reading about how digitizing enterprise workflows delivers great experiences and unlocks productivity for the employees and the entire organization. But how can your organization meet these goals quickly, easily and without disruption?

Come join us for a webinar on Wed., Apr. 24 at 11a PT / 2p ET for an interactive discussion about how enterprises are doing so in 4 straightforward steps.  Specifically, the webinar will focus on:

1. What specifically does it mean to take traditional, step-by-step processes and streamline them in to efficient digitized workflows
2. How this workflow digitization process can streamline both HR and IT efforts, resulting in big enhancements to employee experiences and productivity
3. How an integrated Learning Experience Platform (LXP) can efficiently facilitate workflow digitization for HR and IT teams with minimal disruption
4. How ServiceNow and EdCast are delivering Training & Learning in the Flow of Work solutions to its customers and partners, fulfilling the vision outlined by Josh Bersin here: Learning In The Flow Of Work: Arriving Now

This information-packed webinar will be led by Deepak Bharadwaj, VP & GM, HR Product Line at ServiceNow, Philip Levinson, VP, Marketing at EdCast, Michael Khait, CTO at EdCast. The recording and presentation will be made available to all registrants.

3 Ways to Improve Employee Productivity

Productivity is critical to the health of your company’s bottom line. When staff performance suffers, so do sales, customer service and retention, corporate culture, and employee morale. Even when productivity is sufficient, there is always room for improvement.  

3 Tips for Boosting Team Productivity

Improving staff productivity doesn’t always have to be a multi-step process. Implementing just one or two performance-promoting tips can be effective. Here are three ideas for boosting team productivity.

1. Emphasize collaboration and connectedness — When corporate culture lacks a sense of community, productivity suffers. “Productivity improves by 20-25 percent in organizations with connected employees,” per the McKinsey Global Institute.¹ To increase connectedness, foster a collaborative company culture.

According to UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, collaboration initiatives fail when employees don’t feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas.² A contributor wrote, “In the collaborative process, trust means creating an environment where everyone can openly express concerns, fears, and differences of opinion (i.e., be vulnerable) without fear of rejection, aggression, or retaliation.”

Promoting trust and vulnerability via leading by example facilitates collaboration and connectedness, which ultimately improves productivity.

2. Reduce stress by changing modes of corporate training — It’s impossible to eliminate stress from the workplace, but it is important to reduce it if you want to increase team productivity. According to Willis Towers Watson, “Employees suffering from high stress levels have lower engagement, are less productive, and have higher absentee levels than those not operating under excessive pressure…”³

Employers know that stress affects team performance, but they don’t always understand how to reduce it. One way is to train employees informally. Josh Bersin calls informal learning that happens during the course of the workday “learning in the flow of work.”⁴ This type of learning takes the stress of having to attend formal training sessions off employees’ shoulders and frees them to get more done, which is why companies should promote learning in the flow of work.  

3. Use technologies that boost efficiency — Seventy-five percent of Americans believe they do not have access to the latest efficiency-boosting technology.⁵ This means they don’t have the tools they need to be as productive as they have the potential to be.

To boost efficiency, consider moving to a Knowledge Cloud. For example, the EdCast AI-powered Knowledge Cloud has the capacity to increase productivity by up to 50 percent. It solves the discovery, curation and recommendation problems of content fragmentation across external, internal, and tacit knowledge sources. Also, the Knowledge Cloud engages employees, customizes content, and delivers all learning content to staff in a personalized learning feed, which maximizes productivity.

Related Reading: 8 Benefits of Moving to the Knowledge Cloud

Begin Turning Productivity Problems Around Today

Companies across all sectors experience issues with team productivity. Promoting collaboration and employee connectedness, offering informal, on-the-job training, and providing staff with efficiency-boosting technology, such as a Knowledge Cloud, can work wonders for your company’s bottom line. There are many tips for boosting productivity, but these are a good start.

Learn more about how a Knowledge Cloud can help increase productivity for your organization.

References:

1. The McKinsey Global Institute. The social economy: unlocking value and productivity through social technologies. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/the-social-economy.
2. UNC. Creating a collaborative organizational culture. https://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/~/media/files/documents/executive-development/unc-white-paper-creating-a-collaborative-organizational-culture.pdf.
3. Willis Towers Watson. Workplace stress leads to less productive employees. https://www.towerswatson.com/en/Press/2014/09/Workplace-stress-leads-to-less-productive-employees.
4. Bersin, Josh. A new paradigm for corporate training: learning in the flow of work. https://joshbersin.com/2018/06/a-new-paradigm-for-corporate-training-learning-in-the-flow-of-work/.
5. Staples. The state of the workplace in 2016. https://www.staples.com/content-hub/company-culture/work-life-balance/the-state-of-the-workplace-in-2016.

