Training Industry Magazine - January/February 2020 - 9

ENZO SILVA

GUEST EDITOR

3 KEY TECHNOLOGY PRINCIPLES
FOR INTEGRATED EMPLOYEE
LEARNING EXPERIENCES

The digitization of the workforce and
emerging technologies have disrupted
learning and development (L&D). Today's
tech-savvy workforce expects technology
to be a natural and frequent part of
learning and working. This means that
companies must provide mobile and
social opportunities in the flow of work for
employees to develop new skill sets.

consider the relationships between the
content they're creating, where and how
the content will be consumed, and how to
optimize it for discoverability by adopting
tools within the organization and applying a
metadata taxonomy.

L&D organizations need to become
invisible, bringing their offerings into
on-the-job experiences in the context of
everyday work. "Creating a seamless user
experience for the learner is what matters
in the new invisible L&D organization,"
according to Jennifer Juo, human
resources and L&D insights editor at
Udemy for Business. "Rather than creating
content, L&D's job is to curate content and
find ways to surface this to learners in the
moment of need through social media,
AI, or internal websites."

It is easy for organizations to be tempted
by the latest tools in the market. However,
chances are the tools necessary to create
and publish content are already present
in the organizations' ecosystem. Bringing
in new tools without proper analysis can
be detrimental to the learning experience.
Using existing tools available to an
organization is a cost-effective solution
that adheres to a company's existing
policies and strategy.

Here are three principles for integrated
employee learning experiences:
BUILD THE FOUNDATION BEFORE
BRINGING IN THE LATEST TRENDS
Organizations tend to place a lot of
emphasis on industry trends, such as
machine learning and artificial intelligence
(AI), but forget to build the underlying data
and technical structures to support the
ideal user experience. Afterall, AI is only
as smart as the content it accesses.
It is important for content creators to
properly tag, describe and link their
content pieces into a holistic and seamless
experience. Content owners need to

STANDARDIZE CONTENT
DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

MAKE L&D PART OF THE
LARGER ECOSYSTEM
With all the content from various tools,
repositories and channels in the L&D tech
stack, it becomes even more important
to provide audiences with a consumergrade, cohesive experience.
As Kelly Rider, global head of learner
experience at SAP, says, "The future
learning experience isn't about holding
employees 'hostage' in one single
application. It's about saving employees
time and making it easier to find what they
need so they can perform their work."
In order to create a cohesive L&D
experience, learning organizations need
to apply the latest data-driven approaches.

For instance, a learning record store
(LRS) allows users to track experiences
and interactions with content outside the
bounds of the formal, education-driven
learning management system (LMS). When
enterprise recommendations engines use
LRS data, in addition to other user data, they
can recommend more relevant experiences
and content by applying machine learning
to workforce development.

L&D ORGANIZATIONS
NEED TO BECOME
INVISIBLE.
High-performing organizations focus on
the simplicity of the learning experience.
Consider implementing an adaptive,
unified source for not only learning
experiences but also for content from
sources that employees are already
using. Embed learning experiences in
work experiences that are relevant to
each audience segment.
A holistic understanding of people, their
needs and experiences is crucial to enabling
employees to develop to their full potential.
By adopting an experience management
strategy for technology, organizations can
create an enterprise system of action that
not only improves employees' everyday
experiences throughout the employment
lifecycle but also empowers business
leaders to make strong talent decisions.
Enzo Silva is a learning strategist at SAP. He
has led and contributed to award-winning
programs that support talent strategy and
L&D mediated by technological principles
and trends. Email Enzo.

T R A I N I N G I N DUSTR Y MAGAZ INE -AGILE LEARNING 2020 I WWW. T RAININGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

https://www.trainingindustry.com/glossary/learning-record-store-lrs/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/glossary/learning-record-store-lrs/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/glossary/learning-management-system-lms/ https://business.udemy.com/blog/7-reasons-your-ld-team-should-be-invisible/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/glossary/artificial-intelligence/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/glossary/artificial-intelligence/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/magazine

Training Industry Magazine - January/February 2020

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