Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
The traditional way of learning at work is changing fast because of AI. This change allows companies to improve how they teach and develop their staff. By using AI, you can make learning experiences more effective, personal, and engaging for your employees. But exactly how? In this blog, we will look into several ways to integrate AI into your L&D processes and initiatives so that 2025 turns into an AI-mazing year of learning at work.
But before we begin, let’s set some context. AI in learning and development at work is not simply about adding an LLM to your workflow. There are more comprehensive solutions that can unlock massive value for your team. Since several organizations are turning into early adopters, there’s a lot of enthusiasm and expectations about what AI brings. As the change leader in this scenario, it becomes imperative for you to understand what AI can and cannot do and communicate these ideas effectively to the stakeholders around you, like the C-suite and the employees involved in learning programs.
AI is changing how we help employees grow. It provides helpful data, automates tasks, and offers tailored learning experiences. This technology helps HR and L&D leaders and employees make better choices for their career paths. It connects personal goals with what the organization needs. But that’s not the end of the story.
AI’s effect on employee development goes beyond just learning new skills. It’s also about building a culture of ongoing growth. It gives employees the tools they need to reach their full potential, which they might not have been able to access earlier. As a result, this leads to more job satisfaction, higher productivity, and a more engaged and motivated workforce.
Is AI going to replace people at work? What can L&D do about this anxiety?
A big worry about AI is that it might eliminate jobs. But we can reduce this worry by actively helping employees learn new skills. As Steve Hunt mentioned in a recent podcast episode with Risely, every technology that eliminates some jobs creates many more. We are undergoing a fundamental shift in the purpose and meaning of work for society at large.
AI shouldn’t be seen as a danger, but as a way to gain new skills and improve the skills you already have. Primarily, L&D teams should focus on:
Finding skill gaps and offering specific learning opportunities
Motivating employees to take on new technologies and grow their skills
By investing in employee development and making clear paths for career growth, organizations help their workers adapt to changes in the job market. This way, they can use AI to improve their careers and reach their career goals.
That’s about the employees, what about the learning and development teams – how should you use AI?
5 Ways to add AI to learning at work in 2025
Learning at work has changed a lot. We no longer stick to one-time training events. Instead, we are moving toward a continuous learning approach. When you embrace continuous learning, you can:
Encourage innovation and speed by creating a culture of constant improvement
Build a workforce ready for the future that can handle rapid tech changes
Improve employee engagement and keep them by investing in their growth
This change is needed so employees can keep their skills and knowledge up-to-date. They have to adapt to new technologies and changing business needs. Switching to continuous learning brings both challenges and opportunities for L&D teams. It asks for a cultural change that supports lifelong learning and encourages employees to take charge of their growth. AI technologies are important in this change. They offer personalized, easy-to-access, and interesting learning experiences for employees at a fraction of the cost.
A few ways to effectively add AI to your L&D strategy are:
#1 Build personalized learning experiences
AI creates personalized learning paths for employees. It makes them feel more confident and addresses their different learning needs, which cookie-cutter programs offered so far may overlook. For example, Risely, the AI co-pilot for people managers, offers a dynamic learning journey that fits the unique context of every people manager. The challenges of leaders and managers are diverse and affected by many factors, an AI can match this array of needs by identifying which areas need more support and when. This tailored approach keeps employees engaged with content that fits their needs. It leads to better knowledge retention and skill development. The outcome is a more confident workforce that can help the organization succeed.
#2 Democratize access to learning in your organization
How many people can you meaningfully train in your entire organization? For most L&D teams, the number isn’t huge. Moreover, since many learning at work opportunities run in cohorts, employees must wait before getting help. It means letting the problems arising due to lack of skill development pester for a long, and at times, they grow into bigger troubles. For instance, if a manager is bad at delegating and has to pass six months before they can get training, their entire team will face overburdening work for that time. Meanwhile, more challenges like turnover due to tight deadlines and heavy workloads become prominent.
Adding an AI coach like Merlin to this manager’s learning and development plan will help cut down on the problem. It will help the manager access support and help in a way that fits their unique needs, such as the challenges with a couple of specific team members. Similarly, an AI coach can reach hundreds of managers without the L&D team needing to scale up operations and having multiple leadership coaches on the roaster. It’s also a great way to reduce challenges arising from geographical and time zone differences among workplaces.
#3 AI-driven analytics for tracking learning progress
AI-powered analytics give L&D leaders useful insights about employee growth and how well learning programs work. By monitoring learning progress and engagement, AI can find out where employees are doing well or having difficulties. This approach, based on data, helps HR leaders to tailor learning help, offer specific support, and see how learning actions affect the entire organization. AI-driven analytics makes sure that learning programs match business goals and help the company’s overall success.
#4 Enhance employee engagement through gamified learning experiences
Integrating fun and game-like features into learning experiences helps improve employee satisfaction. This method encourages a culture of workplace learning. AI-powered platforms use elements like challenges, rewards, and leader boards to motivate workers and make learning enjoyable. For example, Risely uses daily nudges as a microlearning pathway for leadership development. It shares a small actionable insight to support a small bit of progress toward each manager’s specific challenges.
By using these game-like features, employees can remember what they learn better. It also creates a friendly competition and teamwork among them. By adopting AI for gamified learning, companies can make the learning process more fun and effective. This plays a critical role in increasing employee engagement and satisfaction.
#5 Improve skills gap analysis with AI’s predictive abilities
Another interesting use case that L&D professionals can explore with AI’s abilities is improving the skills gap analysis for their teams. The conventional skills gap analysis exercise takes time and resources. Ultimately. this exercise offers us a list of skills and competencies that the team needs to build in order to fit in. But what if, we could figure out what the team needs to succeed in the future?
The predictive abilities of AI can forecast what skills would be in demand soon. That way, you are not just chasing after what has already happened. Instead, you can make the first move in the industry and build a competitive edge. For example, let ‘s assume you are leading L&D for a retail chain. With the help of AI for learning at work, you can:
Identify emerging skill trends in the retail industry
Predict potential skill obsolescence
Anticipate technological and market changes that will impact required skills
Your next would be planning a learning and development program using these insights. Further, as we discussed in the first point, you can personalize the learning track to meet the individual learning needs and align with the business goals simultaneously.
Read more: 7 Easy Ways to Use AI in Learning and Development
Wrapping Up
AI is changing how we learn. Many new tools and platforms are now available. They help organizations improve their learning and development programs. These AI-driven solutions offer personal learning experiences, automate tasks, and provide insights based on data. There are many options, like platforms that adapt to each learner and mentorship programs that use AI. Organizations must assess their needs and pick the tools and platforms that match their learning goals and objectives in effective ways.
In conclusion, using AI in workplace learning is not about taking over human skills but making them better. AI gives people personalized learning, helps them gain new skills, and supports their growth. By using AI, companies can build a culture where learning never stops. Employees get to play fun games and benefit from helpful AI insights. We can check how well AI learning programs work through set goals and feedback to keep improving. As we move into the AI age, it is important to use the right AI tools, fit them into what we already have, and keep an eye on future trends in AI and workplace learning. Welcome this change to make a more lively and employee-focused learning space.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
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The retail organizations around us are changing. Technological developments promise faster deliveries than ever, and retail employment is not the same exciting prospect anymore for college students. Before looking at how the leaders are responding to these changes, let’s answer something critical: Are retail leaders prepared to take on the future?
The retail sector is facing the heat not just from the economic downturn alone but also from troubled global matters and stemmed revival after the pandemic. That’s one side. The other is managing the employees and the store. The first is challenging because of the typical high attrition of working frontline in retail. The financial benefits are no help, so the matters relate to the experiences. The second area is posing challenges because there are better options on the internet. Retail needs to focus on building great customer experiences to survive the drought brought upon by e-commerce, which again boils down to how loyal and good your employees are.
There’s one thread tying all of these together: The store manager.
These often assertive but usually tough people are the heart and soul of retail chains. A lot rests on their shoulders—right from managing the employee register to ensuring that the customer exits with a smile on their face. Historically, long-term employment with a retail chain would mean a series of promotions into managerial and leadership roles. But times are changing, and so are demands. The managerial role in retail is now about managing stakeholders, supply chains, tech, people, and so on.
Managers and leaders at every level in retail businesses need more training and support to achieve remarkable results that are becoming synonymous with survival. While historically, we have witnessed a drought of leadership development opportunities in retail, there are voices demanding change quite openly now.
For instance, in research by Spencer Stuart across retail organizations globally, it was found that leading and empowering people was one of the most important abilities a retail leader needed! That’s not all. There’s more context to highlight why retail leadership development is the need of the hour. HR leaders from these retail organizations shared that the biggest risk in succession planning for retail right now was the inability to address development gaps – which directly hints at the need for better leadership development initiatives for retail organizations.
But, is it really worth the fuss?
How do leadership development initiatives impact the retention of leaders?
Research cited above points to 25 to 48% of CEOs and direct reports being expected to leave their organizations within a year from the survey date. What’s next, then? Unfortunately, not many teams are sure, owing to the lack of leadership development practices. They are grappling with gaps in the talent pipeline, and most of the next generation does not seem fit to bear the load. The leaders and managers are bound to search for exits when the traditional career progression route is no longer feasible, and there are no alternate avenues on offer.
The growth promised through these programs is a great benefit on top of competitive aspects like pay and benefits. When similar offerings populate the industry, differentiation is made of L&D initiatives that boost employee loyalty by supporting them right where they need it. Leadership development opportunities can help curb the turnover of leaders and managers in retail. This is because investment in leadership development offers a sense of professional security.
That’s not all. There’s more that retail leadership development can change.
What is the impact of retail leadership development?
We can sum up the major impact of retail leadership development as follows:
Make your people stay: First, retail leadership development is important to fight up-and-coming challenges with the right workforce. External hiring, training for your industrial relevance, and then fighting the battle would prove costly. Instead, if you invest in bringing out the leadership potential of your people, you will have a more loyal workforce who values you as much as you do them. Building loyalty among your team members in a high-turnover industry is one of the best ways to secure competitive advantages.
Bring your people together: Leadership and management development programs will help you emphasize your organization’s core values and mission. In turn, the receivers of these messages, the leaders and managers who are learning, double up as culture agents with the frontline staff and ensure they have a sense of purpose at work.
Propagate the right behaviors to the frontline: Training managers in your core values and the right mix of management skills will help you create a trickle-down effect. As a result, the ideas and behaviors you want to emphasize are built with the managers as role models for the frontline staff, leading to the ultimate success, which is a great customer experience.
Tailor leadership programs to meet your needs: There’s a lot available in the open market when it comes to developing leaders and managers, but the question is—does that match what you need? Most likely, it will not. Most leadership development programs are cookie-cutter and not made to fit. As a result, the impact remains half-hearted. Investing in leadership development yourself will allow you to control the content and application.
Be future-ready: It’s no secret that the world is changing. The retail industry now needs to negotiate terms with consumers who are conscious of the level of comfort e-commerce can offer. There are also tech disruptions to keep in mind, like AI. All of these changes require leadership that is willing to take on challenges.
The old image of a rigid store manager is no longer the face of the retail industry, so let’s replace that archetype from the leadership development programs too?
Regarding retail leadership development, the most common forms include screaming ideas into an audience, which, although traditional, does not appear very effective. Since we are talking of preparing for a modern world, leadership development practices in a retail environment also need to modernize and get in tune with the present.
For instance, AI-powered leadership development fits neatly into the retail leadership development paradigm because it can meet the needs of distributed teams at scale even when the contextual needs are heavily varied. What does that mean? Let’s break it down into five key features of retail leadership development for the future.
#1 Not pull away people from work
One of leadership development’s biggest troubles lies in taking time for it. Most managers and leaders don’t have the hours (or sometimes days) that the conventional leadership workshops, seminars and getaways demand. They do have unique challenges that these programs don’t help with because they are made with an Ideal Customer Persona in mind.
Retail leadership development must embrace microlearning to meet managers where they are, most likely on the store floor. It means offering learning in bite-sized bits that are actionable and not just offering a checklist of best practices to follow. For example, Risely’s daily nudges for people managers share a small actionable idea that they can practice right then. This nudge is aligned to their job role and level of proficiency in particular leadership skills, and it even identifies which team members would be best to work in that area.
All of this takes about 15 minutes at best, including getting the idea, trying it out, and maybe even talking about what happened with the AI coach Merlin right then!
#2 Train a lot of people similarly even at different locations
The most basic part of training a retail organization is understanding that it is distributed. For example, one company that we work with, Fosters, has people spread over six to seven separate locations. Pulling them all into a single leadership development program would mean pulling key people from each place and potentially jeopardizing operations for at least a day or two.
That’s why retail leadership development solutions need to account for a centralized set-up that scales down into your context. For instance, Risely’s AI-led co-pilot for leadership development is accessible anywhere at any time. The managers do not need to seek permission to take a coaching session or wait until the company organizes the next one. All of them have access to an AI coach who is personalized to their job role, level of leadership skills, and professional goals.
Also, Merlin offers voice mode in over 40 languages, so don’t worry about typing out long paragraphs about what’s bothering you. It’s as simple as sending that voice note to a friend describing your annoying day at work. Simplification in accessing coaching and support through interventions like these is critical for retail leaders since they are in a high-stress and emotionally draining job that leaves little bandwidth to “learn” at the end of the day.
#3 Train people at different levels in the organization
Every organization has people working at several different levels. This leads to an obvious complexity: Who to train and who not to? What if we told you that every leader on your team deserves support? Broadly, the numbers in corporate organizations suggest that only about 10% of leaders are able to access training. It leaves out most of the people who work day in and day out with the frontline staff.
AI coaching and leadership development drastically reduce costs and barriers. As a result, you can train all the people in your organization at a fraction of the cost, time, and effort. AI coaching is adaptable to job roles, so it can help anyone from the CXO club to frontline managers who battle it out every day.
#4 Meet the unique contextual needs of retail leadership
Retail leadership is not for the faint-hearted. A number of factors are involved, from building customer experiences to managing supply chain networks. The trouble is that a leadership coach would not know about this unless they come from a retail background. This makes coaching and development services for retail leaders a niche and expensive area. But that’s not all. Not all retail leaders are cut from the same cloth. Some have to handle people by giving speeches; others do so in closed rooms where big deals are discussed. Both of these people need different skills.
AI supports this differentiation in the support being provided to leaders across a retail organization with personalized learning pathways. Risely, for instance, starts by asking you to configure challenges and assesses you on leadership skills to create a roadmap that would suit you. It further pulls insights from company policies and ties into individual professional goals to create a well-rounded learning experience. It is an entirely different paradigm from the leadership development best practices offered so far to retail leaders.