2 Steps to Building a Continuous Learning Culture (and Why It is Crucial)

Continuous learning is a key to driving business goals and developing a competitive edge. “…continuous learning is critical for business success. For today’s digital organizations, the new rules call for a learning and development organization that can deliver learning that is always on and always available over a range of mobile platforms,” stated Deloitte.(1)

The Incredible Benefits of Continuous Learning for Businesses

Most company leaders know that learning and training promote corporate success. Fewer individuals understand the importance of continuous learning which, according to LinkedIn(2), is important for the following reasons:

• It increases employee competence.
• It promotes innovation.
• It develops critical thinking skills.

Also, and perhaps most compelling to employers, continuous learning increases profitability and productivity.(3)

2 Tips for Establishing a Continuous Learning Culture

Here are two easy ways your company can build a culture of continuous learning starting today:

• Utilize strategic knowledge sharing resources — Peer-to-peer, or informal, learning is often at the heart of a continuous learning culture. Foster knowledge sharing by creating opportunities for strategic sharing sessions. From LXPs to HCMs, there are many innovative solutions to help connect the dots.

For an example of traditional training efforts, Inc.com posted an article that suggested having employees complete a continuous education request form if they want to attend an off-site training, then having them “agree to schedule a sharing session with the rest of the company so that the knowledge they acquired (doesn’t) reside only with them.”(4)

Other ways to encourage knowledge sharing include scheduling off-site meetings and events and even setting aside time for face-to-face collaboration.

The channel to share this type of knowledge is key. Use available learning technology that connects employees and SMEs online to reduce the barriers of sharing information. Creating the easiest path possible to benefit from informal knowledge sharing will encourage continuous learning, and will have business benefits.

“If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive.” Lew Platt, CEO, Hewlett-Packard.

• Enable learning in the flow of work — There is no better way to constantly learn than to learn in the flow of work. When an employee is learning in this way, he or she is naturally accessing fresh knowledge and skills throughout the workday directly within the business applications they use most frequently. No need to go to a seperate system to search for relevant content. This is why companies should promote learning in the flow of work.

Josh Bersin, who is popularizing the learning in the flow of work concept, said 49 percent of employees want to learn in this manner.(5)

For example, you can now connect your valuable learning content directly to applications like Salesforce, Microsoft Office, Slack, ServiceNow, and other popular options enhancing the productivity of the average employee’s workday.

Imagine being in the middle of creating that Powerpoint presentation that is past due and you need to reference those new sales materials that we posted on the LXP channel. All you need to do is highlight the keyword term in Powerpoint and the content comes directly to you, instantly. No searching, or even leaving Powerpoint, needed. That exists and is how learning in the flow of work is revolutionizing access to content for innovative organizations.

“In the research we just completed, we found that employees who spend time at work learning are 47% less likely to be stressed, 39% more likely to feel productive and successful, 23% more ready to take on additional responsibilities, and 21% more likely to feel confident and happy. And the more you learn, the happier you become,” wrote Bersin.(5)

Drive Business Goals with a Continuous Learning Culture

Successful businesses, and especially every industry leaders, support a continuous learning culture. Establishing and maintaining such a culture is not as difficult as you might think. It can be as simple as facilitating strategic knowledge sharing resources for employees and giving staff the tools they need to learn in the flow of work. All you need are the right tools and the right perspective to make a foundation of continuous learning that will pay dividends as your organization evolves.

References:

1. Deloitte. Learning in the digital age. https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/focus/human-capital-trends/2017/learning-in-the-digital-age.html.
2. LinkedIn. 7 reasons why continuous learning is important. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-reasons-why-continuous-learning-important-amit-nagpal.  
3. CEOWORLD Magazine. Increase productivity and profitability through continued learning. https://ceoworld.biz/2014/09/03/increase-productivity-profitability-continued-learning/.
4. Inc.com. 5 unique ways to create a culture of continuous learning. https://www.inc.com/marissa-levin/5-unique-ways-to-create-a-culture-of-continuous-learning.html.
5. Bersin, Josh. A new paradigm for corporate training: learning in the flow of work. https://joshbersin.com/2018/06/a-new-paradigm-for-corporate-training-learning-in-the-flow-of-work/.

Why organizations must embrace consumerization of learning?

Learner experience is much more than a buzzword; it heralds a paradigm shift. With learner experience, organizations are not creating a learning plan. They are creating an experience, one that will translate to the single most differentiating factor. Experience embodies a “consumerized” approach that is hyper-personalised and multi-modal. Employees today are demanding the freedom to consume the knowledge when and where they want and how they want to from a wide range of content resources, tailored to their learning needs, style, preferences and interests. The learner as a consumer is now leading L&D.

