Who are you? What’s the point? Is this more compliance stuff?

By Ivonne Smith

We’re pleased to bring you a guest blog post by Ivonne Smith, a Skillsoft Learning Strategy Consultant

I know these questions sound a bit harsh, but it might be questions that your learners ask if you haven’t created a solid brand around your learning program. Our research has found that, quite often, learning organizations are defined by their 20-year-old “training” images or are associated with their most abundant learning requirement (i.e. is this more compliance stuff?). With this in mind, I challenge you to look in the mirror and see how employees are truly viewing the learning brand of your organization. Set up a focus group, survey your audience—however you do it, be honest and clear on your learning organization’s current brand image.

Once you have a good sense of how your learning organization is perceived, you may need to think about your brand and how you can reinvent it. In a Skillsoft blog post last spring, Shawn Hunter, Executive Producer of the Skillsoft Leadership Development Channel™, asked you to “think about your learning product. Who your learning team is, not what you do? What does your learning team do for employees? What kind of aspiration does it tap into of the employees or managers? What does your learning do more for the employees that employees cannot do without it?” Asking these questions is a perfect way to start thinking of your learning brand and what value is provided to the organization.

If value is perceived and you have a strong brand, learning’s perception within the business will be elevated. In organizations where a true learning culture exists, the learning leaders have a place at the business planning table to ensure that all learning and development is aligned to what the business needs. Furthermore, when learning is aligned to the business, there is magically higher adoption in classes (instructor-led and online), more requests for learning, and, even better, more likely to be enough budget to support newer (business aligned, of course!) programs.

If you work with a Skillsoft Learning Consultant, then you have heard time and time again that it is critical that you market your learning offerings in order to ensure that employees are aware of all of your offerings. In fact, Skillsoft customers who market their programs are 3x more likely to have high e-learning adoption. I agree, marketing is critical…but make sure you are marketing a strong learning brand that is perceived as valuable, aspirational, and something your employees cannot live without.

Have you dusted off the old mirror and looked at the reflection of your learning organization lately? What do you see? Be honest.