#5 Reinforce organizational objectives and values
In a business that’s known for high turnover, loyalty is chased. So why are we leaving it on the table when effective leadership development and shake things up? Investing in leadership development creates a positive employee brand that ensures your people stick with you. But that’s just one part.
Leadership coaching that is outsourced or conducted through external providers is more often than not likely to suffer from a disconnect from your values. It’s not because of inability but simply because of design. Embedding your mission and ideas is possible only when you train people with in-house experts, which is a costly affair on its own. So, what’s the way out?
An AI coach helps with this, too! Risely’s AI coach, Merlin, learns your company’s policies and values and offer them along with suggestions whenever your team is taking a coaching session. This is a great way to reinforce your core ideas rather than letting them catch dust in some lengthy documents that barely get read.
Retail leadership development is surely in for some amazing changes as the world progresses. Come 2025 and bid adieu to one-size-fits-all learning programs plaguing your people. Instead, gift them learning that meets their needs.
Read more: How To Make Leadership Development Programs Succeed In Your Organization?
To Sum Up
Retail leadership development is the need of the hour as we navigate more complex relationships and changing dynamics with the increasing popularity of e-commerce. Manager and leadership development promises a lot to retail organizations. There are many benefits to be sought in improved customer experiences, better frontline performance, and increased employee loyalty.
But the last bit of trouble lies in the prevalent old-school modes of leadership development in the retail industry. They are often not optimized for the right context where your learner is. AI bridges this gap by offering personalized learning paths to managers and learners for unique challenges.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
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Healthcare systems are critical to any society. How are we training the people who run them? Learn how leadership development is evolving in the healthcare space with the introduction of AI.
When it comes to the healthcare sector, we often interact with the front end. At the back, another parallel system keeps the show running—the administrative function. They are hidden, yet their presence can be felt in every small or big action, from disoriented teams to misplaced documents. In this healthcare administrative setup, the leaders and managers are like the backbone. They are crucial in ensuring that the show not just runs but does so effectively to support millions of people every day.
The sad part of this story is that it’s not an easy job at all. When it comes to being a manager in the healthcare sector, we are not just asking for solid leadership abilities; there’s a higher need for empathy and caution. It’s not only fast-paced and dynamic but also emotionally taxing. As a result, we witness high burnout among managers in the healthcare sector.
There’s no single cause for this challenge. Healthcare leaders are constantly facing the heat due to:
long work hours that hurt the work-life balance
staff shortages causing overworking
emotional investment in work
high-pressure work environment
While talking of managers here, it’s not uncommon for employees in this sector to handle empathy fatigue while continuing to strain themselves. This went overboard during the COVID-19 pandemic when demands from the healthcare sector hit the sky on quick notice. Since returning from that wave, the sector has coped with distress.
Inherent support systems at work can be one of the most effective solutions for increasing access to support for healthcare workers. This puts managers and leaders at the frontline as coaches and mentors for their teams. Yet, even this is mired with problems due to a lack of investment in healthcare leadership development.
So, what’s the way out? Let’s begin by appropriately contextualizing the role of leadership development in healthcare.
Why is Leadership Important in Healthcare?
Developing leaders in the healthcare space is vital for success because it directly improves employee experiences. Great leaders provide the valuable support, coaching, and motivation that healthcare workers need to sustain themselves in a physically and emotionally straining environment. They are also the key to creating a talent pipeline for succession and effectively building career paths.
To sum up, healthcare leadership development helps you:
Enhance customer experiences: Leadership development programs in healthcare are focused on developing skills that enable seamless experiences for service seekers. This ensures that your employees are focused and dedicated to the task, thus leading to better performance even in high-stress scenarios that are common for healthcare workers.
Enhance people’s experiences: Customers are one side of the equation; your employees are the other. As we noted earlier, too, well-trained leaders better support their teams and carry them forward through challenges. It is also a motivational factor for the employees to see that their growth matters to the organization and aligns with wider business plans.
Manage your people better: Focusing on developing the leaders in your healthcare organization ensures that you have a ready pipeline of talent who can take up bigger roles in the future as the current generation moves on. Leadership development can also help you solve high turnover and absenteeism because it helps employees find the right skills, purpose, and plans for their careers.
What’s the Status Quo of Healthcare Leadership Development?
Let’s break this down with an example.
HealthRight 360, one of the major healthcare providers for vulnerable people, emphasizes the role of leaders in its mission. As an organization committed to making a difference in the lives of people without access to insurance, it is at the frontiers with numerous service providers working every day. It calls for leaders who can unite teams around the mission and translate its core values of empathy.
As part of the healthcare industry with an extensive volunteer network, HealthRight 360 faces some of the most common challenges prevalent in both of these areas, namely, a shortage of resources, people, and time. Thus, prioritization and making the right choices to positively impact people become super important.
What Challenges Do Leadership Development Programs in Healthcare Face?
Healthcare leadership development programs face myriad challenges due to the sheer number of complexities built into the environment itself. First, there is the resource crunch that we discussed earlier. It is not just about funds but also about the availability of people and bandwidth.
As a result, we witness these challenges in healthcare leadership development programs:
Lack of resources to run programs for leaders
Healthcare leaders do not have the hours to invest in leadership development training programs that could take them out of work. In fact, one of the biggest challenges for L&D teams in healthcare is ensuring that people grow while not missing out on work. As a result, even the smaller and shorter alternatives suggested to leaders, like eLearning, are hard to implement, let alone extensive methods like one-on-one coaching.
At times, seeking investment for leadership development and making this case in front of the stakeholders makes things difficult since it is not viewed as an area that can directly bring in revenue. For nascent L&D teams, getting the ROI numbers is a challenge.
Meeting niche expertise needs
A healthcare leader operates in a specific context that happens to be pretty niche. It involves a high level of clinical expertise and a similarly high level of people expertise. The learning and development methods for healthcare leaders need to equip them with a holistic understanding of this environment. Sadly, a majority of leadership development programs available out there are cookie-cutter and do not provide the exact value needed here.
Creating a pipeline for succession
Healthcare institutions often lack the structured infrastructure for preparing leaders for senior roles. Without the strategic approach to identifying and nurturing future leaders, healthcare organizations end up with leadership gaps and succession risks. It is also vital to consider that talent with niche healthcare leadership competencies leaving the organization is a major loss.
Matching competency levels in functional and people skills
Healthcare leadership requires a complex mix of skills. While functional knowledge is critical to success, leaders also need to demonstrate emotional competence and great people skills. In the absence of adequate leadership development programs, leaders are left to grapple with people management challenges without the right toolkit. This poses constant challenges since healthcare employees are prone to burnout and need consistent support.
So, what’s the way out?
Picturing the Ideal Healthcare Leadership Development Program
Healthcare leadership development programs are thus stuck in an impasse because moving further in any direction can break the delicate balance of their environment. As a result, most L&D managers in healthcare remain on the lookout for leadership development solutions to reach out to distributed teams. Their major objective is to tie people around shared values, systems, and leadership approaches even when they are spread across different teams and offices.
To create this ideal solution for healthcare leadership development, we need to think along three pillars:
#1 Meet healthcare managers where they are, literally and metaphorically
There are layers to this challenge.
First, leadership development needs to meet the managers where they work. Healthcare managers often double up as field staff, so they cannot spare days to invest in leadership training. They also do not have the same range of allowances that permit corporate employees to take up the usual leadership development programs. Thus, learning needs to be where they are.
Second, leadership development for healthcare managers needs to align with their skill levels. This is frequently overlooked in the sector, and there’s a gap that any training program would have to bridge. It begins by emphasizing the people management aspect of the job and then further supporting them on the challenges as they show up. Implementing high-level training programs with bullet points on how to do things is not going to prove useful.
Thus, leadership development programs for healthcare managers need to embed themselves in the sector’s flow of work and people management routines.
#2 Define a consistent leadership style for the organization and spread it evenly
Corporates have their vision and mission documents. The culture teams further populate this area with documents describing the values at the core of their mission, leadership styles, and so on. These are often very low on the list of priorities in the healthcare sector. One of the challenges for healthcare L&D is then defining this common leadership culture and propagating it across the organization. We must also consider that not all teams work in a shared space with the same bandwidth.
With this in mind, we need a leadership development method that balances a central focus on organizational philosophy with individualized attention to professional challenges. Directives and documents for coaches seem like the most obvious route to achieve this. However, the questions of diverse interpretations, multiple coaching styles, and lack of constant support soon rise.
#3 Reach out to more healthcare leaders and support them effectively
The third pillar where leadership development programs in the healthcare industry need support is the coverage they offer. Thus far, even traditional corporates have been limited in terms of how many leaders they can effectively train and support. For the healthcare sector, the challenges are made more complex by low prioritization of development initiatives and resource crunch.
Leadership development programs for healthcare thus need to take a turn toward accessibility and scalability, wherein more people managers can seek help easily without hesitation or losing out on precious work hours. Moreover, scalability will allow L&D teams to show ROI much more easily. It happens as outreach to more employees translates into a bigger impact at the organizational level compared to investing in the development of a select few.
Since we have these actions in mind, we should also consider latching to the latest technological developments and using them to reach our goals. AI is one such factor that has shown many use cases in healthcare leadership development.
Let’s explore a few of them in the next section.
How is AI altering Healthcare Leadership Development Programs?
AI for leadership development is one of the hottest areas discussed globally by the L&D industry. Does it have some applications in improving healthcare leadership development programs?
Use microlearning to push growth every day
We have noted that one of the most common challenges for healthcare leaders is that they cannot devote the time needed for leadership development programs. Getting away from work for a few hours every week adds more strain to an already overwhelming schedule, as do programs that span multiple days. Microlearning is the savior here.
Microlearning is not just about reading a bit of information about people management here and there. Ai is putting an interesting twist on this to make it more impactful. At Risely, it unfolds in twin moves:
Nudges: First up, managers on Risely get daily nudges focused on improving their people skills. It focuses on the skills they need (which are assessed first thing), the team members this manager is working with, and the context in which they work. So, a healthcare leader struggling to be assertive at their new job with a team member named Alex will receive an actionable tip to do precisely that, not just anything from a random box of tips & tricks.
Activities: Leadership is not just about learning things; it’s more about doing them in real life. Risely takes this message to the core, which is why most daily lessons are equipped with short activities like watching a video lesson, taking a quiz, or practicing a role-play. These are again personalized to the leader’s context—their skill levels, challenges, job context, and so on.
The fun part? All of this takes about 15 minutes a day at best.
Use AI coaching to meet contextual needs
Another challenging aspect that we noted earlier is the lack of contextual support. Being a leader in a healthcare setting puts one in a unique spot. The job demands are physically and emotionally straining. Few people, either seniors or coaches, are available to support one in these roles since the experience being demanded becomes very niche.
Scaling healthcare leadership development via coaching thus proves to be expensive and time-consuming for the L&D team itself. (At the moment, we are not even going into aligning the coaches with company values and building relationships with the learners, which would be more complex issues for L&D teams that get into this.)
So, who can solve this? An AI coach like Merlin understands every manager’s unique context and offers support solely based on what’s needed. The great thing about AI leadership coaches is that they are always available, even when the work hours are over, and the manager is sitting alone, pondering how to confront someone. That’s where an AI coach shows up and saves the day!
With Merlin, people leaders can access multiple ways of learning. They can simply talk about situations and seek advice. But there are more interesting ways to engage an AI co-pilot in your leadership journey:
Role-play a situation: Is there something weighing heavy on your heart? It’s probably a difficult conversation that you need to have soon but are not sure how to approach it. Role-plays with Merlin help you practice these (as often as you want) by setting up the scenario and defining your partner’s expected behaviors.
Develop specific skills and set goals: You can chat with Merlin about everything related to skill development, from diagnosing what’s missing from your arsenal to creating strategies and roadmaps for growth.
Turn it into a culture agent: An AI coach must be generic, right? Except that it’s not. Setting up Merlin involves researching your company policies and values to ensure that they are reflected in the coaching conversations. While asking for guidance, team members can quickly glance at what the official documentation says, which is great because we both know that they will never open the PDFs otherwise.
Want to see how it works? Catch Merlin in action here:
Focus on scalable solutions for healthcare leaders
Last but not least, we need to reach out to many more healthcare leaders and deliver support. As an L&D team, our mission is to support organizational growth as well as personal goals, but a resource crunch can get in the way. As we noted in the point above, AI can solve this.
Picture this: Your team gets an AI coach supporting managers even while you are asleep. Not just one manager, but as many as you have. You no longer need to worry about scheduling meetings with the right coaches, the costs of accessing them, and regularly hiring for new ones since the previous set leaves. That’s precisely what Merlin does.
That’s not the end of the story. Risely offers people management skill assessments that you can run for the entire team with one click, as opposed to designing them from scratch, getting them printed and distributed, putting reminders to get them filled and returned, and then evaluating them. Leave the whole cycle aside in favor of people skill assessments that you can run as the administrator, with both self- and team ratings and evaluations at the sub-skill levels.
Did we tell you it ties into a learning journey personalized to the manager and offers them bite-sized lessons daily? It does! Give it a spin here; it’s free: Risely’s Leadership Skill Assessments.
There’s no doubt that AI is reinventing healthcare leadership development programs. The question is, are you and your team in the loop? Or, are you missing out by holding conventional methods dear?
Looking Forward
To sum things up, we have the most common challenges of healthcare leadership development programs:
Lack of resources to run programs and multiple stakeholders who are hard to convince
Need for niche expertise that understands both functional and people aspects of the job
Tying into the broader strategic HR goals like succession planning and career pathing
Creating a better understanding of the healthcare leader’s role and where they need support
Developing low-cost, scalable solutions that balance organizational objectives with personal needs
While the traditional methods of leadership development cover some or all of the bases, there’s a large gap to be filled. This is a more challenging case to tackle than corporate leadership development because it demands niche talent to run the initiatives amid a more straining environment.
The latest tech solutions based on AI, like Risely, are enabling new approaches to solve these long-held challenges. Innovative ways to personalize and scale leadership development solutions for healthcare leaders are on the way to make a difference.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Join the Risely tribe. It’s free!
Sign up today and explore the range of leadership development solutions that fit you like a tailored suit.
How to Make Non-profit Leadership Development Work?
Learn how non-profit leadership development programs play an important role in organizational success, with one of the USA’s biggest animal welfare non-profit organizations showing the way of AI adoption.