The conventional model of learning delivery is a “one-size-fits-all” approach where knowledge is shared with a broad range of people in exactly the same way. It often ignores the different learning styles of individuals. Today, organizations are being compelled to take a consumer-focused approach. They are making learning available on demand, listening more attentively to their employees, understanding their needs and creating & curating their corporate learning content that learners find useful, relevant and engaging.

Technology is playing the role of a catalyst in revolutionizing learning. Over the last decade, the Internet, social media, and mobile access have become huge factors in our personal and working lives, changing how we interact with information. Now, with information available to us at the click of a mouse or keypad, we have come to expect immediate answers to recreational and job-related questions. In the world of learning, learners can now “pull” the knowledge they need, when they need it, shifting control from L&D departments to the learner. This has led to the expectation that L&D functions should provide contextualized content that is directly mapped to individual needs leading to a surge in personalized learning. It breaks through age-old practices in the world of learning and development, and shifts the focus to the learner, turning the learner into the axis on which rests all other decisions – What path do organizations take? What method do they adopt? How do they bring the knowledge to the learner? – Everything falls into perspective when an organization adopts a singular approach – user-centeredness. While organizations and often learners blame paucity of time as a primary reason for poor learning habits, the actual culprit very often is content and the methods of delivery.

As those responsible for talent development – encouraging learning and rewarding learner behaviors? Self-directed learning is the purest form of talent development – but what are organizations doing about it? A philosophy where an individual feels responsible for their own development is essential to build an everyday learning culture, rather than an isolated training one. As Dr. Kalam put it: “True learning is not a process of pouring in from without, but a calling forth what is within. It’s a process of nurturing, of allowing, of evoking. It is a process of bringing forth the person one is meant to be…”

Learning initiatives must be intrinsically driven, for ensuring commitment over compliance. It’s just like therapy – you can’t really change, unless you know there is a problem and want to. Self-driven learning is a natural corollary to well-designed talent programs that allow individuals to achieve mastery in fields of interest or appeal to their sense of purpose. Some talent development programs come with an application form, which is a great way of how we can treasure learning, and not mandate, it. The idea then, is for organizations to create a talent development ecosystem to appeal to learners and for all to be similarly motivated in their own development.

Here are a few best practices organizations can build into their learning programs to encourage self-driven learning:

• Curated knowledge and programs available for learners to choose keeping in mind what is best for them
• Learning tailored to individual differences and styles
• Self-owned, intrinsic learning with some guidance on long-term learning journeys
• Driving culture change to create an environment where individual experiences work as an opportunity for growth and an opportunity for self-discovery.
• Teaching; learning, and helping individuals help one another develop. 
• Learning leaders actively promote and facilitate networking and mentoring opportunities to grow interdependent relationships for improved outcomes and overall healthier organizations.

To create a culture of continuous learning, democratization and personalization of learning is a prerequisite. Learners should be encouraged to anticipate and not just react in determining the needs for new learning. The organization should encourage sharing of information and knowledge freely where every employee participates in collective learning activities. Learning should be integrated to the whole where the importance of learning is connected to the well being of self, others and all of life. They should promote a culture of curiosity and keep alive the power of wonder, welcome situations that raise uncomfortable questions and knowledge gaps. Learning organizations actively look for what needs to be ‘unlearned’ before new learning can take place. It is equally important that organizations create a psychologically safe environment where there is focus to learn from the fears, concerns and what is most meaningful to individuals. An environment of ‘abundance’ rather than one of deficit mindedness emphasizes learning that builds of strengths rather just fixing weaknesses.

Learning is a product whose demand is growing exponentially. L&D teams should act like Product Managers and start thinking about how to meet the growing consumer demand. Here is a checklist of some of the key considerations:

• Product: Is the learning aligned to business needs, contextual and of high relevance to the employees?
• People: What are the learning needs of employees and how do they learn?
• Place: Where are the employees based and how can the organization efficiently provide them with knowledge? How accessible is learning? How can an organization set up a system for delivering learning that is agile and responds to changing needs but maintains quality?
• Promotion: What is the brand of learning? How does the organization communicate the importance of learning to its employees?  
• Price: What is the cost of creating, curating, transferring and applying knowledge?  
• Performance: How does learning link to performance? 

How healthy is your learning ecosystem?

