Choosing the right content for your team can be tricky. After all, regardless of the size of your business, you likely have a diverse team comprised of employees with vastly different roles, unique goals, and varying levels of experience. 

L&D has the potential to boost productivity and increase retention – but only if your content offerings are actually useful to your employees. Content that’s uninteresting, too long, or irrelevant won’t be well-received, which means you’ll be wasting time and money on unsuccessful learning. 

So how can you effectively curate content that will meet the needs of everyone in your organization? We turned to several of our partners and customers to find out what strategies they employ when selecting learning content. 

First, when determining what content to offer, it’s important to listen to what your employees or customers are already saying about their current learning opportunities. Paying attention to customer feedback enabled WorkRamp, a Go1 partner, to determine exactly how they could improve their product to provide customers with the content they were asking for. 

“Our teams work very closely with our customers so that there are always open channels of communication for feedback,” said Minerva Thai, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at WorkRamp. “One of the challenges we saw come up frequently was the need for off-the-shelf content. Those findings kicked us off to find the right company to partner with to meet our customers’ needs.” 

Go1 customer Fanatics also takes feedback seriously. In fact, they started looking for new learning content in response to feedback they received in an employee engagement survey. 

“We dove deep into the comments and the information that we received from the employee engagement survey,” recounted Dawn Stopha, Director of Global Programs at Fanatics. “People were crying out for employee development. ‘I want leadership development’ and ‘I need coaching programs.’ We thought, ‘Now it's time. Our employees are telling us it's time.” 

In addition to evaluating feedback from your employees or customers, you’ll also want to identify learning gaps across your company. While Karla Rainer, Director of HR at ABC Companies, has already worked with Go1 to build a content offering for her employees, she is continuously on the lookout for gaps that need to be filled. 

Karla and her team recognized that employees who had been promoted into management roles weren’t receiving the training they needed to succeed in their new positions. “A lot of these managers might be great at the specific job they’re doing that got them noticed for a promotion,” Karla said. “We need to make sure that they can keep their promotion. We want to be sure that we’re giving them the basic tools to succeed in their next role.” 

Karla has added new manager training content to her list of priorities, and she says providing this content is the next update she’ll make to the company’s learning program. 

Your employees and customers are diverse people with diverse needs – and you’ll need to understand the full range of diversity present at your company to select content that works for everyone. 

For Fanatics, identifying the diversity in their workforce was key to their content selection process. “What we [used to] do is we would develop things quickly using PowerPoint and just push out content, not really getting to know who our audience was,” said Dawn. “As our culture started to shift and new employees started to come in, we're now at almost 82% millennials and Gen Z. So, what we had to do was really shift to meet the changing culture of the employees that were coming into Fanatics.” 

Identifying the changes in their workforce has allowed Fanatics to incorporate content that meets the needs of younger generations. Their content offering now includes micro-learning, podcasts, and even virtual reality. 

Once you understand your company’s learning needs, it’s time to identify your priorities. When they were looking for a content provider, Fanatics created a list of their content priorities. “We had a checklist of top things that would help us provide support, from mobile access, to length of courses, to duration, to language, and a lot of different things,” Dawn said. “We actually bucketed [our priorities] into A, B, and C.” 

Fanatics didn’t simply make a priority list and forget about it – they continued to reference it throughout their vendor selection process. “We interviewed 13 different vendors and we used our priorities,” Dawn said. “We went through the list, we each took a vendor, and then we narrowed it down.” 

Finally, remember that choosing the right content for your workforce isn’t a process you have to go through alone. For example, ABC Companies frequently leaned on Go1’s customer experience team to help them make content selections. 

“I completely trusted what our [Go1] customer service rep recommended,” Karla said. “Anytime I had a question or anything, he would always give me his recommendations, or which providers he sees a lot of other companies using, and that’s always been a big help.” 