Non-profit organizations are one of the most vital pillars of the American society. But here’s a sobering fact: they are also some of the most high churn workplaces, with some research suggesting annual rates as high as 24%. Non-profit organizations are often mission-oriented, but people within them frequently have unmet professional aspirations.
For instance, research by NonprofitHR shows:
The top two reasons for voluntary turnover were better opportunities (reported by 57% of the people) and lack of opportunities for career growth (reported by 43% of the people.)
About 48% of the respondents faced challenges with retaining people working in entry-level roles.
The result is evident. The non-profit organizations are losing their share of young workforce as they are unable to offer a roadmap toward growth. Amid the resource scarcity that characterizes non-profits, as well as the highly demanding nature of the work, the workers are left with few choices but to move on.
One critical factor in this gap is the lack of support that people managers offer in such workplaces. Since non-profits are characterized by resource scarcity, there are bigger claims on the time, money, and efforts before professional development programs can scoop up.
In such a scenario, the people managers have a great role to play. A number of roles in non-profit sectors call for frontline work, putting the managers in a position to directly influence, coach and guide their team members. Given the varied nature of non-profit missions, a lot of this happens outside conventional workplaces with desktops and coffees.
At times, it’s not in the hands of managers either. Most managers in non-profit organizations are not trained in vital people management skills like coaching and motivating others, and thus set up for failure (which itself happens due to time and resource scarcity). Since the model of leadership is incomplete in itself, there are further hurdles in the development process.
The Nature of Non-profits Poses Unique Challenges for Leadership Development
Let’s understand this better with an example.
The Best Friends Animal Society is one of the USA’s foremost warriors for pets in shelters. As a sanctuary for homeless animals, it brings together a passionate group of volunteers working on-field for rescue, support, and care. With a workforce of 900+, more than half of whom work remotely while the rest are distributed in care and training operations, Best Friends has a dynamic work environment frequented by emotionally charged moments. This blog post will take up their case to learn more about non-profit leadership development programs.
Since the workforce is distributed and partly remote, centralized development programs for people managers are a huge task. The complexity increases for teams across multiple states or countries, with different departmental objectives, personal goals, and learning needs being the first layers demanding personalization.
Moreover, as many people are working on the ground, there is limited time available to participate in leadership development programs that could last days or take online courses frequently offered as replacements.
This unique set-up poses challenges for managers to find the time they need for growth and development. And then there’s this emotionally charged field of animal welfare where they need to be prepared to handle diverse and sensitive situations effectively. Yet, it’s not always feasible for them to commit the time to do the manager training or even short e-learning courses.
Janis Cooper
Director of Leadership and Staff Development
A lot of non-profit organizations have similar stories, leading to a few common leadership development challenges:
Establishing consistent leadership and management development programs
This becomes a big challenge because uncertainties are the rule, not the exceptions. There are frequent changes and reallocations that the leadership of non-profits is always grappling with, leaving little bandwidth to invest in the professional development of their people. Moreover, as Janis explained, several people are working in the field. It leads them to have uncertain work hours, availability of time, and mental capacity to learn effectively.
The matters are further complex due to the involvement of volunteers. Since not everyone is a full-time employee with specified work hours, learning budgets, and defined trajectories, organizing development programs is much more complicated.
Enabling learning on the go for busy professionals
Suppose you are managing a team of volunteers. You know that you need to have a leadership development program in place for them. But your options are;
A great leadership coach with solid credentials and an hourly charge of $600 who is available for your team every alternate Wednesday.
A recommended leadership development workshop led by people you look up to, which involves three-day residential learning at the charge of $5000 per person.
An online course on a reputed platform that your team may or may not consume passively to tick boxes and get a certificate.
These options are not just hypothetical. Most offerings for non-profit leadership development training are unrealistic and do not align with the job requirements. To take any of these courses, people need to shell out significant fees, take a good deal of time off work, and need a level of mental freedom that our industry does not offer. This creates a big quandary for L&D and HR teams of non-profits who are searching for effective ways to develop people leaders.
Getting leadership development training that matches the context of non-profits
Workplaces in the non-profit sector differ from corporate ones in a major way – a lot more emotional investment is asked for at every level. As a mission-driven team, you are deeply tied to the outcomes you build toward. For the leadership roles, this poses a unique challenge where they need to focus on professional growth for their own sake and balance it with a high amount of passion and empathy toward the cause. That’s why burnout and emotional distress are quite common in non-profit organizations, which call for a higher focus on non-profit leadership development training focused solely on building emotional resilience, healthy ways to be empathetic, and building work-life balance.
Measuring the impact of leadership development for non-profits
Every workplace has a hard time tracking the impact of leadership development programs. The story is the same for non-profit organizations. It is further complicated by two factors:
First, the HR teams must manage multiple stakeholders. Investing in leadership development training for non-profit managers would be feasible only with their approval. Thus, measuring impact is vital in making a solid case and securing the necessities.
Second, there is a usual delay in adopting innovative solutions based on advanced tech. It keeps non-profits under the grasp of older management philosophies and training methods.
As a result, non-profit leadership development programs need to be very clear about tracking the right metrics, setting benchmarks, and effectively showcasing impact.
All of these challenges of developing leaders in non-profits tietie into the broader HR issues, such as planning career progression paths, creating succession pipelines, and better retaining people. Investing in non-profit leadership development impacts all of these since it shows the people that you care.
What are the Leadership Development Goals for Non-profit Organizations?
Similarly, Best Friends Animal Society’s critical area is developing people leaders and managers. They have developed programs to support these professionals at different points in their career journeys, from onboarding to remedial training if needed.
To sum up, their objectives take this shape:
Ensure that the people leaders are supported at all times in their jobs since the nature of work does not align with fixed hours or locations.
Provide access to personalized training, particularly for skills like emotional competence and communication critical to professional success.
Engage the latest tech in leadership development to meet the needs and expectations of the workforce, in order to retain them at the organization.
With these ideas in mind, the team moved ahead with integrating Risely into their existing and planned manager development programs.
How to Create an AI-powered Leadership Development Strategy for Non-profits?
While the team had multiple leadership development programs on their agenda, they added Risely to the mix to increase support coverage and reach more people, which was a critical gap in the strategy.
You can hear it out from Janis, who leads Leadership and Staff Development at Best Friends Animal Society:
Fundamentally, we can see three pillars of Risely contributing to the success of leadership development programs at non-profit organizations like Best Friends Animal Society:
Nudges and activities for daily learning
Microlearning is a lifesaver for busy professionals, which is very common in the non-profit sector as we discussed earlier. It becomes even better when it matches their contextual needs and helps them beat people management challenges by investing as little as 15 minutes a day. Nudges on Risely are personalized at multiple levels:
Your skill development needs: First, it focuses on the skills you need to work on. As a result, the leaders of organizations like non-profits that call for high human skills but offer little time to learn them effectively can leverage this mode of learning and development.
Your team members: You might struggle in delegating tasks to one team member and confronting another. Risely takes care of that too by ensuring that microlearning resources are shared with your specific team members in mind.
Your strengths and areas of improvement: What does having a low score on communication skills really mean? It could be need of improvement in listening, or a lack of clarity, or something else entirely. Risely’s action-oriented nudges meet you at your level of skill growth.
Your job function: It would not make sense to teach a sales manager something only an engineering manager deals with, so why do we do this in people skills. Risely’s nudges are personalized to your job role. Thus, the situations, tips, and advice you receive matches your unique context.
On-demand coaching with the AI Merlin
One-on-one coaching is among the best tools to support developing leaders. But as Janis explained, most employees do not have the time needed to invest in learning that way. Plus, it creates a big organizational overhead. An AI coach like Risely’s Merlin solves for this by ensuring coaching access 24/7, even when the team member is on the road.
For non-profit organizations, people pose a unique challenge. There’s the need to value their time while also supporting their growth. Increasing the access to coaching through AI-powered services like Merlin helps Best Friends meet the growing needs of their people leaders.
For example, suppose a manager is on the way to address a conflict with a network partner. They can practice this conversation with Merlin since it can take up people’s roles as you define them and become your role-play training partner. That’s just one scenario: there are plenty of difficult conversations that people managers need to have and situations that put them in doubt where a coach’s nudge will help.
Since coaching is already on-demand and hyper-personalized, it saves the L&D function some effort of hiring coaches, matching them contextually, and constantly monitoring the flow. Moreover, you are deploying the latest technology for L&D, thus showcasing how much you value your employees.
With Risely’s AI coach Merlin, managers are now going to have a virtual coach at their fingertips basically available anywhere and anytime, even when they are on the road caring for animals.
Janis Cooper
Director of Leadership and Staff Development
In-depth skill assessments for every learner
Assessments and growth go hand-in-hand, as one leads to the roadmap of the other. Yet, conventional skill gap analysis leaves much to be desired. By deploying Risely’s leadership skill assessments for people managers, Best Friends Animal Society is changing things up massively.
Risely’s leadership skill assessments are a great tool for measuring the health of 30+ critical leadership development skills. They also offer analysis at the sub-skill level, thus going deeper into both diagnosis and problem-solving. Company-wide benchmarking helps managers stay motivated and look forward to reaching and creating new standards across the organization.
All three key actions tie into each other. The ease of assessing numerous managers on leadership skills frees up L&D bandwidth big time. It further goes into creating personalized learning journeys for them, which pave the way for coaching with Merlin and daily growth through nudges and activities—thus setting up a positive growth cycle.
Looking Forward
As an animal welfare organization, Best Friends Animal Society highlights the values of transparency, accountability, and trust in everything they do. Risely’s AI coach, Merlin, helps reinforce them in conversations with the team members by becoming a company culture agent. You can program the AI coach to reflect upon company policies and values and even include them as suggestions. So, even if your manager is lost on the way, someone is holding them back and showing them the way toward achieving what matters the most to you.
We are really thrilled that we are equipping our managers not just with the latest technology but with the skills and confidence that they are going to need to lead in our fast-paced and mission driven environment.
Janis Cooper
Director of Leadership and Staff Development
In the coming year, Best Friends Animal Society is exploring ways to add Risely to more of its leadership and staff development programs. The AI-copilot for leadership development has enabled Best Friends to reach out to more people who need support, enhance employee experiences, and ultimately do more of what they love doing—caring for animals.
Non-profit leadership development programs are super important in your success story. The only challenge is that so far they have been designed without your interests at the core. At Risely, we are trying to flip the script.
Sign up today and share your thoughts on what resources would benefit you the most. Connect with our sales team at info@risely.me to explore sustainable pricing options tailored for non-profit leadership development.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Join the Risely tribe. It’s free!
Sign up and access the world of AI driven leadership development.
AI is changing the learning experience. It offers personalized learning paths, automates tasks, and gives useful insights about learner progress and areas that need improvement. AI for learning and development does not need to mean content creation alone! In fact, there are many effective ways to leverage it in your team. You are at the right spot if you wonder what, why, and how. This blog will decode seven impactful yet easy ways to 10x your L&D superpowers with AI.
Say “trends,” and you’ll hear back “AI!” As one of the hottest and most anticipated L&D trends for 2025, we want AI to change the world for us.
Creating engaging and useful training content is very important for learning and development success. AI tools are becoming strong supporters of L&D experts. They help by automating the work of creating content. This gives more time to work on important plans.
But, what exactly does that mean?
Let’s look at seven new uses of AI in learning and development (L&D). These technologies are changing how companies train their employees. AI helps you create personalized learning paths, offers virtual mentors, and adds fun through gamified experiences. All of these tools can make learning better for your people.
When your L&D teams use these advanced AI tools, they can work more efficiently. You can also engage employees more and improve training programs. This way, employees get the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in today’s workplaces, while your impact becomes the talk of the town.
#1 Use AI to Personalize Learning Content
One big benefit of AI in learning and development is its ability to create personalized learning experiences. AI algorithms can look at a lot of data about each learner. This includes their job roles, skills, how they like to learn, and what they want for their career. Using this data, with the help of AI, you can make adaptive learning pathways that fit individual needs.
Personalization is a huge benefit when it comes to learning, especially when the content and challenges are dynamic, such as in leadership development. Since there are many factors in a leader’s learning ability including their learning preferences, time availability, years of experience, industry, etc. personalized journeys make more sense than the usual cookie-cutter leadership development programs. AI helps you achieve this. For example, at Risely, we begin the process by asking the leaders about their people management challenges and then assign learning modules along the path.
Similarly, we can think of a learning platform that changes the difficulty level of lessons based on how the learner is doing. If an employee is doing well in a certain area, the AI system can suggest harder material to keep them interested. But if a learner finds a topic tough, the AI can offer more help or recommend other learning resources. By giving tailored learning paths, AI helps your organization’s employees learn at their own speed and focus on the areas where they need the most support.
#2 Add an AI Coach to Offer 24/7 Support
Providing personal coaching and guidance is hard. This is true for big organizations with different workers. Just think of the diverse needs that the sales and engineers managers have within your organization. And that’s just two job roles. AI-powered virtual mentors give steady and tailored support during the learning process to each role.
These virtual coaches serve as personal guides. They answer questions, give feedback on assignments, and provide encouragement. For example, in a sales training program, a virtual mentor can give salespeople real-time feedback on their pitches. It can suggest ways to improve and point out their strong points. Or, an AI coach like Risely’s Merlin offer support to people managers 24/7 for whatever situation or challenge they need. It ensures that they are constantly covered and never need to hesitate before seeking help, even for very niche or specific issues.
For instance, suppose you are a manager named Andrew who needs to take updates from a difficult colleague. You know the conversation is going to go downhill. There will be excuses, unclear answers, and you will lose your mind. What if you could prepare and practice? That’ll help you when the punches are thrown your way.
With Merlin, our AI coach for people managers, you can set-up role plays after programming what the other person behaves like. Here’s what your conversation with the reluctant colleague, Neil, might look like:
Try it out yourself here, it’s free to start: Meet Merlin!
#3 Use Gamification to Pump Up Engagement
Keeping learners engaged is very important for any training program to succeed. AI makes learning more fun and interactive through gamification. This leads to better completion rates and help people remember what they learn. Gamification adds game-like features, such as points, badges, leader-boards, and challenges, to learning. What’s more, AI adjusts these features to fit each learner’s likes and progress, which boosts engagement and motivation.
There are many ways to add fun to learning and development with AI, such as:
Personalized challenges: AI creates challenges that match each learner’s skill level and goals.
Adaptive feedback: AI systems give quick feedback and support, improving the learning process.