Addressing your learning ecosystem as a ‘whole’

Organizations that have a compelling vision of employees skilled at “Creating”, “Acquiring”, “Transferring” and “Applying” knowledge are more agile and have the ability to respond faster to changing environments compared to their competitors. As a result, their employees continuously deliver higher performance. Learning fitness or learning health is an organization’s collective ‘abilities’ to perform. All too often, companies’ efforts to improve the learning ecosystem are concentrated in a single area – greater involvement of leadership, or more focus on mentoring. In the short term, gains are visible but soon disappear. Each of the building blocks of a learning organization is itself multidimensional and inter-connected.

Generative learning cannot be sustained in an organization where event thinking predominates. Organizations want learners to become fully immersed in learning, so that they can develop new strategies on how to solve problems or scenarios. This requires a conceptual framework of “structural” or systemic thinking, the ability to discover structural causes of behavior. Organizations aspire to improve their overall learning health knowing that it is next to impossible to build a culture of continuous learning, where employees exhibit life-long learner behaviors without having a fit and healthy learning ecosystem, but often forget that it takes a whole system’s approach.

The learning health of an organization comprises of several key building blocks:

1. Strengthen the partnership – Align Learning with Strategy

Aligning learning strategy with business priorities is the starting point of leading successful learning function. As strategic business partners, organizations must ensure that their capability development initiatives support the mission of the businesses they work with. Key questions to address include – the extent to which the current and future needs of the business drive the learning strategy & plans in the organization, how learning & development budgets are being prepared and allocated and how agile the learning function is to change course and respond to new business requirements. To build alignment L&D teams must: 

• Clearly articulate the few critical priorities and must-win battles to which the company and CEO are committed over the next three to five years.
• Align current offerings (courses, content, target audiences, etc.) with the strategic priorities mentioned in the CEO agenda.
• Get inputs and buy-in for the learning agenda from both the learning organization and leaders in the rest of the business — all the way to the CEO level.
• Activate the learning agenda through programmatic activities and changes to the learning portfolio.
• Ensure that the Budget allocation and planning mirrors long term and short term business priorities. Link all spend to performance metrics to ensure scrap learning is minimized and move to a near-zero learning inventory.
• Set up governance councils to review the functioning of L&D periodically and improvise continuously to keep pace with the dynamic business environment. A mix of HR, Learning and Business Leaders in the governance councils can ensure balanced functioning.

2. Impact Assessment – Play the role of a return creator

Resources are scarce, and ensuring the effectiveness of spend is critical. As Drucker said, “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” The one thing we cannot emphasize enough is creating accountability for the money we spend on learning. The L&D budget is at times referred to the “largest unmanaged investment in a company”. Often because of the wasteland of learning that is delivered but not applied on the job- “scrap learning”. Learning which is successfully developed but not applied on the job—comes with high costs. When learners can’t put what they’ve learned into practice, time and money are wasted. This hinders L&D’s ability to raise performance and contribute to impact. L&D’s responsibility is to not only impact change, but also make results measurable and visible. Often, they leave the value they create hidden, taking away from its importance. Most of the times there are simple ways to establish the return on investment. Key aspects to address include –learning metrics that should be used to measure efficiency and effectiveness of learning and the extent to which an organization uses data analytics, predictive modeling in taking decisions related to talent and learning.

This should, in essence, lead to commercial gains, productivity gains, and individual performance gains. At the end of the day, L&D’s goal is to tie learning to results. If organizations can figure out how to help people learn better, they can immediately solve all the other problems. If they get the objectives right, the design right and the delivery right, they will be able to get the effectiveness right.

3. L&D Policies & Processes – Learning must be complemented by an aggregated input that spans across the complete employee life cycle

Learning processes involve the aggregation, creation, curation, collection, interpretation, and dissemination of knowledge. They include experimentation to develop and test new products and services; intelligence gathering to keep track of competitive, customer, and technological trends; disciplined analysis and interpretation to identify and solve problems; and education and training to develop employees. The underlying need to build core processes stems from the fact that effective learning cannot be the result of isolated capability development initiatives. All learning must be built around a consistent input of information across key employee “touch points” right from the start of the employee lifecycle to the end.  

Organizations need to integrate not just HR systems but also the structures, processes, governance models and strategies to succeed. Borrowing from the Gestalt school of thought “The whole is, after all, greater than the sum of its parts”

4. L&D Portfolio – “Charter of Learning” that clearly outlines the L&D function’s reason for being- Raison d’être.  

L&D functions should continue to upgrade the nature and quality of services and solutions that they provide to meet the evolving and rapidly changing needs of the business. In many organizations, L&D is still tactical and operational while a few have raised their game where they continuously reconfigure the learning ecosystem architecture addressing both form and function, enable key performance outcomes through consulting, orchestrate and manage knowledge flows and exchange, drive change of learner behaviors and mindset, design learning experiences suited to the modern day learner, use instructional design to power specific learning outcomes, gather and mine business and employee data to improve the quality of decision making and curate content which is suited to the context of the organization.