Go1 continues to support ABC Companies whenever they want to make a change to their content offering. “Even to this day, we have this designated customer service rep that we can always reach out to,” said Karla. “It’s definitely a big deal for our side of things.” 

Collaborating with Go1 to select content has helped increase ABC’s engagement rates. With 83% of training modules completed, Karla says, “Our engagement is higher now than it’s ever been.” 

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs. 

False

0d7ad75c-b5a9-45ee-b60a-db362bcc875f_Karla+Rainer+-+ABC+Companies+500x500_02_desktop

0d7ad75c-b5a9-45ee-b60a-db362bcc875f_Karla+Rainer+-+ABC+Companies+500x500_02_mobile

0d7ad75c-b5a9-45ee-b60a-db362bcc875f_Karla+Rainer+-+ABC+Companies+500x500_02

Overwhelmed by the idea of choosing content that will meet the needs of your entire team? We’ve got advice from Go1 customers and partners who have already been through the process.

Insights from the Industry: How to choose the right content for your employees

Encouraging employees to develop a growth mindset is essential for any forward-thinking company. Your organization may provide learning materials, resources, and personalized PDPs for your employees, but that isn’t where your responsibilities as an employer end. To take engagement to the next level and ensure your business continues to grow, you must encourage employees to have a growth mindset.

A growth mindset, a term coined by psychologist Professor Carol Dweck in 2006, is the belief that you can use hard work, strategies, and guidance to grow and develop. Having a growth mindset encourages employees to proactively pursue growth through dedication and commitment, and not allow setbacks to get in the way of progress.

Encouraging employees to follow this method ensures sustained growth and continued success in a rapidly changing business landscape. With this in mind, we’ll explore how you can foster a growth mindset at your organization through collaboration, training, and continuous reinforcement.

Understanding the power of a growth mindset at work

It’s important to understand the power of adopting a growth mindset to see how it can benefit your organization. To do this, consider how learning and development suffers when employees don’t have a growth mindset:

Allowing problems or setbacks to become blockers

With a growth mindset, employees approach learning and development with more enthusiasm, which can prevent such issues from materializing. When employees put effort and perseverance into their development, they’re more likely to have positive outcomes. 

25bb05b0-73f2-4a58-8460-c8a705847312_Growth+Mindset+PQ1

Not only this, but adopting a growth mindset also has additional benefits:

Allows your business to be agile and adapt to industry changes

Encourages problem-solving and resilience

Builds a culture of continuous learning in your organization

Encourages more collaboration and communication

For example, Apple, Microsoft, and Bloomberg are just three major organizations that have successfully built a growth mindset in their workforces. To learn more, check out our podcast on the neuroscience behind a fixed vs growth mindset.

Nurturing a growth mindset in your employees

Now that you know the benefits of a growth mindset, the question becomes: how can you develop a growth mindset at work? Consider the following steps to encourage your employees to make this positive change:

Employees should be encouraged to reflect on the skills and knowledge they lack.

Senior leaders should adopt a growth mindset to set an example for others across the business.

Encourage employees to step out of their comfort zone and challenge themselves. When employees face challenges, they’re more likely to seek ways to grow and learn.

Reward and celebrate successes, no matter how small.

Don’t have a negative attitude towards failure. Instead, offer support and guidance to employees who struggle.

Offer a variety of opportunities to learn, such as through online courses, in-person sessions, and collaborative learning.

Creating personalized learning plans that are specific to each employee. Check out our post on personalized learning at scale for more information.

Encourage feedback from across the organization.

Introduce gamification to add a fun and competitive element to learning.

Help employees by offering training on persistence and resilience.

Set achievable, transparent, and trackable goals.

Encouraging a culture of collaboration and innovation

There is a close connection between collaboration, innovation, and developing a growth mindset. For example, with a growth mindset, employees are more likely to be open to new ideas, be happy to accept feedback, and be more receptive to suggestions.

b64011db-657e-4d64-a853-cf9c005dd7bb_Growth+Mindset+PQ2

The same also works in reverse. Encouraging collaboration and innovation can attract employees to a growth mindset.