Progress tracking and rewards: AI checks how learners are doing and give points, badges, or other rewards to keep them motivated.
#4 Forecast Learning Outcomes with Predictive Analytics
AI can help learning and development by predicting future learning results and trends. It looks at past training data, how learners perform, and industry standards. This way, AI can figure out how well training programs work and find ways to make them better. Imagine an AI system that tells who might fall behind in their training. It can also show which training programs will help improve job performance.
These insights help L&D leaders make smart choices. You can use data to get the most from your training money and align L&D programs with company goals. Predictive analytics also helps your L&D teams act ahead of time. Then, you can give the right support to learners who need it the most.
Do you know what’s the hardest part of ensuring that coaching is successful for employees? It’s neither the money nor the time. More often than not, it’s the people and the relationship. The success of coaching, which is a very common mode of developing leaders and managers, hinges on a safe and secure relationship between the learner and the coach.
For most professionals, this is hard to get right since it involves opening up either in front of a stranger or with someone who’s their senior and potentially impacts their promotions and growth within the company (at times, outside, too, due to their networks.) As a result, even access to coaching is not the end-all because unless the HR teams and every individual involved in the process make a conscious effort to make vulnerability safe, there are bound to be limitations. There are a few practical challenges, too, such as the coach not keeping up with the learner between sessions, lack of reinforcement, and missing constant support. Challenges, after all, do not pop up on a schedule.
In such a scenario, empathy and a premise that promises safety become the top priorities for any L&D team. AI coaches can help you achieve this. For example, Merlin is designed with the values of user-centricity and empathy in coaching at its core. It further ties into your company’s policies, mission, and values and brings them up during the coaching conversations with your employees. And, of course, it remembers the past conversations, so there’s no worry of catching up or hesitating before bringing up something awkward. AI could be your solution to the perpetual coaching problems that keep showing up.
#6 Add AI to Reinforce Learning After Training
Today’s fast-paced world demands sticky learning. We need to keep up with changes and connect the dots rather than memorize endless lists of items. The way to thrive in this scenario is constant reinforcement of learning. Teams still treating learning and development as a one-stop exercise are setting themselves up for failure—unless, of course, they adopt AI for learning and development and use it to reinforce ideas consistently.
The most straightforward way of doing this is feeding the material to AI and prompting it to test our knowledge. But is that all? Surely not. For instance, the managers taking up any Risely masterclasses get months of complimentary access to Risely, offering interesting ways to continue learning without breaking their schedules.
For one, they get access to daily nudges and learning activities that tie into the skills they need to build. As a result, the practical focus on skills goes on for a longer time. If some tips don’t work out or the manager simply wants to talk about something they have tried, they can always come back to Merkin, Risely’s AI coach, who offers 24/7 support. There’s the chance to reassess your leadership skills as the learning journey progresses and closely monitor progress.
Consider all this against a leadership development program that offers three days of learning and nothing beyond it. What sounds like a better deal? AI can help you unlock these benefits for your employees, which would have otherwise burnt a hole in your pockets.
#7 Conduct Skills Gap Analysis in Real-time with AI
Identifying skill gaps is important for organizations to keep up with today’s fast-changing business world. Checking employee skills manually can take a lot of time and often be wrong. But AI offers a better and faster way to look at skill gaps using data.
AI systems can look at employee performance data, their training records, and industry trends to find out where skills need to get better. For instance, if many people in a marketing team have a hard time with data analysis, the AI can point this out as a skill gap that needs fixing.
This kind of real-time analysis helps learning and development (L&D) teams to find skill issues early. They can create focused training programs that fit their organization’s needs and help employees build the skills they need to succeed in their jobs.
To Sum Up
AI has a lot to offer for learning and development teams. You can use AI in learning and development in many ways. We have curated seven of those fun yet useful methods of applying AI to L&D here:
Use AI to Personalize Learning Content
Add an AI Coach to Offer 24/7 Support
Use Gamification to Pump Up Engagement
Forecast Learning Outcomes with Predictive Analytics
Build Empathy with AI-based Personalization
Add AI to Reinforce Learning After Training
Conduct Skills Gap Analysis in Real-time with AI
Try these out and share your thoughts with us!
This changes how we learn and helps those who are learning. Using AI not only makes things faster but also helps solve common problems in L&D. It opens the door for ongoing improvements and new ideas. When you use AI tools and technologies, you can improve training programs to meet the changing needs of today’s workforce.
But remember, AI is there to help you out, not replace you. There’s the human element that only you bring to the table! We explored this further with Dr. Steve Hunt, who has been a lifelong learner of AI and author of three books including Talent Tectonics, catch the discussion below:
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Planning L&D initiatives just got easier!
Grab your free copy of Risely’s L&D strategy framework today and bring your ideas to life.
A training needs assessment, or TNA, helps organizations find skills gaps and create specific training programs. When training initiatives match organizational goals, it encourages a culture of learning, increases employee engagement, and helps you reach important goals.
This blog post is a guide to understand everything that you need to know about learning and development needs assessments and carry them out successfully for your organization.
A Learning and Development (L&D) needs assessment is a process that helps you find out what training your employees need. It looks deeper than just spotting skills gaps, as it adopts a more holistic and long-term approach to developing the talent of your organization.
In very simple terms,
Skills Gap Analysis = Checking what tools are missing from a toolbox.
L&D Needs Assessment = Planning how to build a world-class workshop.
Building a learning and development needs assessment gives a clear view of the knowledge, skills, and abilities your team needs to do their best and help the company succeed. This helps you use resources wisely and makes sure training programs get real results. When you understand your workers’ current abilities and what performance levels they want to reach, you can design specific training initiatives that close the gaps. This way, employees get the support they need to thrive in their jobs.
A learning and development needs assessment is built to foster a learning ecosystem that moves your team toward strategic goals. To achieve this, the following components are considered along with quantitative measurement of employee abilities:
Employee aspirations
Career path planning
Organizational culture
Future strategic objectives
Why does a needs assessment matter?
When companies view training as an important tool instead of a quick fix, they can address new skill gaps early. This approach helps employees perform better and fosters innovation. It makes sure workers gain the skills needed for personal and company success. It also helps you stay competitive. By matching training efforts with business goals, you can make sure that their L&D investments lead to real benefits. This involves clearly stating the goals of the training and designing the training programs around those goals.
Further reading: What Does A Learning And Development Team (L&D) Do?
Conducting a Learning and Development Needs Analysis
A successful L&D needs assessment is based on important parts that work together. It should start by finding out who the training is for. This means looking at job roles, departments, career paths, and personal goals.
#1 Identifying Target Skills and Knowledge Gaps
Once we know who the target audience is, the next step is to find the specific skills they lack. This means looking at the skills needed for each job and comparing them to what the employees currently have.
A good training program has to cover both hard skills and soft skills. Soft skills, like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, are just as important in today’s team-oriented workplace. By finding and fixing gaps in both hard and soft skills, you build a workforce that is ready to handle tough problems.
To spot skills gaps, it’s best to use different methods. Getting feedback from employees, managers, and experts is useful to understand what skills are needed. Using data analysis, performance reviews, and input from everyone involved gives you a clear picture of where skills gaps hold back performance and productivity. You can also use a template like the free skills gap template from Risely to make the process easier.
#2 Analyzing Organizational Goals vs. Employee Competencies
Bridging the gap between what a company wants to achieve and what its employees can do is key to a good Learning and Development (L&D) plan. First, take the big organizational goals and break them down into clear and measurable targets. These targets can then be shared with different departments and roles.
Next, doing a thorough job analysis is important. This means looking at the main tasks, duties, and skills needed for each job. When individual skills match the company goals, you can create a clear plan for employee growth that helps the company succeed.
Performance reviews are also important in this process. They give useful feedback on how each employee is doing and point out where they might need to grow their skills. By using this performance data in the L&D needs assessment, you have to design training that focuses on fixing specific performance gaps.
#3 Methods for Conducting L&D Needs Assessments
There isn’t a single best way to do L&D needs assessments. The most successful assessments use different methods that fit the specific needs and situation of the organization. It’s important to pick methods that match the organizational culture, budget, and goals. Each method has its own pros and cons. Choosing the best methods or a mix of them helps create a thorough needs assessment.
Some common methods of conducting a needs assessment for L& D that you can look into are:
Surveys and Questionnaires: Surveys and questionnaires are useful tools for gathering data from many people. They help you understand the training needs of employees by collecting information from a wide range of views.
Interviews; Surveys give a broad picture, but individual interviews and focus groups dig deeper. They provide detailed insights into specific training needs. These methods allow for open-ended questions, letting participants share their experiences, views, and suggestions.
Focus Groups: Focus groups work well when you are looking into complex topics or getting different viewpoints from a small, chosen group of employees. Skilled facilitators guide the talks, making sure everyone can join in.
Observation: Watching employees at work gives helpful real-time information about how they perform and use their skills. This way to assess is great for looking at hands-on skills. It also helps spot any gaps between what people know and what they can do.
Performance reviews:Performance reviews and data from performance management systems are great for finding learning and development (L&D) needs. By looking at performance trends, strengths and weaknesses, and employee feedback, you can see where focused training could have a real effect.
#4 Integrating L&D Needs Assessment into L&D Strategies
The insights gained from a complete needs assessment are very helpful. But, in order to lead to results, they should be part of the organization’s L&D strategy. This means using the data to guide how training programs are designed, created, and delivered. Also, combining these insights makes training a regular part of the employee experience. This helps create a culture of ongoing learning and growth.
There are multiple points where you need to think of integrations across L&D processes:
Aligning L&D Assessment Results with Business Goals
This helps show how valuable training programs are. It focuses on going beyond just offering training. It measures how the training helps meet important goals. This process starts by clearly stating the goals we want to achieve. For instance, if improving customer satisfaction is a major goal, then L&D programs should work on boosting customer service skills. They should also give employees the tools and knowledge needed to create great customer experiences.
Customizing Learning Pathways Based on Assessment Results
Today, training programs are not the same for everyone. Employees want learning that is special to their needs and goals. L&D needs assessments give us the information we need to make personalized learning paths for all employees. By using the data from these assessments, companies can change training content, delivery methods, and speed to match how each employee learns best. For example, some people do well with online learning they can do on their own, while others like training with a teacher or hands-on workshops. Of course, new advancements like AI can lend a helping hand in this process.
#5 Gathering Stakeholder Support
People matter! Unsurprisingly, their support is vital in ensuring that your needs assessment leads to tangible results. People may resist this process for different reasons. These could include not understanding why it matters, being afraid of extra work, or worrying about what the results might mean.
You need to have a strong change management plan that takes care of stakeholder worries ahead of time. Begin by clearly explaining the goals of the needs assessment. Highlight how it will positively affect employee performance and help the organization succeed. Involve stakeholders in creating and carrying out the plan. This can help them feel more invested and lessen their resistance.
#6 Don’t Forget to Measure Impact & Improve!
Measuring how well an L&D needs assessment works is very important. It shows its value and helps you get support for training initiatives. Just doing the assessment and creating training programs is not enough. You must keep track of their progress and see what they gain from their L&D investments.
To do this, they need to set clear success metrics, collect data on training results, and analyze how well the training has filled the skills gaps identified at first. Regular checks make sure that L&D programs stay effective and meet the changing needs of the organization.
We talk more about ROI in our detailed blog that you can explore here: Using ROI of Training to Lead Successful L&D Interventions
An L&D needs assessment should not just happen once. Look at it as part of a loop that keeps improving. You should collect feedback at different times—before, during, and after training—to find ways to make things better.
Check the training feedback to see where the content was not effective, the delivery could be better, or the program time was too short. Use this feedback to adjust future training initiatives based on data. This way, you can always aim to improve the quality and results of L&D programs.
Following this ongoing process helps keep the training programs relevant, interesting, and in line with the changing needs of the organization.
Wrapping up
In conclusion, doing a Learning and Development Needs Assessment is very important. It helps align organizational goals with what employees can do. By finding out specific skills and knowledge gaps, companies can create learning paths that support their plans and help their business succeed. Using tools like surveys, interviews, and AI analytics makes the assessment easier. This leads to better performance and returns on investment.
It is also important to tackle challenges like resistance from stakeholders and issues with data accuracy. This is key for effective assessments. Regular evaluation and feedback help improve L&D strategies over time. By embracing needs assessments, you can build a culture of learning and growth in your organization.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Bring your training to life with accurate training needs analysis.
Download Risely’s free training needs template today to kickstart effective and precise L&D systems with your team.
7 Top Learning And Development Newsletters For 2025
Newsletters are among the most popular mediums for catching up with the world today. After all, what’s not to like – you get nuggets of wisdom regularly. Newsletters allow us to keep up with the world much more than the conventional media, such as articles and essays, in the sense they bring insights to us without prompting. For L&D professionals stuck with busy days but need to grow constantly, newsletters are a match made in heaven.
But there are so many of them out there! And each one looks better than the earlier one; what should you pick? And why? In this blog post, we have listed some of the best learning and development newsletters for you. They cover many ideas in the L&D system and will help you navigate work better.
Staying updated is easy with helpful newsletters sent right to your inbox. This list shows the top 7 L&D newsletters for you. They cover many topics, from new learning strategies to useful solutions for HR professionals. Whether you want to improve your company’s learning programs or boost your team’s skills, these newsletters give you the knowledge and inspiration you need in the changing world of L&D.
But before that…
What makes a learning and development newsletter good? We have selected these based on a few ideas:
They offer original and unique insights that are useful for L&D professionals.
These L&D newsletters are mostly free or at least have a freemium version, so they are accessible.
Most of these learning and development newsletters focus on a particular niche area, thus allowing for in-depth understanding.
They offer more resources beyond just the contents of the newsletter itself. These L&D newsletters frequently carry more learning resources, free templates, and opportunities to support your L&D work.
So without further ado, let’s begin exploring the top learning and development newsletters:
#1 The Top
by Ashish ManchandaWhat is it about? Developing yourself and other leaders in your organization effectively.
Where can you find it? LinkedIn Pulse, every Friday. Join 1000+ professionals on this growth journey with The Top Newsletter.
What’s the cost? It’s free!
The Top newsletter combines insights on leadership development and L&D. For your career, it offers twin benefits. It enhances the efficacy of your leadership development practices and shares ideas you can apply on your journey, such as dealing with burnout and managing other managers.
The best part is that it comes from the point of relatability for managers. As a result, the experience and expertise lead to relevant and applicable ideas for improving people management practices and remaining in touch with the latest developments like AI.