5. Tools and Technology: Connected of Things

We are currently witnessing a learning revolution of which technology is an integral part. Billions of dollars are being invested in new cloud-based Human Capital Management Systems. However, research shows that the HR technology environment is far more complex and chaotic than it was before. Though organizations are looking for a ‘single’ system of record for their employees, they are finding it difficult to find one system that addresses all of their requirements. Having said so, they are continuing to replace older heterogeneous systems including learning management systems that aren’t meeting business and learner needs and that are not integrated with other systems. Organizations require a set of software to deliver a single user interface; build and manage employee journeys, develop apps, create and monitor workflows and add forms of conversational interfaces to the mix to be able to meet business requirements and drive learner engagement. The introduction of Learning Experience Platforms (LXP) is helping them lead, enable, manage and support their L&D agenda and cater to the preferences and needs of the modern day ‘learner’. Such new-age technologies boost the learning health of the organization. Moreover, the ease of integrating such platforms & tools with enterprise-wide systems is ensuring that learning is at the heart and center of their businesses.

6. Developing the Learning Professional: An evolving role

The role of L&D is that of a connector: connecting the learner to the learning, the learning to the business, the technology to design, and the context to the content.

L&D is a group of extraordinary potential: the potential to craft life-changing experiences, impact productivity and engagement and drive change. But to do this in today’s day and age, we need to go beyond the conventional and embrace the new.

L&D professionals today must have three emotions in their armor:

• Business partners: A deep understanding of the business and strong stakeholder relationships are key. L&D professionals should treat business leaders as customers and must continuously challenge the business on needs and delivery methods and advise them on opportunities to impact business performance.
• Empathy for the learner: Building shared empathy and understanding is a must-have skill for all L&D professionals today. In the times of experiential learning where we strive to craft life-changing experiences, learning design and delivery cannot be done unless L&D understands the “realities” of learners
• Love for technology: For L&D to serve the modern learner, an appreciation of the role technology plays in the life of a learner is a must. In the age of modern learning, no learning intervention is complete without technology.

7. The era of the Learner – Batch Size equals 1

Learner experience is much more than a buzzword; it heralds a paradigm shift. With learner experience, you are not creating a curriculum; you are creating an experience, one that will translate to the single most differentiating factor.

Over the last decade, the Internet, social media, and mobile access have become huge factors in our private and working lives, changing how we interact with information. By making personalized content available to learners anytime, anywhere and on multiple devices, L&D departments have a realistic shot at significantly reducing the learning curve.

8. A lasting learning culture: Self Directed Learning

A philosophy where an individual feels responsible for their own development is essential to build an everyday learning culture, rather than an isolated training one. Learning initiatives must be intrinsically driven, for ensuring commitment over compliance. It’s just like therapy – you can’t really change unless you know there is a problem and want to.

Self-driven learning will come as a natural corollary to well-designed talent programs that allow individuals to achieve mastery in fields of interest or appeal to their sense of purpose.

As Dr. Kalam put it: “True learning is not a process of pouring in from without, but a calling forth what is within. It’s a process of nurturing, of allowing, of evoking. It is a process of bringing forth the person one is meant to be…”

In today’s workplace, where constant and rapid change is necessary to remain competitive, the best strategy is to create multi-faceted and flexible learning eco-systems, educate the learner on being a smart consumer, set and maintain context, and get out of the learner’s way.

Are you a learning organization?

Corporate mortality rates are on the rise. Is this only a symptom of a deeper problem that afflicts organizations causing some to perish and many to fail to live up to their potential? Are organizations institutionalizing mediocrity when excellence is a possibility? The concept of a learning organization isn’t new. In the 90’s, Peter Senge in his book, The Fifth Discipline, talked about learning disabilities of an organization and the impact it has. It is interesting that the words “whole” and “health” come from the same root (the Old English hal, as in “hale and hearty”). So it should come as no surprise that the unhealthiness of our learning today is in direct proportion to our inability to see it as a ‘whole’.    

A holistic approach to learning requires a supportive learning environment that emphasizes psychological safety, an appreciation of differences, openness to new ideas and time for reflection. It requires fit for purpose concrete learning processes and practices including experimentation, creating, acquiring, interpreting, transferring, retaining and applying knowledge and a leadership team that actively promotes and reinforces learning. 

