Allow Employees to Create Learning Content

Allowing everyone to create content is a unique idea in most L&D environments. It’s hard to let go of control. L&D has been the gatekeepers of knowledge for so long that it’s going to be hard to change. But in today’s environment everyone is more comfortable sharing what they know. And if you’re concerned about the “wrong” information being shared, then you need to get over that as well. For one thing, that knowledge is probably being shared without your knowledge already. And ignorance is NOT bliss. Making content creation public gives everyone the changes to not only create but edit, and comment on other’s content.

Harness the power of sharing and you’re one step closer to keeping up with your business. And more importantly you’re now providing content quickly and easily to those who need it when they need. No more waiting for long development cycles with delayed review processes. The immediate feedback you receive will guide continued development that may, or may not, be necessary. Your limited resources will never be able to keep up with demand. So stop fighting it. Open the doors of creation and start scaling up your business value.

Gamification Has Simple Effective Business Impacts

Gamification may seem like a gimmick, but it’s a gimmick that works. It also feels like a small addition that is not necessary for learning, but it’s more than just stickers. It’s data. It’s open recognition of success. It’s motivation to continue learning and engaging in those positive activities that add value to the business.

Your gamification efforts can be as simple as points, level advancement, and images representing achievement. In and of themselves they have no value beyond decoration for your profile. But a highly decorated profile that displays legitimate achievements related to the business provides motivation to others.

If your new to a company your profile is empty. It’s obvious that you are new because you have not achieved any successes yet. And when you see the achievements available within the origination by viewing the decorated profiles of your peers, you not only get an instant image of who that peer is and what they’ve done, but you can see that there is a path defined for you to reach that level as well.

Career Paths Require a Team Effort

Knowing that there is a clear path to follow is comforting for new employees. A path quickly defines not only what is possible and available to the new employee, but how to get there. Defining career paths is something L&D cannot do in a vacuum. Career achievement paths need to be a team effort between L&D, HR, and the business units. You should have an enterprise learning management system that can structure paths of courses.

But these paths must also contain certain performance goals as well. Did you know you can manage performance via your LMS? A great feature for this in Litmos is the checklist module. Part of your career paths can include modules and course that require proof of performance. It’s a creative use of your LMS that adds value to the business.

Partnering with HR also connects your paths to career advancements that equate to promotions and pay level increases. So, when planning your career paths be sure to engage all stakeholders and define the roles and responsibilities of each in order to guarantee success.

Move From a Cost Center to Revenue Generation

If you really want to motivate a training team, then let them experiment with selling training. This can be part of formalized certification strategy that you are selling to channel partners. But it can also be as simple as building courses for your specific industry and “selling” them on the open market. Branded learning content functions as a marketing tool as well as a recruiting tool. You may not even “charge” for the courses, but your commerce engine is what easily opens up your courses to the public. It offers an easy signup page and collects the relevant data for you to engage with the user. Each consumer of your “revenue generating” content is a potential customer, partner, or employee.

This simple shift in mindset from cost center to revenue generation can build trust and respect between your training team and other divisions with the company.  You may not be able to make the shift immediately. But keep the idea in the back of your mind and begin thinking about what you will need to make it happen. If your current LMS can’t handle eCommerce then maybe its time to find a new cloud based learning management system that can.

Allow Flexibility in Your Expectations

Learning solutions are no longer single course files. There is still a need for packaged SCORM content that includes all content and interactivity within one .zip file. But the development of such courses has become too slow and cumbersome to keep up with the rate of change in the average business.

It’s okay to combine simple media content and call it a course. I’ve often said that one video and a quiz, designed properly, can be an amazingly effective course. Don’t confine your thinking to “course equals SCORM package”. Allow your enterprise training team to experiment with different formulas, models and templates. The traditional idea of what a course should be is long gone. Experimenting with new, shorter, less perfect, content opens up your team to more successes by allowing them to fail, and improve.