#2 Disrupt
by HowNowWhat is it about? The big challenges of L&D and how to solve them.
Where can you find it? You can sign up from their website for editions releasing every alternate Tuesday.
What’s the cost? It’s free.
Disrupt with HowNow is exactly what it soundslike—bringing disruption into the boredom of L&D conversations. Packed with applicable insights on L&D functions, it caters to a 1000+ audience of L&D professionals. The best part of this newsletter for L&D is its conversational style, which keeps value accessible and easy to obtain for everyone.
#3 The Learning Brief
by the L&D Shakers CommunityWhat is it about? The Learning Brief newsletter talks about pertinent matters and community happenings.
Where can you find it? The Learning Brief is available on Substack.
What’s the cost? It’s free.
The Learning Brief newsletter mixes the fun and engaging side of the L&D Shakers community with useful ideas for learning and development professionals. It has dual roles: one as the chronicler of community events, such as new podcasts and thoughts shared by members, and second as a resource book for practitioners globally.
#4 TD Leader
by ATD newslettersWhat is it about? Talent Development practice, ideas, and trends for you.
Where can you find it? You can sign up on the ATD website.
What’s the cost? This newsletter is available for free.
The TD Leader is one of ATD’s flagship newsletters, focusing on talent development. It is published monthly and packed with diverse content focused on the latest research, trends, and ideas in the industry. This learning and development newsletter also features knowledge from the ATD catalogue to boost your career in the field. ATD has many more niche specific newsletters that you can check out on their website that feature research-oriented work in the training and development space.
#5 Training Weekly
by Training IndustryWhat is it about? Resources and ideas for corporate learning and development.
Where can you find it? Sign up on the Training Industry website.
What’s the cost? It’s free!
The weekly newsletter from Training Industry curates research, trends, and the latest developments in corporate training and development. This learning and development newsletter is specifically designed with learning leaders in mind. It also comes with invitations to webinars and podcasts with learning leaders and industry experts, who can help you understand changes and shape up strategies for success.
#6 LD MENA
by John HinchliffeWhat is it about? L&D practices in the MENA region.
Where can you find it? Catch all the editions on Substack.
What’s the cost? It’s free.
The L&D in MENA is a learning and development newsletter dedicated to uncovering the latest happenings, trends, and news relevant to L&D leaders focused on the MENA region. Run by a practitioner with over a decade of experience in the L&D industry, it curates essential ideas and important events & conversations that will help you make a mark.
Since this newsletter is focused on a particular region, it can explore relevant questions in depth and help devise solutions. The newsletter also features curated events (even a yacht trip) to balance work and play.
#7 The Learning Loop
by CourseplayWhat is it about? Facilitating 360-degree employee growth.
Where can you find it? LinkedIn Pulse, every week. Start here.
What’s the cost? It’s available for free.
The Learning Loop newsletter ensures 360 employee growth by applying the best practices for impactful learning and development. It equips you with new ideas and interesting topics in the industry, with a short and sweet edition every week. As the name implies, the learning loop attempts to go into areas that facilitate the continuous development of employees, like mobile-based learning. If you are the one for trying out new things, this one is for you.
In conclusion, it is important to stay updated with the latest trends and insights in Learning and Development. This is key for professionals who want to grow and innovate. The top 7 newsletters listed above offer useful information, strategies, and a community to help you improve your L&D practices in the year to come.
By subscribing to these newsletters, you can learn new strategies, discover modern workplace trends, find important news, and get practical solutions. Keeping up with industry changes through these newsletters will certainly boost your knowledge and help your L&D efforts succeed in today’s world of learning and development.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Give your team the gift of freshness with a revamped L&D strategy.
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Top 7 Learning And Development Podcasts You Must See
500 million. That’s the number of people watching podcasts every single day across the world.
The medium is hot for the depth and variety it can offer. Podcasts are a savior and the right commute buddy for an increasingly busy world. The same goes for learning and development podcasts, a niche that has quietly built up into a great repository of valuable content.
In this blog post, we will explore some of the top learning and development podcasts that you should keep an eye on.
Staying updated on the newest trends and ideas in L&D is very important for your success. Learning and development podcasts are a simple and easy way to do this. They have interesting talks, expert interviews, and inspiring content. These podcasts offer a lot of useful knowledge for L&D workers at all stages of their careers.
If you are an experienced L&D expert or just starting out, adding these podcasts to your learning routine will boost your knowledge and keep you motivated. Listen to these L&D podcasts to discover the latest strategies, best practices, and innovative approaches to talent development and growth in organizations.
Many podcasts invite people to talk about their episodes on social media and online forums. This helps listeners connect with each other. It also gives you chances to network and learn together as L&D professionals.
So, let’s dive straight in:
#1 RiseUp Radio
by Risely, with Ashish Manchanda
Why should you watch this?
The RiseUp Radio podcast brings experts and practitioners to talk about leadership development and effective L&D. It brings actionable advice from people who have been through the challenges you are facing today.
Must watch episode:
Developing leaders, featuring Kelli Dragovich, This episode combines a personal journey with valuable lessons and advice to shape up for L&D journey.
The RiseUp Radio podcast offers learning and development insights in two exciting formats. First, we have topical episodes that focus on specific areas within HR and L&D, such as building empathy at work. The second format takes deep dives into leaders’ professional journeys, like this episode with Harjeet Khanduja, the SVP of HR at Reliance Jio. This brings in experience and expertise for your consideration.
You can watch all the episodes on YouTube.
#2 L&D Plus
by 360Learning, with David James
Why should you watch this?
The L&D Plus podcast discusses topics beyond “learning” and “development.” Your impact is in areas like growth, employee enablement, and operations. This podcast explains the what, why, and how behind it.
Must watch episode:
L&D Plus Talent, which breaks down how the two teams can build an impactful collaboration.
The L&D Plus podcast is a great tool for any professional not ready to remain limited to a strict job description. It prompts you to think beyond the word “learning and development.” Instead, you consider connections across marketing, sales, operations, and many other areas. David James brings in practitioners to tell their stories of building these connections.
You can check out all the Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts episodes.
#3 The Overnight Trainer
by Sarah Cannistra
Why should you watch this?
This weekly podcast is made with love to support you in the journey of achieving all your professional goals in L&D.
Must watch episode:
Upskilling for the L&D of the future, which breaks down what future ready skillsets for L&D professionals look like.
The Overnight Trainer podcast takes you on the upskilling journey amid busy schedules. It offers interesting takes on problems that you would resonate with, such as searching for the next role in your career or keeping up against rapidly changing skill demands in the market.
You can discover The Overnight Trainer podcast on Spotify.
#4 The Learning Xchange
by Matthew Brown
Why should you watch this?
Matthew Brown’s Learning Xchange podcast addressed issues beyond the conventional ones, such as building a diverse network and tackling trauma in workplaces.
Must watch episode:
The Importance of Evaluating Systems Implemented for Learning. This episode urges L&D to not just do things, but also review them as time passes for maximum impact.
This podcast focused on learning in the digital world and provided a lot of practical value due to the host’s experience as a Chief People and Culture Officer. As a result, it proved to be a valuable resource for L&D professionals carving a space of their own in a rapidly evolving field.
The Learning Xchange podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music.
#5 All Hands
by Lattice, with Katelin Holloway
Why should you watch this?
People success is business success – that’s the core mantra echoing through all episodes of the All Hands podcast, where experts join in to break down their playbooks for people success.
Must watch episode:
Building strong CEO-CPO relationships with Melanie Naranjo, that breaks down how to connect across the table and lead your team to success.
The All Hands podcast has completed four seasons, with amazing guests sharing insights on how they have built successful people functions. The topics are diverse, ranging from thoughts on adopting an intersectional lens to using AI the right way with your organization.
The All Hands podcast is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
#5 Learning at Large
by Kirstie Greany
Why should you watch this?
The Learning at Large podcast is the perfect resource for L&D professionals building online learning practices. It features stories from some of the most successful organizations.
Must watch episode:
Delivering Decentralized Learning, where Geraldine Murphy shares how to deliver learning to 90,000+ people.
The Learning at Large podcast discusses questions that matter to your growth, such as meaningfully implementing AI in L&D practices, preparing and fighting for budgets, and rethinking old practices for innovative L&D strategies. These insights come from people who have been there, experts who understand where you are and how to move forward.
The Learning at Large podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
#6 Coaching Real Leaders
by HBR, with Muriel Wilkins
Why should you watch this?
Led by an executive coach backed by years of experience, the Coaching Real Leaders podcast helps leaders and C-suite executives tackle professional challenges.
Must watch episode:
How do I avoid a career plateau in mid life, which talks of an all-too-common challenge many professionals face.
The insights from the Coaching Real Leaders podcast are useful for the people in your organization and, at times, would resonate with your challenges, too. As an L&D professional reaching new heights, you would find many questions relevant and helpful to your journey.
This podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
#7 HR Happy Hour
by Steve Boese and Trish McFarlaney
Why should you watch this?
As the longest-running HR podcast in America, HR Happy Hour has proven to be a valuable resource for professionals, as it takes up issues that impact your everyday work.
Must watch episode:
The ROI of kindness at work, which calls you to be a little more deliberate about being nice – because it matters a lot.
Beyond this show, the HR Happy Hour network carries many more useful conversations for HR and L&D professionals, including content on leadership development, HR technology, and management. HR Happy Hour is also an old player in the field, running since 2009 and constantly evolving with the industry.
This podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
The information from these podcasts can greatly help your L&D career. When you keep up with trends, best practices, and new technologies, you make yourself more valuable to your organization.
The advice and examples shared by industry experts build your credibility. This helps you add real value to your company’s L&D strategy. By engaging with these podcasts, you show that you care about professional development and continuous learning. This can help you stand out in the L&D field.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Move toward enhanced L&D performance with a revamped strategy.
Download Risely’s free learning and development strategy framework to uplift your team’s skills and capabilities.
Learning analytics are critical to answering several questions for L&D teams. You need them to support the overall learning and development strategy, define the business case, and prove your impact. But there’s a lot of noise when measuring L&D initiatives. As a result, we must ask what the right sources of learning analytics are for us. In this blog, we will try to uncover learning analytics sources that make your L&D practice data-driven.
Learning analytics is a field that connects learning and data science. It involves measuring, gathering, analyzing, and sharing data from your employees. This data includes information about learners, like their backgrounds, job challenges, engagement, and learning styles.
Apart from simply telling you who’s performing well and who is not, learning analytics also measures the health of your L&D function. Primarily, the various sources of learning analytics answer questions like:
Are we moving the needle? – Thinking in terms of positively impacting the business and the people.
Where are people getting stuck? – Problem solving for your team.
Which skills need urgent attention? – Determine priorities.
Is our learning approach working? – Support consistent improvements.
Are we spending wisely? – Ensure cost-effectiveness of L&D.
What do people actually use? – Understand and meet the needs of your people.
Where’s our biggest impact? – Gather your strategic impact.
The growth of learning analytics is closely tied to the improvements in data mining methods. Now, workplaces are leading the way in using learning analytics to strengthen learner retention, personalize learning paths, and boost overall employee success through their L&D strategies. More teams are adopting integrative approaches to make data-driven decisions when it comes to learning and development of their people. This marks a big change from old ways of making decisions based on gut feelings. Instead, it shifts towards a model that relies on solid evidence.
What Sources of Learning Analytics Should You Track?
Now that we have looked at learning analytics, let’s check where this useful data comes from. Learner data comes in different forms. Each form gives special insights into the learning process. By using various data sets, you get a clear view of learner engagement and how well they are doing overall.
Engagement Data
These sources of learning analytics will primarily report the engagement level with learning content. It helps you track how your learners navigate the systems, mostly collected through LMS and similar platforms. It includes metrics like:
Course completion rates
Time spent per module
Assessment scores
Drop-off points
Login frequency
Resource downloads/views
These sources of learning analytics are mainly found in learning platforms. A few examples are LMS reports (Cornerstone, Moodle, TalentLMS), LinkedIn Learning analytics, and Udemy Business dashboards. If you have a custom solution for L&D in your team, your dashboards will help you find this information.
Skills and Competency Data
The second set of learning analytics sources is data about skills and competencies that your people are working on. These are measured through assessments and evaluations, which can come from multiple sources, including platforms’ in-built assessment systems, feedback from managers, and job performance, etc. to name a few. Others include:
Pre/post assessment results
Certification rates
Skill gap analysis
Performance reviews
Manager feedback
Self-assessments
Program Efficiency
The third area, tracking the efficiency of learning and development programs, helps you evaluate and improve L&D practices. Based on these, you can make improvements, such as enhancing the content quality or cutting down on administrative tasks by automating functions. It includes tracking of learning analytics metrics such as:
Cost per learner
Time to competency
Resource utilization
Admin time spent
Support tickets
Technical issues
Business Impact
The last sources of learning analytics we are highlighting include conversations about the business impact of learning and development. The metrics in this section track impact across many vital business areas. Importantly, we also consider the impact on customer interactions, going beyond the scope of L&D teams and learners. This section is vital because it relates directly to the budgets and resources you can avail yourself of for your L&D plans.
Performance metrics before/after
Error rates
Customer satisfaction
Employee retention
Promotion rates
Project success rates
HRIS data (Workday, SAP, Oracle) helps understand these sources of learning analytics. Performance review systems, succession planning tools, and skills frameworks are useful for employee-facing metrics.
Descriptive analytics and diagnostic analytics are basic methods in analytics for learning and development. They help us understand what has happened and why. Descriptive analytics looks at past data. It summarizes this data to find trends and patterns. For example, it can show which courses have the most learners or which learning resources people use the most. This helps us see past behavior and make better choices for the future.
In contrast, diagnostic analytics digs deeper into the data. It looks for reasons behind trends or patterns. For instance, if descriptive analytics shows that students are less engaged in an online discussion forum, diagnostic analytics can help find out why. Is it because the topics are uninteresting? Are there technical problems with the platform? Or is the forum not matching how students like to learn?
Predictive analytics goes beyond learning analytics by using past data to predict future results. In L&D, this helps find employees who may struggle or those who could do very well. By looking at trends in previous learner data like test scores, engagement, how they engage with learning platforms, we can spot important signs of employee success.
For instance, if a predictive model shows that learners who often score low on early quizzes tend to have more trouble in their work, trainers can use this to help those employees earlier. Research keeps looking into how predictive analytics can help with challenges such as keeping employees engaged, creating personalized learning paths, and making effective programs for employees or skills at risk of falling out.