Of course, with innovation comes risk, and with risk comes the possibility of failure. However, as we’ve highlighted, failure shouldn’t be viewed negatively, as doing so will prevent future growth opportunities. Instead, learning from failures is a key part of fostering a growth mindset.

As such, you should encourage experimentation and creative problem-solving. Not only will this lead to more success, but also increase how employees learn and develop.

Sustaining a growth mindset through continuous reinforcement

Encouraging your employees to adopt a growth mindset is just the beginning. Getting them to sustain that mindset indefinitely can be another challenge altogether. Doing this requires continuous reinforcement so employees recognize and understand the importance of development.

A part of adopting a growth mindset is employees changing how they feel and behave about learning. It could be something small and simple, like putting their phone in another room so they can focus, or something large, such as overcoming self-doubt and fear.

Reinforcement, such as recognizing successes and rewarding innovation, ensures that employees remain motivated, engaged, and willing to develop.

Of course, setbacks will happen. However, continuous reinforcement helps you overcome these setbacks. Plus, having a growth mindset will ensure fewer setbacks in the future!

Go1 can support your business in fostering a growth mindset culture

At Go1, we have a range of online courses that can help your employees adopt a growth mindset.

Check out our case study on delivering a transformational learning ecosystem for Lumanity, or speak to one of our experts today to get started on your learning journey. 

886dfd7c-8ab9-4230-95e2-28e04c491746_How+to+foster+a+growth+mindset+-+754x500+v1_desktop

886dfd7c-8ab9-4230-95e2-28e04c491746_How+to+foster+a+growth+mindset+-+754x500+v1_mobile

886dfd7c-8ab9-4230-95e2-28e04c491746_How+to+foster+a+growth+mindset+-+754x500+v1

We’ll explore how you can foster a growth mindset at your organization through collaboration, training, and continuous reinforcement.

How to foster a growth mindset in a rapidly growing organization

Employee professional development is crucial if your organization wants to be competitive and profitable. While professional development ensures your employees can learn and grow, it also has significant benefits for your organization.

The more opportunities employees have to grow, the more they can improve their efficiency and productivity, leading to more effective ways of working, more innovation, and an overall happier and more satisfied workforce. Ultimately, this will contribute to your organization being more profitable.

Accordingly, we’ll explore how your organization can leverage personal development to become more profitable, including how professional development improves performance and how you can better understand learning ROI.

How can you understand the value of professional development?

The value of professional development can’t be overstated. Providing your employees with the tools, resources, and time they need to develop may come at a cost, but ROI for learning and development can be substantial.

Consider the following points to see  how much value professional development holds:

It provides your employees with new skills and knowledge that align with both their goals and the goals of your organization.

It improves the performance of employees across your organization.

It creates a culture of learning and development.

It showcases that your organization values its employees. 

It offers you more opportunities for career advancement and internal mobility, thereby reducing the need for expensive and lengthy recruitment processes.

Adopting a growth mindset motivates employees to proactively develop themselves.

It improves your organization’s flexibility and adaptability.

How does developing your employees allow your organization to become more profitable?

Professional development has numerous benefits for both employees and your business. To summarize, the benefits for employees include:

Improves morale, job satisfaction, and wellbeing

Offers more opportunities for progression

Ensures your business can adapt to a fast-paced landscape

Allows your business to offer new products and services

Allows your business to recruit and retain top industry talent

d17daab1-75e3-486f-91c3-c668317fb31d_Professional+Development+PQ1

As such, the benefits of professional development lead to both lower costs and higher revenue, meaning your organization can become more competitive, more successful, and more profitable.

How does workplace learning improve performance?

The more an employee knows and the more refined their skills are, the better they’ll perform.

