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By Subbu Viswanathan, CEO of <\/em>Disprz<\/em><\/a>, an enterprise skills acceleration platform, 3-time tech entrepreneur, former McKinsey consultant, ITT and ISB alumni.<\/em><\/p>\n getty<\/small><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Conducting corporate learning with a generic approach often fails to capture the learner’s interest. One of the best ways to motivate employee learning is by embracing personalization. A personalized learning approach gives dedicated attention to employees’ personal growth to ensure development and career advancement.<\/p>\n Recent research<\/a> found that “93% of high-performing organizations agreed personalized learning supports an employee in reaching professional goals more efficiently.” Before we see how to develop a personalized learning strategy, let’s get to the basics and understand what this learning and development (L&D) technique really is.<\/p>\n Personalized learning is an employee-centric L&D approach that tailors training to an individual’s job role, needs and interests. This smart L&D strategy aligns skilling with a learner’s skill gaps and career path.<\/p>\n In a world where everything from e-commerce platforms to movie streaming apps is personalized, providing the same “just for me” experience is pivotal to grabbing employees’ attention. Making personalized learning a part of your L&D strategy can be very beneficial for your organization. Those potential benefits include:<\/p>\n 1. Boosting employee engagement<\/p>\n 2. Improving knowledge retention<\/p>\n 3. Maintaining a competitive edge<\/p>\n 4. Boosting career development<\/p>\n 5. Increasing employee retention<\/p>\n Many companies, like Netflix and Amazon, have tapped into personalization<\/a> to enhance user experience. But how can L&D leaders like you implement personalization for employee learning? Here are five steps to develop a personalized learning strategy for your organization.<\/p>\n Before you commence your personalized learning journey, it is crucial to set learning and business goals that act as a benchmark to measure progress. You must be clear about what you want to achieve for a department\/role before investing time and effort in creating their personalized learning journey.<\/p>\n To effectively set goals, work with the business heads to understand the objectives for each department and coordinate with the team leads to establish goals for each individual. For instance, a business aims to achieve a 30% increase in revenue in the next year. To link this goal with the teams, you want to set business goals for each department and learning goals for each individual within that department. This can ensure personalized learning efforts are aligned with business outcomes.<\/p>\n One of the most crucial steps of personalization in learning and development is to bridge the individual skill gaps and improve employee performance. That\u2019s why it is imperative to have a skill inventory that defines the skills needed for each role in your organization. This can give you a bird’s eye view into what skills matter for different roles in your organization.<\/p>\n Here are a few steps to building a skill inventory.<\/p>\n \u2022 Based on industry standards, list the skills for every role.<\/p>\n \u2022 While creating the list, consider your business objectives, variety of projects and key areas of the specific role.<\/p>\n \u2022 Categorize them into technical, functional and leadership skills.<\/p>\n \u2022 Use a number scale to grade every skill level. For example:<\/p>\n 1. Novice<\/p>\n 2. Advanced Beginner<\/p>\n 3. Competent<\/p>\n 4. Proficient<\/p>\n 5. Expert<\/p>\n \u2022 Manually perform the skill research, or leverage advanced learning technology, like a Learning Experience Platform (disclosure: my company offers this product), that can assist you in identifying and benchmarking skills for each role.<\/p>\n Assess each employee\u2019s skill level using your previously created skill inventory to detect gaps that are affecting performance. Through self or manager assessment, find out the grade for every skill. This can help you determine which skills are missing and which need to be strengthened. For instance, a bank associate could be graded three on a one-to-five scale for account management skills.<\/p>\n Once you have a grade for every role, connect with the team lead and guide them to have a one-to-one conversation with the employees to give them a visual representation of both the existing capabilities with the skill score and the details of the required skills.<\/p>\n Encourage the team lead to collect information about the employee\u2019s needs, aspirations and goals they want to achieve. This data can help you in mapping out a personalized learning journey that can be embedded into the employee\u2019s flow of work.<\/p>\n Managers have a wealth of information about their teams. This makes them an often-untapped resource for developing personalized learning journeys. It is important to gain the cooperation and participation of the manager to be successful.<\/p>\nWhat Is Personalized Learning?<\/h2>\n
5 Steps To Develop A Personalized Learning Experience<\/h2>\n
1. Set Learning And Business Goals<\/h3>\n
2. Create A Skill Inventory<\/h3>\n
3. Assess Employee Skill Gaps<\/h3>\n
4. Tap Managers In The Learning Process<\/h3>\n