Prescriptive analytics builds on what we learn from descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive analytics. It recommends actions to help improve the learning process. It does more than just point out problems or predict what might happen; it offers specific steps educators and schools can take to boost results.
For example, if predictive analytics show that some learners might struggle, prescriptive analytics might suggest solutions like personalized tutoring or pairing employees with peer mentors. It could even recommend the best time and way to provide these interventions based on each employee’s unique learning style.
Some concerns in using learning analytics data
The use of learning analytics is getting more common, but it comes with challenges and important ethical questions. L&D professionals must deal with these issues in a responsible way. You need to think about data privacy, security, and fairness. It is essential to avoid any biases that may arise.
First, workplaces are responsible for protecting learner data. You must keep this information private and safe. You should also use what they learn from learning analytics to create fair and inclusive learning spaces for every employee. Being open about data use is key. Employees should know what data is collected, how it is used, and why. Safe data storage is also very important.
Predictive analytics can be very useful for helping employees do better. However, it also brings up some ethical concerns that we need to think about. One major worry is bias. If the historical data used to create predictive models shows biases that already exist in the learning and development strategy, these models might repeat or even worsen those biases. For example, if a model often flags learners from certain socioeconomic backgrounds as “at risk,” it could generate unfair or wrong predictions. This would only add to the existing inequalities.
Wrapping Up
The area of learning analytics has many success stories. Companies are now using analytics tools and learning analytics systems to check how well training works. They help improve how content is shared and make the learning experience better for workers.
By looking at how employees engage with training materials, testing what they remember, and collecting feedback on the training, companies can find ways to improve. They can adjust content to fit specific job needs or skill gaps.
Learning analytics dashboards give valuable insights into how employees learn. This helps training and development teams create more engaging and effective programs that support business goals. As companies rely more on data, the use of learning analytics to improve worker training and growth will keep increasing.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Ready to elevate your team’s learning and development journey?
Grab your free copy of Risely’s learning and development strategy framework and get started.
To Do or Not To Do: Learning and Development Outsourcing
Learning and development teams have a lot to do. However, your bandwidth is often limited. As teams rapidly expand, evolving training needs arise due to technological advancements, and people want to see an impact before they move the budgets ahead; it’s a lot for an L&D team to handle.
Given the wide range of learning and development needs, L&D strategies need to make space for external providers. Is it the right choice for your team? To answer that, let’s try to understand learning and development outsourcing in detail below.
Learning and development outsourcing means hiring an outside company to manage employee training. Instead of just using your own staff, you can use the skills and resources of special L&D providers.
This teamwork lets you access more knowledge, the latest technologies, and new training ideas that you may not have on your own. By outsourcing some L&D jobs or even complete training programs, you improve training efforts and reach your strategic goals more efficiently without overwhelming the function. It becomes important when we note that about 87% companies surveyed by McKinsey were either experiencing a capability gap or expecting it pretty soon.
So, the question is, how do we outsource L&D?
L&D outsourcing can take many forms, such as:
Fully outsourced L&D ops: As the name suggests, the entire training and development program is managed by an external provider. This service is most commonly used by companies that lack the internal resources and bandwidth to conduct required training. It includes collaboration with your leadership to develop effective strategies and then complete the execution of the action plans with analytics, reporting, and feedback.
Project-based outsourcing for L&D: As the name suggests, this includes hiring relevant specialists, consultants, and/or vendors to meet your company’s learning and development needs in a specific area. The applications of outsourcing work like this commonly include instructional design agencies, content development houses, video production companies, eLearning development specialists, and assessment design experts.
Individual contractors: You can also use L&D outsourcing to complement your organization’s internal learning development initiatives. For instance, you can hire an instructional designer to turn the know-how of subject matter experts into easily understandable learning content. Similarly, individual contractors and freelancers are available for many functional areas of L&D, such as technical writing, LMS administration, and learning experience design.
Moreover, certain tasks in L&D are good for outsourcing. This is often because these tasks need special skills or extra resources, like:
Content Development: Creating training materials that are helpful and engaging takes a lot of time. It also needs special skills in designing instruction. By outsourcing content development to experts, you get high-quality, tailored training materials for their specific training needs.
Compliance Training: It is tough to keep up with changing rules and compliance standards. This task takes a lot of time and resources. Outsourcing compliance training makes sure your workforce receives the correct and current training in a fun and effective way.
Technology Implementation and Support: Setting up and managing systems for learning, like Learning Management Systems (LMS), needs technical skills. When you outsource these tasks to experts, you enjoy smooth integration and ongoing help. This also allows your IT team to focus on other important business systems.
Why should you consider outsourcing L&D?
One big reason why more companies are choosing to outsource L&D is the many benefits it provides.
In the survey cited above, McKinsey also notes that half the people noticing skill gaps put “reskilling” as the most important combat move for their teams. But, that means an intense run for already burdened L&D teams! Thus, when you hire experts for certain training tasks, your internal teams are free to focus more on important business tasks. It keeps your operations smoother and improves overall work efficiency. Plus, reskilling ensures cost savings as compared to hiring.
Outsourcing also allows you to work with top L&D professionals and new technologies without the hassle of hiring people, investing in infrastructure, or dealing with training costs for your internal staff. Whether it’s leadership development, technical skills training, or compliance programs, you can find specialized help to create effective learning experiences. It’s a great way to develop talent in new areas which are not already present in your team. This, in turn, boosts employee satisfaction and helps you curb turnover.
Things to consider before L&D outsourcing
But, there are costs to manage when your are thinking of learning and development outsourcing. First up, you have to pay the vendors and contractors you will engage. You will also need to ensure that they have an open communication channel with your team, potentially bringing up costs for managing the vendor relationship, communication, and tracking performance.
Think on both the fronts: the benefits you get and the costs you pay before deciding.
Primarily, consider these questions when you are thinking of outsourcing L&D ops:
What is the cost structure, and how are fixed versus variable costs managed?
What quality control processes are in place to ensure consistency?
Who holds IP ownership, and what are the terms around it?
How will this integrate with our internal teams and existing workflows?
Can this solution scale to meet growing demands or needs?
Are there any specific geographic or cultural requirements we should consider?
Before outsourcing, you should carefully look at your Learning and Development functions. You need to clearly tell apart which activities are core and which are non-core.
Core L&D functions are those that are closely linked to the main business processes. These tasks strongly impact the your company’s goals. Usually, it’s best to keep these core functions in-house. This helps maintain the company’s culture, values, and long-term vision.
Non-core L&D functions, on the other hand, often require special skills or knowledge that may not be available within the company. These could include tasks like content development, platform administration, or parts of compliance training.
By outsourcing non-core functions, you can free up their internal resources. This allows you to focus more on important initiatives while getting help from outside experts. A few scenarios where you can outsource L&D are:
#1 You have to scale L&D ops rapidly
Sudden demands are not new. They happen often when a company rapidly expands operations or the competitive environment changes quickly. As a result, you need to roll out training yesterday and implement it today already. When growth outpaces the internal L&D capacity, you need support. Outsourced L&D operations are a great saver in such situations because you can reach more areas quickly with them. It’s a good way to get through a major product launch that requires everyone to brush up on their knowledge or a new offshore team that uses a different language than yours.
#2 Your team needs specialized training
Another scenario where learning and development outsourcing can help you is when the needed expertise is not core to your business. In such cases, you would hardly have enough internal experts to create and guide training programs for highly technical or regulated areas. These L&D programs are often shaped like one-off programs outside the core business focus, have certifications requiring accredited providers, or involve complex simulations or specialized learning technology. For most L&D teams, building such capacity is a big ask; thus, outsourcing is the way to go.
#3 You need to mitigate infrastructure cost
Not all training can happen quietly in rooms with just a whiteboard. When training involves high infrastructure costs that outweigh outsourcing, you should go this route. For instance, your company ideally needs leadership coaches for people managers. But you do not have enough senior leaders who can double up as coaches. Executive coaching is expensive. What’s the way out? An AI coach like Merlin for people managers fills in. Similarly, high infrastructure cost could mean investing in high-end video production needs or VR/AR content development. Large-scale content localization projects are another area you can outsource instead of building in-house capacity.
When should you not outsource L&D?
On the flip side, some scenarios exist where learning and development outsourcing does not make sense, such as:
#1 Your core business knowledge is involved
When learning directly relates to competitive advantage, you must keep it in-house. Why? At this stage, you are likely delving into proprietary processes and methodologies. These could include company-specific employee development practices and strategic capability-building programs that are closely tied to your team’s context and challenges. As noted above, core L&D areas directly impact business outcomes and maintain the company’s culture, values, and long-term vision. Hence, they need to remain under your purview.
#2 Your sensitive information/IP is involved
Like culture and core values, your company’s sensitive information, such as IPs and internal processes, must remain confidential. In such instances, you must not outsource learning and development initiatives. It includes programs involving unannounced or unreleased products, strategy-related training, competitive intelligence, and market positioning.
#3 Your L&D plan needs continuous evaluation and updates
Training needs are often dynamic. Contacting vendors to update learning programs as your business priorities shift would create a significant burden. It is commonly observed with agile learning initiatives tied to product development and programs closely tied to employee feedback. A high degree of integration with internal processes and workflows can impede synergy with external L&D service providers. In such cases, you should stick with in-house learning and development plans.
To sum up
Making smart choices about which parts of L&D to outsource is important. It helps you use outside skills while keeping control over key learning projects. First, look at which L&D tasks take a lot of resources, need special skills, or can be done better by outside teams. You should think about some things like how complex the training materials are, whether you have the skills in-house, how urgent the training is, and the possible cost savings from outsourcing.
Successfully handling the challenges of L&D outsourcing needs a well-organized plan based on industry standards. It’s not just about handing off tasks. It’s about building partnerships that match your organization’s values, goals, and focus on promoting a culture of ongoing learning.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Build your L&D plan with a free template!
Grab free resources to boost L&D and leadership development functions with Risely.
The biggest shopping events of the year are just around the corner, and we’ve got everything you need to score the best deals without the stress. Black Friday (November 29) and Cyber Monday (December 2) are no longer just single-day events – they’ve evolved into a full season of savings, with many sellers dropping prices weeks in advance.
Keeping that in mind, we have listed the best SaaS Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday offers for 2024 here across industries and applications. Stay tuned as we update this guide regularly with the latest deals, doorbusters, and exciting products to help you make the most of this year’s biggest sales events.
Risely is an AI co-pilot for developing your team’s people, managers, and leaders. Risely adopts a hyper-personalized approach to ensure your managers meet their unique challenges and contextual needs. It starts by assessing your people managers for around 30 core skills and proceeds to create a learning journey that matches their unique learning needs and preferences.
But the story does not end here; our AI coach, Merlin, also provides constant support whenever a people management challenge strikes. Your team can access coaching in their preferred workspaces, in 40+ languages, and with great voice mode.
What do you get with Risely?
Personalized leadership coaching for managers at scale with global access.
Access to personalized micro-learning activities and nudges to support manager development.
Integration with company policies in admin mode to get your culture agent.
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Got some questions, we are here to answer at info@risely.me
#2 ControlHippo
ControlHippo is a comprehensive omnichannel shared inbox solution that streamlines customer communication management. It empowers businesses to manage interactions across multiple channels—such as email, social media, and chat—through one unified platform. Focused on seamless collaboration, ControlHippo boosts customer support and engagement, ensuring consistent, efficient service across every touchpoint.
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CallHippo is a leading virtual call center solution built for businesses of all sizes. Equipped with tailored features to elevate customer experiences and empower sales teams, CallHippo integrates seamlessly with over 100 applications like Shopify, Zapier, Freshdesk, and HubSpot. By automating call center tasks, it optimizes efficiency and simplifies workflows for enhanced productivity.
Black Friday Offer: 20% Annual payment discount; 15% Quarterly discount. Duration: 1st November – 6th December 2024 Discount Code: Reach out to marketing@callhippo.com for your coupon code.
Xobin is a comprehensive skill assessment software designed to streamline the recruitment process for businesses of any size. Trusted by over 5,000 teams globally, it offers 2,500+ customizable tests and advanced features like Psychometric assessments, Automated video interviews, AI evaluate, Applicant tracking software (Tracks), Eye-Tracking Proctoring, Actionable report, and much more.
Whether you need to conduct role-specific assessments for tech and non-tech positions, hire in bulk for university recruitment drives, or evaluate employee skill gaps, Xobin has got you covered. With 2 million annual test takers, Xobin operates in 55+ countries to help companies hire 20x faster while saving 10x time and money.
Black Friday Offer: 60% off on the annual pricing plan—limited slots are available. Duration: 11th November – 26th Novemeber 2024
Fill out the deal request form, Xobin team will review your request and approve it. Once you receive the approval you can make the payment within 72 hours, the activation code will be sent to you by the Xobin team. The chosen plan will be added to your account within 24 hrs. You can use the Activation code before Nov 1, 2025.
Tagshop is a platform that empowers e-commerce businesses to leverage user-generated content (UGC) for increased sales and customer engagement. It allows brands to collect, curate, and showcase UGC from various social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, directly on their website or in email campaigns.
By transforming UGC into shoppable galleries, Tagshop enables seamless shopping experiences, boosts product discovery, and personalizes interactions with each customer. This ultimately leads to higher conversions, stronger brand reputation, and a loyal customer community.
Black Friday Offer: 20% Off on Any Plan. Duration: Till 31st Dec 2024 Discount Code: BFCM20
FounderPass is an exclusive membership for founders giving over $3m of perks and discounts on software, tools and business services. With 250+ companies including AWS, Google, Slack, Notion, Webflow, LinkedIn, Hubspot, TikTok and many others we help founders save thousands.
Black Friday Offer: 25% off on memberships. Duration: 19th November – 3rd December 2024 Discount Code: BF25
DronaHQ is a leading low-code platform for engineers to speed up custom application development and save 100s of hours. Build customer portals, admin panels, forms, dashboards, and lots more using powerful building blocks.
Black Friday Offer: Up to 40% off on annual plans. Duration: 5th November – 30th November 2024 Discount Code: Shared upon request
OneStream Live is a cloud-based live streaming solution that allows you to broadcast both pre-recorded and real-time content to over 45 social platforms and websites simultaneously. These include YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, LinkedIn, and more, ensuring maximum visibility.
Black Friday Offer: 30% off all monthly plans for 2 months; 10% off all yearly plans. Duration: 1st November – 5th December 2024 Discount Code: BFCM30 and BFCM10 respectively
Plerdy is an all-in-one website analysis tool designed for Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) & SEO. It allows businesses to track, analyze, and convert visitors into buyers with AI assistance. Features include UX analytics, e-commerce insights, AI-powered reports, heatmap capabilities, and A/B Testing.