In 2019, the International Journal of Business and Management Research found that 90% of employees agree or strongly agree that training and development programs improve their job performance. Similarly, a 2023 report from LinkedIn revealed that 94% of employees would stay with their employer longer if they invested in their development.

6aa2aa8c-3cc1-457b-bafe-33fc279f5158_Professional+Development+PQ2+%281%29

It’s hard to argue with stats like these. When businesses offer their employees more opportunities to develop, employees feel more valued, more confident and are less likely to seek roles elsewhere. As a result, employees will use their continued progression and skills to deliver better results and reduce costs.

Highlighting that training leads to better performance is one thing, but how do you calculate the ROI of your learning and development program?

The quick answer is to work out the percentage using a simple calculation:

ROI = (total benefits - total costs) / cost of learning * 100

For example, if you work out that your training has directly led to $5,000 of additional revenue off the back of training that cost $3,000, it would work out as this:

As a result, you could work out that the return on investment was 67%.

However, the ROI of training goes way beyond this simple calculation. The following points should also be considered when measuring the true ROI of your professional development program:

Set clear and measurable objectives beyond revenue, such as customer satisfaction scores, average order value, and timescales.

The impact on retention and the money saved on recruitment. A study found that hiring an employee costs an average of $7,645.

Establish business-wide KPIs, such as conversion rates. 

Collate and organize relevant data regularly to ensure you can refine training strategies where necessary.

Calculate wider development costs, such as materials, time, and technology.

Consider the cost-saving benefits, including increased innovation and productivity.

For further reading, check out our blog posts on how to calculate the ROI of your LMS and improving ROI metrics to showcase L&D’s value.

It can be easy to assume that all types of training will positively impact employee performance, but this might not always be the case. As we’ve highlighted, your employee development strategy must align with the overall goals of your business. If it doesn’t, you may be upskilling employees in areas that don’t directly impact their performance in the relevant areas. As such, your ROI will suffer. 

Additionally, measuring the ROI of training increases transparency, which allows you to adjust your learning and development program to benefit employees and your business.

What’s more, personalized learning at scale is a vital part of creating an effective L&D strategy. That way, your employees will be more engaged, and your business can improve in different ways that drive continued success. Having data that demonstrates the impact and ROI of training justifies this crucial investment and ensures continued cooperation with key stakeholders.

At Go1, we work with leading learning providers to offer a vast library of online courses that you can utilize as part of your learning and development strategy.

Download our 50 tips for increasing L&D business value, or speak to one of our experts today to find out how we can help your organization build a culture of learning.

fa3c6075-b938-40b1-a33e-c5dec0ff65f2_How+to+leverage+professional+development+-+754x500+v1_desktop

fa3c6075-b938-40b1-a33e-c5dec0ff65f2_How+to+leverage+professional+development+-+754x500+v1_mobile

fa3c6075-b938-40b1-a33e-c5dec0ff65f2_How+to+leverage+professional+development+-+754x500+v1

We’ll explore how your organization can leverage personal development to become more profitable, including how professional development improves performance.

How to leverage professional development to become a more profitable organization

In today’s fast-paced workplace, employees can find it difficult to dedicate time to learning and development. However, this is counter-productive. Not only does failing to dedicate time to L&D stagnate employee growth, but it also stagnates business growth. When employees can't learn new skills and develop their knowledge, they can’t improve their performance. 

However, one convenient, accessible, and low-pressure way employees can develop is through micro-credentials. Learning through short, easily digestible sessions ensures employees continue to grow without adding unnecessary stress and intensive additional workloads.

59e5a1e7-2244-4b34-bdfb-ccb4802a6bd6_Micro-credentials+PQ1

Accordingly, we’ll explore the benefits of micro-credentials, including some of the most popular micro-credential topics and how you can introduce this effective learning technique to your organization.

Micro-credentials are short, accessible credentials that allow an employee to learn a skill or piece of information. Rather than a long and detailed course that covers numerous topics, micro-credentials cover a specific topic in an accessible way. Over time, when an employee obtains several micro-credentials, it will contribute to learning valuable new skills that they can apply at your organization.