Organizations need to learn more than ever before! Each organization must become a learning organization if it has to survive, sustain and grow. A learning organization has a compelling vision of employees skilled at “Creating”, “Acquiring”, “Transferring” and “Applying” knowledge. Such learning organizations are more agile and have the ability to respond faster to changing environments compared to their competitors. As a result, they continuously deliver higher performance. They are quick to modify their behavior to respond to those new knowledge & insights based on changing business conditions. Such organizations experiment to develop and test new products and services; gather intelligence to keep track of current and emerging business trends, have a disciplined approach to analyze, interpret and solve business problems using new knowledge and insights. They are always looking for more efficient and effective ways to improve the capacity and capabilities of their employees.

“The rate at which you and your employees learn may well become your only competitive sustainable advantage”

In today’s workplace, where constant and rapid change is necessary to remain competitive, the best strategy is to create multi-faceted and flexible learning eco-systems, educate the learner on being a smart consumer, set and maintain context, and get out of the learner’s way.

Learning fitness or learning health is your collective ‘abilities’ to perform. Organizations outperforming their competitors are seen to have a healthier learning ecosystem and are therefore:  

• 11x more likely to improve the capability of the organization to solve problems
• 3x more likely to achieve benefits related to growth in the competitive climate
• 7x more likely to respond faster to changing business conditions
• 3x more likely to achieve overall productivity benefits including improved talent strategies
• 3x more likely to have improved sustainability and profitability including customer satisfaction

Early Warning Signs: Looking in the Mirror

It is not uncommon for an organization to exhibit early warning signs before deteriorating or dying. The key to optimal outcomes is recognition of these warning signs followed by an appropriate and timely response. Very often, the culmination of these signs shows up in lower engagement scores in which learning and development scores are unfavorable, ultimately leading to high attrition. Exit surveys consistently show that people leave organizations citing career advancement and development as a key reason. Research has evidenced that organizations that are recognized as ‘Best Employers’ offer differentiated career growth and learning opportunities to their employees. But yet again, many aren’t performing to their potential. 

Measuring and managing your organizational learning health is critical. Many organizations are unaware of what’s broken and missing. 

10 Signs you should watch out for:

1. Managers play a passive-defensive role in encouraging their team members to be everyday learners or even more so discourage individuals and create barriers for them to be active learners. Such behaviors inhibit and impair learning, break employees’ spirit and demotivate them.
2. Learning is primarily seen to be a compliance requirement and not driven by a culture of commitment, wherein the stick is only used to drive learner behaviors. Such an environment promotes behaviors where people act “out of fear” and not “out of performance”. 
3. Learners are not recognized and rewarded for learning new skills and knowledge.
4. Leaders and managers do not show interest to understand and appreciate the concerns, fears or what is most meaningful to an individual.
5. Leaders and managers do not invest their time in nurturing and developing talent
6. Leaders and managers do not encourage holistic learning based on the wealth of knowledge in the universe but limit learning to role requirements. 
7. Organization operates with a deficit mindset and encourages learning only to fix weaknesses and not build on strengths. 
8. Leaders and Subject Matter Experts in the organization do not invest their time in continuously upgrading their own knowledge and skills.
9. Individuals are not rewarded for their team behaviors wherein they contribute to how the team learns together as a group and helps others grow and develop. 
10. Leaders are not actively promoting the cause of learning and the learner. They are absent from most learning events themselves and do not role model the behaviors of an everyday learner – the desire to improve every day, be better, set higher standards for themselves. 

Each of the building blocks of a learning organization is itself multidimensional and inter-connected. Individual elements respond to different forces. You can enhance the learning health of an organization in various ways, depending on which subcomponent you emphasize.

Can You Show ROI for your HCM Software?

If you’ve been in the corporate world for long, you’ve heard the acronym “HCM” thrown around a lot. According to Gartner¹, HCM, or human capital management, “is a set of practices related to people resource management. These practices are focused on the organizational need to provide specific competencies and are implemented in three categories: workforce acquisition, workforce management, and workforce optimization.”

HCM software is used by many companies to streamline business processes and manage and maintain staff. It is enabled by various applications such as:

• Personnel administration
• Payroll
• Workforce planning
• Competency management
• Onboarding
• Reporting and analytics
• Workflow

Human capital management software integrates all these functions, as well as many more, into one platform. However, it doesn’t always ensure employee engagement.

Why Companies Using HCM Software Have Disengaged Employees  

Three-quarters of employees are not fully engaged or productive, per a national study by Dale Carnegie Training that was mentioned by Forbes.² This statistic indicates that even with the use of HCM software, some companies still struggle with employee disengagement.   