Black Friday Offer: Get 50% OFF on annual plans. Duration: 14th November – 1st December 2024 Discount Code: plerdyBF2024
Retable is an online spreadsheet solution that helps you organize your workflows, projects, teams, and business operations. Known as the best alternative to Airtable, Retable offers real-time collaboration and rich features that are easy to use to manage your projects and workflows with a user-friendly spreadsheet-like UI.
Black Friday Offer: 50% off for all plans for the first three months. Duration: 15th November – 1st December 2024 Discount Code: BF50
This deal is valid for the first 3 months for monthly payments. For annual payments, you pay at a 50% discount for the first year. A 50% discount is applied for each seat you add during purchase.
AdSpyder is a digital ad management and spy tool designed to help businesses and marketers discover, analyze, and optimize online ad campaigns. With access to a vast, continually growing database of ads across multiple platforms, AdSpyder offers insights into competitor strategies, ad trends, and performance improvements. Users can create compelling ad copies, manage campaigns, and conduct ad analytics, all supported by AI.
Black Friday Offer: 75% off on all plans. Duration: 11th November – 31st December 2024 Discount Code: NA
AiAssistWorks.- AI for Google Sheets—no formulas needed! Harness 50+ AI models, including GPT, Claude, and Gemini™, to streamline bulk tasks like rewriting, categorizing, data analysis, and formula creation. Simplify workflows and enhance productivity with ease.
Black Friday Offer: Get the Plus Plan for only $16/year (normally $48 – save 65%) or $40 for 3 years.. Duration: 7th November – 30th November 2024 Discount Code: BLACKFRIDAY
CodedThemes is a leading provider in the world of high-quality, professionally designed admin dashboard templates & UI kits. CodedThemes is known for its strong and modern digital products, which caters to developers, designers, and businesses looking to create visually appealing and functional web applications.
Black Friday Offer: 60% off. Duration: 25th November – 7th December 2024 Discount Code: BFCM2024
Engage with your website visitors and customers instantly at the peak of their interest. Offer them live video meetings and chats directly on your site
Black Friday Offer: 90% off (5 avail.), 75% off (10 avail), 50% off (30 avail), 30% off (100 avail). Duration: 15th October – 4th December 2024 Discount Code: 90OFFBF24, 75OFFBF24, 50OFFBF24, 30OFFBF24
Placeit by Envato is an all-in-one design tool offering over 50k customizable templates for logos, videos, and social media imagery, continuously updated with fresh designs from skilled professionals. With AI-generated assets and a customizable brand kit, users can create high-quality visuals in minutes, even without extensive design skills. The platform also features templates specifically for promoting events like Cyber Monday, making it easy to attract customers and boost sales. Ideal for small business owners, freelancers, and marketers.
Black Friday Offer: 33% off on annual subscriptions. For new users only. Duration: 27th November – 3rd December 2024 Discount Code: NA
5centsCDN is a global content delivery network offering fast, reliable, and affordable solutions for web acceleration, live streaming, and video on demand. Our advanced platform and flexible pricing empower you to optimize your content strategy and enhance your online presence.
Black Friday Offer: Get Up to $400 in Free Credits, or Buy 1 Month and Get 1 Month Free!. Duration: 25th November 2024 – 15th December, 2024 Discount Code: NA
Sign up, purchase a base plan, and contact the support team to receive credits equal to the base plan value for an additional free month.
Bullet.so is a no-code, Notion-based website builder that enables users to quickly create professional, customizable websites without coding skills. With over 20 free templates, built-in SEO, and membership features for monetizing content, Bullet.so helps creators, educators, and businesses turn Notion pages into branded websites.
Bullet.so supports a wide variety of site types, including personal portfolios, blogs, membership sites, educational resources, and business websites. It also offers membership management, analytics tracking, and integration options for streamlined site management.
Black Friday Offer: Get a lifetime deal for $499/site (Limited for first 20 users). Duration: 25th November 2024 – 5th December, 2024 Discount Code: NA
SyncSignature creates branded email signatures for your teams. SyncSignature helps design, update and automatically install email signatures for everyone across your business.
Black Friday Offer: 60% on all recurring plans. Duration: 15th November 2024 – 10th December, 2024 Discount Code: BF24CM60
Wisery, an ultimate digital business card and link in bio tool has been designed to present your brand, generate leads, and simplify networking. Wisery is ideal for professionals, entrepreneurs, and businesses of all sizes. Whether you’re a freelancer, small business owner, or part of a large corporation, network effectively and foster meaningful professional relationships.
Black Friday Offer: 25% off on any plan. Duration: 25th November 2024 – 2nd December, 2024 Discount Code: BFW2024
NoForm AI is an AI-powered chatbot designed to supercharge your website’s lead generation. It works 24/7, engaging visitors, capturing qualified leads, and converting them into customers, all while saving your sales team valuable time With NoForm AI, you can ensure no visitor is ever left waiting for a response, and your business can provide instant, personalized engagement every time.
Black Friday Offer: New customers get 50% OFF NoForm AI’s monthly plan for the first year. Duration: 25th November 2024 – 6th December, 2024 Discount Code: NA
Newoldstamp is the leading email signature management platform that empowers to effortlessly design and implement brand-consistent signatures across the entire organization. A well-crafted standardized email signature isn’t just about contact information. It’s a powerful tool to connect with your target audience, potentially creating numerous sales opportunities every day.
Black Friday Offer: 25% off on any annual plan (recurring discount for all next payments; for new users) Duration: 25th November 2024 – 2nd December, 2024 Discount Code: BF2024NOS
MySignature is an all-in-one tool designed to help small businesses, creators, and freelancers with professional branding, enhancing their online presence, and efficient email communication.
Black Friday Offer: 30% off for the first payment for all yearly plans with discount Duration: 25th November 2024 – 2nd December, 2024 Discount Code: BFW2024
Replug is the ultimate link management solution for agencies, affiliates, and content creators. With advanced features like link shortening, data-driven insights, link tracking, and optimized link performance, Replug boosts engagement, improves conversions, and enhances your marketing strategy.
Black Friday Offer: Up to 75% OFF on annual plans. Duration: 20th November 2024 – 2nd December, 2024 Discount Code: NA
Gumlet is a leading video hosting platform aimed at delivering fast, secure, and smooth streaming experiences. It offers enterprise-level video protection, customizable video players for branding, detailed analytics, and optimized global streaming.
Black Friday Offer: Lifetime video hosting and streaming plan starting at $69. Duration: 24th November 2024 – 4th December, 2024 Discount Code: NA
TubeOnAI is an all-in-one AI summarizer designed to simplify content consumption and creation. It can instantly give key insights from long YouTube videos, podcasts, articles, PDFs, Google Drive files, and more. Users can also repurpose content and create engaging blog posts, social media updates, newsletters, video scripts, etc. with a single click.
Black Friday Offer: 60% discount on premium plans. Duration: 14th November 2024 – 2nd December, 2024 Discount Code: NA
The tool goes beyond summaries by offering features like AI chat for deep explanations, HD audio summaries, and translations into 20+ languages. Users can manage their YouTube and podcast subscriptions in one place and receive notifications for new content.
Influencer Hero is a comprehensive influencer marketing platform that brings brands and influencers together to create authentic, value-driven partnerships. It simplifies the process of discovering, reaching out to, and collaborating with influencers, enabling brands to manage the entire influencer partnership lifecycle in one place.
Black Friday Offer: Get 40% off on all annual plans. Duration: 22nd November 2024 – 13th December, 2024 Discount Code: BFCM40
With powerful features like content monitoring, cross-platform tracking, real-time analytics, and automated reporting, Influencer Hero helps brands measure the impact of their campaigns effectively. By offering a central platform for tracking performance and managing influencer relationships, Influencer Hero aims to make influencer marketing more accessible, efficient, and impactful for brands looking to expand their reach and engagement.
Jotform, founded in 2006, is a San Francisco-based company specializing in online form building and data collection solutions. Serving over 20 million users worldwide, Jotform offers tools for creating customizable forms, surveys, and workflows to enhance business productivity among global teams.
Black Friday Offer: 50% off on all paid plans. Duration: 18th November 2024 – 2nd December, 2024 Discount Code: NA
Snov.io is a comprehensive solution designed to optimize your sales engagement and lead generation. From sourcing verified leads to launching personalized multichannel campaigns, complete with automated LinkedIn interactions, Snov.io helps you connect with prospects more intelligently. Whether you’re focused on increasing conversions or simplifying outreach, Snov.io equips you with the tools necessary to achieve your sales goals.
Black Friday Offer: 50% off on all annual plans. Duration: 25th November 2024 – 3rd December, 2024 Discount Code: BLACKFRIDAY24
Weblium is a website builder to turn your ideas and conceptions into a ready-to-use functional website. Weblium lets you launch a full website or online store in just one day with professional templates, business integrations, and an easy-to-use editor.
Black Friday Offer: Lottery based discounts ranging from 25% to 55% on annual plans. Duration: 25th November 2024 – 6th December, 2024 Discount Code: NA
Dorik is one of the most beginner-friendly AI website builders, featuring 100+ fully responsive templates, 250+ stunning UI blocks, and 20+ dynamic elements. With Dorik Collection, you can store content in the database and display it seamlessly across your website. Also, you can build and publish blogs with all the features you need to rank on Google, and the analytics feature will help you track your audience.
Black Friday Offer: Flat 50% discount on annual plans. Duration: 14th November 2024 – 3rd December, 2024 Discount Code: NA
MinutesLink is an advanced AI-powered note taker designed to make your virtual meetings more organized and productive by recording, transcribing, and generating human-accurate minutes for every call. It ensures you never miss a detail, even if you can’t attend. Ideal for remote team collaboration, MinutesLink helps colleagues stay aligned, organize meetings efficiently, and boost productivity. Best for: freelancers, remote workers, sales teams, HRs & recruiters, all size businesses.
Black Friday Offer: Get 50% off on ALL plans. Duration: 15th November 2024 – 15th December, 2024 Discount Code: MLBLACKFRIDAY24
QR TIGER let’s you easily create static and dynamic QR codes for a host of applications, including URLs, digital business cards, files, social media, app store downloads, and more. Customize the design of your QR with an intuitive platform, and track scan performance through a detailed dashboard. QR TIGER is recognized as most advanced QR code generator and is highly rated on top software review sites.
Black Friday Offer: $12 OFF on any annual plan. Duration: 29th November 2024 – 6th December, 2024 Discount Code: CYBERTIGERPUNK
Flowla simplifies complex sales and onboarding processes by consolidating all essential resources and action items into a single platform. Teams can customize workflows, set up automated follow-ups, and collaborate in real-time, making it easier to manage client journeys from beginning to end.
Black Friday Offer: 25% off for 3 months on monthly Pro & Team plans. Duration: 12th November 2024 – 6th December, 2024 Discount Code: FRIDAY25
DocuGenerate provides a flexible and scalable platform for generating high-quality PDF documents, whether it’s for creating contracts, agreements, invoices, proposals, letters or any other type of document. Developers can leverage our REST API to add document generation to their apps, while non-developers can effortlessly use our no-code integrations.
Black Friday Offer: 50% OFF for the First 3 Months. Duration: 10th November 2024 – 30th December, 2024 Discount Code: BLACKFRIDAY2024
Cloudways is a managed hosting platform that combines ease of use, budget-friendliness, and incredible website speeds to deliver magical hosting experiences for your customers. This Black Friday, you can avail an incredible 40% OFF for four months with 40 migrations to kick-start your digital journey using the coupon code BFCM2024.
Black Friday Offer: 40% OFF for four months. Duration: 7th November 2024 – 5th December, 2024 Discount Code: BFCM2024
Rapyd Cloud provides a powerful, scalable cloud platform designed for WordPress users, offering a seamless experience across hosting, security, performance optimization, and more. Whether you’re running a personal blog or a large eCommerce store, Rapyd Cloud ensures fast, secure, and reliable WordPress hosting.
Black Friday Offer: 8 Months free on 2 Years Plan. Duration: 12th November 2024 – 5th December, 2024 Discount Code: BFCM24
Gyde is an AI-powered browser extension that automatically records your actions on websites or apps and creates a step-by-step guide with screenshots and a video. You can share this screenshot and video guide with others to help them understand how to complete the same process. It’s an excellent tool for explaining complex processes quickly and easily.
Black Friday Offer: Free Forever plan and 50% off on yearly paid plans. Duration: 1st November 2024 – 31st December, 2024 Discount Code: Gyde50
Signaturely is a simple and effective digital signing platform that helps businesses and individuals send, sign, and manage documents online. It streamlines the signing process with legally binding signatures, making it easy to close deals and stay organized without the hassle of paperwork.
Black Friday Offer: Special rates on monthly (20 % off) and yearly (40 % off) subscriptions. Duration: 25th November 2024 – 3rd December, 2024 Discount Code: Reach out via live chat to claim.
ContentForce AI is an AI blog post generator that generates SEO-optimized blog posts designed to read like human-written articles. It offers features such as automated outline generation, research, and integration with WordPress, supporting newest AI models like GPT 4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Black Friday Offer: 30% off the first month on all pricing plans. Duration: 8th November 2024 – 6th December, 2024 Discount Code: BLACKFRIDAYAI
Telescope is a comprehensive suite of SEO tools to grow and scale your inbound marketing strategy that lets you research and track Google keywords, monitor backlinks, perform site audits, monitor competitors and much more.
Black Friday Offer: 20% off balance top-ups and 30% off your first 3 months on any subscription plan. Duration: 11th November 2024 – 8th December, 2024 Discount Code: BLACKFRIDAY2024
Zonka Feedback simplifies CX, allowing you to start meaningful two-way conversations with customers via powerful surveys. Design stunning surveys in minutes, gather data from all touchpoints, understand customers better with AI analytics & close the feedback loop — all within one powerful platform.
Black Friday Offer: Flat 30% Off. Duration: 20th November 2024 – 6th December, 2024 Discount Code: ZONKA30
Enhance your Mac experience with instant access to ChatGPT. Use custom shortcuts to quickly automate tasks, reduce manual input, and enjoy an uninterrupted workflow.