What are the benefits of micro-credentials?

Micro-credentials offer busy employees a flexible and convenient way to learn and develop. Below are some of the benefits of micro-credentials.

Employees can learn specific skills that align with the goals of your organization.

Employees learn in bite-sized chunks that increase engagement and retention.

They ensure employees aren’t overwhelmed with daunting workloads that seem unachievable.

They are valuable when developing personalized learning at scale.

They ensure you can evolve with industry trends by providing reactive training quickly and easily.

They build a culture of learning in your organization.

They help increase productivity, efficiency, and confidence, ensuring your employees can provide better service.

They help employees feel more valued and can lead to lower employee turnover.

How to align micro-credentials with your organization's goals 

While micro-credentials offer the flexibility and convenience employees need to learn, it’s also important to ensure they align with your organization’s goals. Here are some steps your business can take to ensure the two are synced.

Understand what skills your employees need to meet organizational goals and objectives.

Perform a skills gap analysis to identify which skills your employees need to develop.

Use data as part of employee reviews to understand how employees can improve.

Identify which micro-credentials align with skills gaps, employee goals, and organizational objectives.

Build micro-credentials into employees’ development goals.

Communicate the value of micro-credentials and how they contribute to employee growth and the overall success of your business.

Offer incentives and gamification to increase employee engagement.

Ensure employees have the opportunity to use the skills and knowledge they learn.

What are common micro-credentials employees can gain?

One of the main advantages of micro-credentials is that they are available across a wide range of topics. Some of the most common micro-credentials your employees can gain include:

Technical skills, such as software development and data analysis

Software skills, such as Microsoft Excel and Word

Project management skills, such as organization, planning, and risk management

Communication skills, such as presentation skills and teamwork

Leadership skills, such as delegation, team building, and conflict resolution

Customer service skills, such as problem-solving and active listening

Sales skills, such as negotiation and relationship building

Diversity and inclusion, such as how to build an inclusive workplace

Soft skills, such as time management, emotional intelligence, and resilience

Industry-specific knowledge, such as compliance training

Health and safety knowledge, such as first aid and fire safety

What are the challenges of micro-credentials?

Micro-credentials allow for a greater level of accessibility, flexibility, and convenience. As a result, courses are divided into manageable chunks that don’t overwhelm employees. This can give some stakeholders the impression that micro-credentials don’t offer the same depth as other courses. However, this isn’t the case.

b6c99347-11c4-42fd-a397-83d8da00aa0f_Micro-credentials+PQ2

Similarly, because so many micro-credentials are available, it can be hard to know where to start. Following the above steps can help your organization identify which skills your employees would benefit from developing first.

Because micro-credentials aren’t considered a ‘traditional’ way of learning, it may also be challenging for some organizations to accept the validity of certain courses.

How can you utilize micro-credentials in your organization?

You likely already provide your employees with resources, courses, and materials that allow them to develop. So, introducing micro-credentials shouldn’t require major changes to your existing learning and development strategy, as it simply offers a new way of learning that fits into what you’re already doing.

Micro-credentials can integrate with your learning management system (LMS) so employees can access training when convenient. You can also view how employees engage with their training and if they need additional support.

Because micro-credentials are more accessible, employees are more likely to engage and are in a better position to upskill. This also allows your business to recognize achievements more regularly, enhancing your reputation as an employer that values development.

At Go1, we have a range of online courses for your micro-credentials strategy. For more information on how Go1 can support your learning and development program, speak to one of our experts today. Or, download our 5 essential tools to help you develop a future-fit organization.

29da1230-dafc-4cc5-b8a3-620ab391b8c7_How+to+use+micro-credentials+-+754x500+v1_desktop

29da1230-dafc-4cc5-b8a3-620ab391b8c7_How+to+use+micro-credentials+-+754x500+v1_mobile

29da1230-dafc-4cc5-b8a3-620ab391b8c7_How+to+use+micro-credentials+-+754x500+v1

We’ll explore the benefits of micro-credentials, including some of the most popular micro-credential topics and how you can introduce this effective learning technique to your organization.