The causes of employee disengagement vary from company to company. However, there are a few common reasons why employees are dissatisfied. According to a contributor to LinkedIn³, many professionals are disengaged because:

• • They don’t get along with their supervisors

• They don’t fit in with company culture  
• They aren’t taking charge of their own career
• They feel undervalued

Also, a lack of organization can contribute to disengagement, per Recruiter.com⁴. A contributor wrote, “Be sure to remain organized in all your company functions, policies, and procedures so workers will always be fully aware of company-related business and how (if at all) this affects their place in your establishment.” This is where MyGuide can help.  

How to Increase Employee Engagement and Show More ROI for Your HCM Software  

Are you getting the ROI for your HCM software that your company needs? If you have a high level of employee disengagement, the answer is probably “no.” Even if most of your employees are engaged, there is always room for improvement in this area, which is one of the reasons why MyGuide was created.

MyGuide is a tool you can use to create an in-app guide which helps employees use any application or platform effectively. Here are a few points about what MyGuide can do for you:

• Provides in-app training, automation, and intelligence
• Drives adoption and usage
• Fosters better performance
• Reduces the need for HCM software customer support

Additionally, MyGuide Increases employee engagement and productivity by building professionals’ confidence in their ability to correctly use HCM software.

By using MyGuide, you can supercharge your HCM software and maximize its ROI.

Learn more about the benefits of MyGuide here.

References:

1. Gartner. IT glossary. https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/hcm-human-capital-management.
2. Forbes. Why are so many employee disengaged? https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/01/18/why-are-so-many-employees-disengaged/#111e0c1a1e22.
3. LinkedIn. The 3 reasons why your employees are disengaged. https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/hr/2016/the-3-reasons-why-your-employees-are-disengaged.
4. Recruiter.com. 4 effects of a disorganized company. https://www.recruiter.com/i/4-negative-effects-of-a-disorganized-company/

Webinar: Increase Salesforce ROI with In-App Training & Automation

Let’s face it: You need to see more productivity and faster onboarding with Salesforce. Fortunately, you are not alone. Salesforce is a robust CRM that is not quickly or easily configured to your specific business needs.

Let’s discuss getting your teams up-to-speed faster, reducing errors and support tickets, and improving business-critical processes so you can see measurable results.

Come join us for a webinar on Wed., Feb. 27 at 11a PT / 2p ET for an interactive session showing how in-app guides, intelligence and automation software can improve the ROI of Salesforce. We will show you just how easy it is to increase productivity, reduce errors and replace repetitive tasks with MyGuide automation.

We will discuss specific, everyday issues with issues with Salesforce and other business applications to show how MyGuide can make a measurable difference in how your workforce performs critical tasks.  

This instructional webinar will be led by Kalpit Jain, Vice President of MyGuide, and Corey Thompson, Director of Enterprise Solutions at EdCast. The recording and presentation will be made available to all registrants.

Key points that will be discussed:

• How to easily create training guides and automation
• Faster onboarding techniques
• Video screen capture as well as highly customized and embedded “How to” videos in multiple languages tailored to each step
• Robust intelligence and analytics to understand ow salesforce is being used

How to Easily Equip Employees with New Skills

Employee disengagement is an ongoing problem that no one seems to have the solution for. Just 32 percent of Americans are engaged at work.¹ Also, engagement declines with each year that an employee spends with a company.

“While 82.3% of employees are engaged in their inaugural year, that number drops to 74.8% in year two and 73.3% in years three through five,” wrote a contributor to Quantum Workplace.² “Organizations must be intentional about keeping their employees engaged.”

One way to be intentional about engaging employees is to provide training opportunities that equip them with skills that increase competitiveness and professional value.

Why Upskilling Staff Should Be Your Company’s Top Priority

Upskilling employees should be a priority for every company. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Upskilling staff increases employee satisfaction. In fact, 68 percent of employees believe training and development is the most important workplace policy. Your team members especially want to gain digital skills.³
2. Upskilling staff sets the habit of learning. When corporate learning becomes habitual, a continuous learning culture is developed. This type of culture normalizes learning and makes training readily available. Enabling employees to learn in the flow of work promotes habitual learning.
3. Upskilling staff reduces employee churn. Forty percent of employees who are poorly trained leave their job within one year, per Clear Company.⁴ “These employees cited lack of skills training and development as the main reasons they chose to voluntarily leave their positions.” Upskilling staff goes a long way toward reducing turnover.

Engage Your Employees by Offering Training for New Skills

For many employees, the idea of gaining a new skill set is overwhelming. Upskilling can be a fuzzy, complicated concept if not clearly defined. To make the upskilling process obvious and easy to participate in, focus on equipping staff with one new skill per month.

