Office Hours: How to Deliver Learner Centered Programs

This post is part of our biweekly "Office Hours" video series, featuring quick career, workplace and leadership tips from talent management experts and business leaders across the globe.

When it comes to employee training, large corporations are in a bit of a tough spot. According to a recent LinkedIn report, 94 percent of employees would stick around longer at a company that invests in career development. Yet, in the same report, survey respondents said their greatest learning challenge was "getting employees to make time for learning." How do you give employees something they want, but allegedly don't have time for?

In this video, Summer Salomonsen, chief learning officer of Grovo, suggests a clear-minded approach. In the time-constrained reality of the modern workplace, all learning content must be relevant and engaging. It should yield clear answers to the questions, What is the point of this? and Why am I the right person to be doing it?

If an employee can't identify the business goal that specific training serves, or figure out how it helps them in their own career, chances are they'll ignore the increasingly irritating reminders from their company's learning portal to complete tasks x through y.

As Salomonsen says, "It's on us to deliver learner-centered programs"—programs that identify business purposes, make employees better at their jobs, and in doing so contribute to building a growth mindset-oriented organization.

Header photo: Creative Commons