How to use micro-credentials in employee learning and development

As the world’s content expert, Go1 is committed to aggregating, curating, and maintaining the largest library of high-quality learning content. That’s why we intentionally partner with top-tier content providers and follow a meticulous content selection process to meet our customers’ needs. Together, we establish strong alliances and continually update our library based on consumption data and customer feedback. 

Learn more about our content curation process and the latest updates to our library below. 

Our content selection process ensures we choose only the most valuable content providers and courses to add to our world-class library. We partner with many renowned brands, like Coursera, Pluralsight, and Harvard ManageMentor, each of which adds industry expertise to our library. We also collaborate with boutique content providers that contribute a wealth of domain-specific knowledge and diverse perspectives.  

To ensure we bring in high-quality content, we utilize an assessment framework and evaluate content quality using the following five criteria: 

Rich metadata: Content must have sufficient metadata to be categorized for easy discovery. 

Playability standards: Content should have an embedded playback experience to enable a simple, accessible learning process. 

Comprehensive topic coverage: Content should contribute to our library’s wide range of subjects across many disciplines and industries. 

Language variety: Content should be available in multiple languages or add language variety to our library to cater to a global audience. 

High-quality user experience: Content should be easy to use, intuitive, and engaging. 

Once a content partner is integrated into the Go1 ecosystem, we work with them to ensure our content offerings are consistently updated. Every month, we add approximately 1,000 new courses, sourced from both existing and new content providers, to our library. We understand that having access to up-to-date knowledge is a non-negotiable for our customers, which is why we ask our content providers to review their courses regularly. Any outdated or irrelevant content is then removed or updated. 

This month’s content updates: Pluralsight 

This month, we’re refreshing our content library with updates from Pluralsight. 

We’ve updated our Pluralsight offering to bring 150+ courses to the Go1 Premium library [1]. Pluralsight is a global content provider 100% dedicated to developing and growing the technology skills of today’s workforce. Pluralsight’s content on Go1 includes new, hands-on beginner and intermediate courses for learners who want to master foundational tech skills like cloud computing, cybersecurity, software development, AI, and more. We’ve also made improvements to the Pluralsight learning experience, as all Pluralsight content can now be accessed through an embedded streaming player rather than taking users outside their LMS. 

99929f04-1963-4bdb-991c-f54c73e4c28d_Picture+1

We hope these updates will create an even better experience for our customers and learners. Keep an eye out for more content updates in the future; until then, check out the Go1 library to view all available Pluralsight content. 

ChatGPT and Generative AI: The Big Picture 

[1] Pluralsight content is only available to Go1 Premium subscribers. 

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

728bcb31-a976-426c-bc60-d8189b657f3d_Hero+Image+600+x+670_desktop

728bcb31-a976-426c-bc60-d8189b657f3d_Hero+Image+600+x+670_mobile

728bcb31-a976-426c-bc60-d8189b657f3d_Hero+Image+600+x+670

As part of our continual efforts to curate a world-class content library, we’re announcing updates to our Pluralsight content.

How Go1 curates and maintains a world class library

Implementing a new learning management system (LMS) in your organization can have its fair share of challenges. Without thorough preparation and planning, these challenges can spiral into issues that can slow down the implementation process, costing you time and money and stagnating your employees’ growth.

However, with a well-thought-out approach, you can ensure a smooth onboarding process. So, we’ll analyze the steps your organization can take to reduce friction when onboarding a new LMS to ensure there’s no disruption to your learning and development program.

What potential challenges are there when implementing a new LMS?

We’ll analyze the steps your organization can take to reduce friction when onboarding a new LMS to ensure there’s no disruption to your learning and development program.