EdCast can get your employees on board with learning a monthly skill by creating and promoting a dedicated learning pathway of your choosing. The pathway can address just about any skill, i.e. cybersecurity, digital transformation, AI, ect. A learning pathway also:

• Can be promoted in weekly email digests
• Consists of the most current, relevant pieces of training content
• Provides proof of certification and a badge of completion

A custom learning pathway encourages training participation by providing a framework for learning and rewarding employees for their engagement. The ultimate reward for learners is the sense of competency that results from owning a new skill.

Just imagine where your company would be in one year if your employees mastered at least one new skill each month. EdCast can help make that  happen.

This month, many EdCast customers are upskilling their employees with the Digital DNA/Digital Transformation Skill of the Month.

Get more information about EdCast’s custom Skill of the Month learning pathways here.

References:

1. Forbes. How to establish a culture of employee engagement. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikekappel/2018/01/04/how-to-establish-a-culture-of-employee-engagement/.
2. Quantum Workplace. 10 surprising employee engagement statistics for 2018. https://www.quantumworkplace.com/future-of-work/10-surprising-employee-engagement-statistics-2018/.
3. Forbes. What do employees want? They want digital skills. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2018/11/21/what-do-employees-want-they-want-digital-skills/#6a1804c17f56.
4. Clear Company. 5 surprising employee development statistics you didn’t know. https://blog.clearcompany.com/5-surprising-employee-development-statistics-you-dont-know.

EdCast Acquires Leapest, the Leading Corporate Training Marketplace with 1,600 Business Customers

EdCast expands its blended learning offerings by adding Leapest, an online marketplace for corporate training with 5,000 learning products and a focus on high-tech upskilling, to EdCast’s knowledge management offerings.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA and ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS  Feb. 12, 2019 — EdCast, known as the operating system for the knowledge economy, announces the acquisition of Rotterdam-based Leapest. Founded in 2017, Leapest hosts three integrated training resource marketplaces on one platform, featuring over 5,000 learning products and instructors from all over the world. Leapest will be rebranded to be Leapest by EdCast.

The CEO and Founder of Leapest, Sukhbir Jasuja, will be joining EdCast as its Executive Vice President and Managing Director of EdCast’s Blended Learning Marketplace. In conjunction with Annee Bayeux (EdCast’s Chief Customer Officer for Europe), Jasuja will help lead EdCast’s new European operations. This acquisition will accelerate EdCast’s rapid growth in Europe and expand the company’s blended learning capabilities.

With this step, EdCast also builds upon its success with ContentExchange, the global learning content marketplace focused on workforce upskilling.

“We are thrilled to add Leapest and its team to our expanding blended learning and ContentExchange capabilities,” said Karl Mehta, CEO and founder of EdCast. “EdCast is weaving together the key aspects of enterprise training on one integrated Knowledge Cloud platform, creating a unique, critical ecosystem for learning, training and knowledge management.”

Since launching its marketplace two years ago, Leapest continues to grow at an exponential pace. With over 1,600 business buyers from more than 100 countries, Leapest is attracting dozens of new business buyers per week. In addition to its variety of product offerings, Leapest stands out for the integrated cloud-based training delivery environment it offers to L&D departments, corporate universities and training providers.

“We are excited about creating better learning experiences and bringing more choice and convenience for all actors involved in corporate training by joining forces with the global team at EdCast,” said Sukhbir Jasuja, CEO of Leapest. “We look forward to supporting enterprises building the workforces of the future by creating abundant opportunities for learning and upskilling through our marketplace.”

Global industry analyst Josh Bersin discussed the acquisition in an article published recently, stating: “This acquisition demonstrates how the LXP market is growing up. By acquiring Leapest, EdCast becomes both an LXP and a true content network, adding LMS features as well. This changes the game, and has the potential to add tremendous new value for corporate training buyers.”

About EdCast
EdCast is the AI-Powered Knowledge Cloud solution for unified discovery, personalized learning and knowledge management across the enterprise. Its award-winning platform is used internationally by Global 2000 companies and large government organizations, including NASSCOM and World Economic Forum, to solve the discovery and curation problems across all external and internal knowledge sources. EdCast’s offerings include its Learning Experience Platform (LXP) and MyGuide’s in-app guides, intelligence, and automation for business software. Follow on Twitter @EdCast.

About Leapest by EdCast
Leapest by EdCast (formerly Leapest) offers a corporate learning marketplace for training content (courseware, eLearning, business simulations, labs), industry certifications and instructor service. Enterprises can define and design the training activities for their teams and have control of creating the learning experiences by being able to choose the content and instructors they need. Leapest is architected for agility, scalability, and reliability; the marketplace model enables enterprises and training providers to offer a variety of learning options and create scalable programs while controlling costs.  Leapest pioneers a training resources ecosystem that engenders both transparency and a strong spirit of sharing.