Black Friday Offer: 30% off all plans. Duration: 28th November 2024 – 6th December, 2024 Discount Code: LASTLTDCW51
Remember, while these sales events offer incredible savings opportunities, it’s important to stick to your budget and shop mindfully. Focus on the items you genuinely need or have been planning to purchase. The best deal is only a good deal if it’s something you’ll actually use. Keep checking back here for the latest updates and deals as we approach the big shopping days. Happy hunting, and may your shopping cart be filled with savings!
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
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Black Friday 2024 falls on the 27th of November. SaaS Black Friday deals typically start in October or November and run until the end of December. You should check the company pages directly for the exact deal validity of different products.
How much discount is there on Black Friday?
Black Friday deals on SaaS offer great discounts, with products available at 50% to 75% lower prices than usual. It is a great chance to top up on the essentials for your team.
What is Cyber Monday?
Cyber Monday is the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend. It is a day focused on online sales and deals. Cyber Monday falls on December 2nd, 2024.
Learning analytics is changing the way we look at research. It uses data to help improve learner success. With the insights from this data, L&D teams better understand how employees learn. This helps them learn more about employees behavior, likes, and performance. As a result, you can create better learning and development strategies. It allows for personalized learning experiences and timely help for your employees and successful interventions focused on business goals.
This field combines research, data science, and analytics to find useful information from the large amounts of data produced in workplaces to create impactful learning programs.
Learning analytics refers to the process of collecting and analyzing data about how people learn to improve training effectiveness. It focuses on the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their educational set-ups.
By looking at patterns, trends, and connections in this data, L&D professionals make better choices. You can adjust your teaching methods and create a learning environment that encourages learner engagement, success, and well-being.
What data should we be collecting?
Learning analytics is not simply data about who is learning what. Instead, it allows you to take a more data-driven approach to solve your organization’s learning challenges and enhance outcomes. For example, if an employee struggles with a particular task or concept, the system can suggest relevant resources or training modules to promptly address the issue. This targeted approach enhances individual performance and aligns with broader business goals by ensuring that employees have the necessary skills to contribute effectively to the organization.
Some other examples of learning analytics at work include:
Tracking the performance of a sales team pre and post-training implementation
Monitoring the engagement of a team on the learning platform
Using skill assessments to find out role-based skill and competency gaps
Identifying the costs involved in training per employee and its resultant impact on performance
Measuring the effectiveness of content in terms of engagement rates and feedback
Learning analytics are an L&D team’s go-to tool for getting answers in many critical business areas. But before jumping on to that, let’s look through the ways learning and development teams can use learning analytics in different aspects:
Ensure training effectiveness: Learning analytics are the first and foremost way to track the effectiveness of your training and development plans. You can consider filling skill gaps, rectifying performance issues, or determining how employees work with the learning content. It can further help you evaluate and make smart choices when it comes to planning, structuring, and designing learning and development strategies for your organization.
Calculating ROI: Many training programs have an ROI that is difficult to quantify or often ignored. Learning analytics prevents this and ensures that you can consistently evaluate and showcase the results of your efforts. It further helps in resource and budget allocations and creates proof of L&D success for relevant stakeholders.
Create better workforce planning practices: Learning analytics, specifically with workforce planning, such as upskilling and succession planning, can help your overall HR strategy be more effective and fail-proof. It includes preparing for future skill needs and adapting to industry trends to retain a competitive edge.
Learn how employees want to grow: Learning analytics gives you a bird’ s-eye view of what your employees want in terms of learning opportunities, how they are using the existing ones, and what you can do to create more in the future. As a result, you can emphasize learner-centricity with data-driven insights. It further ties into career development and growth plans for employees.
Keep building good content: As L&D professionals, we simply do not want to create content. We want to create learning content that efficiently resonates with employees and solves their problems. Learning analytics support this principle by tracking how employees engage with content, their satisfaction levels, retention, and application.
Compliance and risk management: These are essential concerns for many training and development programs because our environment is constantly evolving. Analytics help you see whether you are able to keep up or whether there’s a gap between the training that employees need and what you are currently offering. Moreover, it helps you comply with legal and normal training requirements.
Decode the business impact of L&D: That’s the most vital function of learning analytics because, ultimately, it is a question of impact. As little as about 5% of companies evaluate their training programs. Evaluation and analysis can put you among the top innovators and builders in the L&D space and ensure that the organization recognizes your contributions.
Key business questions learning analytics can answer across various L&D focus areas:
Training Effectiveness
How well are employees retaining information? Which learning methods are most effective for different roles? Are employees applying what they’ve learned on the job? Which courses have the highest/lowest success rates? How does training impact employee performance metrics?
Return on Investment (ROI)
What is the cost per learner for each program? How does training investment correlate with performance improvement? Which programs deliver the best value for money? What is the opportunity cost of training time? How does e-learning ROI compare to instructor-led training?
Skill Gaps and Workforce Planning
Where are the current skill gaps in the organization? Which departments need additional training? How prepared is the workforce for future skill requirements? What competencies are most critical for specific roles? How effective is the current upskilling strategy?
Employee Engagement and Behavior
When and how do employees prefer to learn? What motivates employees to complete training? Which content formats drive the most engagement? How do social learning features impact participation? What barriers prevent training completion?
Content Optimization
Which learning materials are most/least effective? What content needs updating or removal? How can we improve course design? Where do learners struggle or drop off? What additional resources do learners need?
Compliance and Risk Management
Are employees up-to-date with required training? How quickly are compliance gaps addressed? What is the certification completion rate? Which areas pose the highest compliance risk? How effective is mandatory training?
Career Development and Succession Planning
Who are the high-potential learners? What learning paths lead to successful role transitions? How effective are leadership development programs? Which skills correlate with career advancement? How well are we preparing future leaders?
Business Impact
How does training affect key performance indicators (KPIs)? What is the impact on customer satisfaction? How does learning contribute to employee retention? What is the relationship between training and productivity? How does learning affect innovation and adaptability?
What are the common methods of learning analytics?
Primarily, learning analytics can be of four types. Let’s understand each of these in detail below:
#1 Descriptive analytics – What happened?
As the name suggests, descriptive analytics are all about things that have happened. They summarize the data collected historically over incidents and events to figure out trends and patterns. It will help you understand how the team received a certain training program, engaged with the material, and how many of them eventually completed the assignment. Some examples of descriptive analytics in L&D include course completion rates, time spent on modules, assessment scores, video watch times, login frequency, etc. With this, you can understand the performance of your present L&D functions. However, it cannot help you think of the next steps or predict employees’ future behavior.
#2 Diagnostic analytics – Why did it happen?
Once we are aware of the what, the next question is why. Diagnostic analytics answers that question for L&D teams. It helps you understand the reasons behind your employees’ current learning behavior. It will help you answer questions like why some employees are not completing a training module or why around 75% of test takers fail at one specific point. A few examples of using diagnostic analytics in L&D include identifying common wrong answers in assessments, learning path bottlenecks, and performance gap analysis. Similar to descriptive analytics, diagnostic analytical methods also help you evaluate past and present behavior only.
#3 Predictive analytics – What will happen?
This is an important question because who would not like to know the future? Predictive analytics, focused on identifying signs and possible future courses of action, helps L&D teams figure out how learning will be impacted by both internal and external factors. It can help you determine the skill and learning gaps that are about to be created as the industry moves forward, as well as the expected completion timelines and forecast future learning needs. Since L&D teams cannot afford to play catch up, predictive analytics are critical for L&D teams to keep up with the changing world.
#4 Prescriptive analytics – What should you do?
Knowledge is one thing; the actions based on it are the real deal. That’s what prescriptive analytics help you determine. Prescriptive analytics are key to understanding the insights about the future course of L&D and putting them down into actionable steps. For instance, if you foresee the need for digital literacy in your sales team, prescriptive analytics will help identify what type of training you can do, what your employees are expecting, and how to conduct it efficiently, keeping the organization’s goals in mind. Similarly, a few other examples of prescriptive analytics include personalized learning recommendations and adaptive learning paths, intervention triggers, resource allocation suggestions, and content optimization recommendations.
How to get started with learning analytics for your employees?
Setting up learning analytics for your team has many advantages. But it looks like a confusing task, doesn’t it? We can simplify this process and break it down into eight steps as follows:
#1 Create the foundation setup
Learning analytics is a tool for offering more clarity within and about the L&D strategy. Thus, clarity is what we should start with. The process begins by identifying the goals you want to achieve and the relevant KPIs for them.
For example:
If your goal is to improve sales team’s performance. Your KPIs will include:
Training completion rates for product knowledge courses
Post-training assessment scores
Time to reach sales quotas for new hires
Number of successful sales demonstrations
Customer satisfaction scores
Further, to do this analysis, you need data. Data can be generated from many sources, including assessment scores, performance reviews, feedback meetings, etc. Depending upon the use case, you need to identify what data sources you are using for learning analytics with your team.
Once these are done, you will also need to set benchmarks for the data. The key question is, what is the ideal score on a particular metric? Benchmarking for learning analytics goes two ways:
Internal benchmarking: Deriving a standard of scores based on the overall performance within the organization.
External benchmarking: Deriving a standard based on the wider trends across the industry in similar organizations/competitors.
Since you are dealing with data, you need a data governance framework to ensure the secure transportation and ethical use of the data being collected. It can also help specify regular reporting schedules for the learning analytics team.
#2 Build the technical infrastructure for learning analytics
Learning analytics do not look the same for every organization. Instead, your team’s learning maturity, the level of comfort with digital infrastructure, and what you set out to solve impact the shape of the technical infrastructure you will use for analytics.
It includes choosing appropriate tools that you might need, such as:
Learning Management System (LMS): An LMS is software that essentially manages learning content, delivery, and distribution for your team. It can have basic features like tracking logins and completion rates and collecting feedback through quizzes.
Learning Experience Platform (LXP): An LXP is an evolved form of learning software that emphasizes keeping the individual user at the center with tailored recommendations and learning pathways. It can often have features to support social learning and microlearning, so you can also track those.
Analytics dashboards: These visual interfaces display key learning metrics and data in real-time, such as Risely’s skill center for admins, which shows your learners’ progress on key people management skills. Some platforms offer a great deal of customization and automated reporting, too.
Data visualization tools: These are simply tools that translate your data into clear visual representations. With tools like PowerBI and Tableau, you can create custom interfaces to match your needs, but managing these could be challenging.
Survey and feedback platforms: Lastly, these are simply tools for collecting learner data and input to support your decisions. Many options exist, such as SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, and Google Forms, which you can use for free or at a minimal charge.
To make things easier for the L&D teams, you should also look into integrations across platforms. This cuts down on the need to reshape and migrate data consistently. Similarly, data collection can be a tricky process to handle. Look for ways to automate things wherever you can.
#3 Create a data collection strategy
Once your goals and tools are set, you need to decide how you are going to collect the data. A few learning analytics tools we listed above support data collection. You can also look into performance reviews, collect feedback directly, and use methods like our skill gap analysis template and training evaluation forms.
Given that we understand the impact of learning analytics across three areas, we will have three types of data to collect:
Learning data: It includes metrics such as training completion rates and time spent learning, along with metrics tracking learning application and transfer. Tracking resource usage and learning patterns is the key here.
Performance data: Learning needs to impact performance ultimately, and these metrics show exactly that. It includes job performance metrics, skills assessments, certification progress, on-the-job application, and manager feedback.
Business data: The last set of metrics tracks the impact of learning investment on business outcomes. It would include productivity metrics, customer satisfaction, employee retention, error rates, etc.
#4 Implement learning analytics
When you start implementing learning analytics at work, start with a smaller set of goals and metrics in your mind. You can pick something like the example used above. Start small with a few key metrics and learning programs targeted to a team or department. You will start with descriptive and diagnostic analytics, primarily to understand what is happening in learning and work and why it is happening. Once these are mastered, you can grow further in predictive and prescriptive capabilities and have a future-oriented outlook toward learning.
Over time, you can test and refine the process and implement it. At the same time, ensure that you document learnings and mistakes as they happen. Over time, you should add more complex metrics and develop more sophisticated reports for the learning and development processes.
#5 Enhance L&D team capabilities
To master learning analytics, you need a few team members trained to use learning analytics tools and interpret the results. It presents an opportunity to upskill the L&D function while running a test on how analytics for learning work.
Further, once your capabilities grow, you can think of dividing the work across functions such as:
Data collection: The main responsibility includes gathering and organizing learning data systematically. This role requires comprehensive knowledge of data collection and processing and care toward ethical and normative guidelines.
Analysis: An analyst is essentially a translator who converts raw data into meaningful points to consider and act upon. The skills needed here include statistical analysis, analytical thinking, data modeling, and problem-solving.
Reporting: This is where your team creates clear, actionable reports from analysis. You need data visualization and automation skills here, as well as the ability to design and manage learning dashboards effectively.
Stakeholder communication: All your audiences won’t understand what a training completion rate stands for. That’s why managing stakeholder communication is essential. It involves translating data insights for different audiences and needs skills such as communication, storytelling, and relationship management.
You can also consider hiring consultants or outsourcing parts of the process to help your team out.
#6 Design a reporting framework
Once your data is collected, the rest hinges on effectively communicating them. This is why we need a reporting framework for learning analytics. A reporting framework will help you generate standardized reports across the organization and design intuitive dashboards. You can also set up automated reporting.
The other focus area here is to create different views for different stakeholders that your L&D teams need to manage. For instance, the C-suite and executive leadership would appreciate focusing on business goals. Lower turnover and a positive employer brand can pique their interest. However, the stakes are different for a team manager who is implementing learning with their team. They would be more concerned about reducing skill gaps and properly using the learning opportunities to promote employee satisfaction. Similarly, the employees would be more concerned about how learning can enable them to achieve their long-term career goals. Thus, the same data needs to tell multiple stories.
Read more: How to Obtain Buy-In for Training from Stakeholders?
#7 Think of quality assurance
Quality is critical in any data-heavy process, and the same holds for learning analytics. Validating and cleaning the data is important to get helpful results. However, more concerns are hidden behind the curtains, such as error-checking protocols and legal bindings on how to use the data. Ensuring all of these things run properly means that you put a regular and comprehensive data audit process in place for the L&D team.
#8 Continuously improve
Ultimately, there’s always more to learn. Learning analytics has the same journey. As you keep going, you can identify mistakes and determine the scope for improvement. For instance, you might discover that there are better metrics to track phenomena or there’s a better visualization platform that your team can use. Some considerations for improvement can include:
Is there a new tool for reporting/visualization/data collection that we can use?
Are we tracking the right metrics?
Does our team have the required skill set?
Is our process efficient? Can we cut down on some excesses?
Are we following the privacy compliance directives properly?
Is our data accurately collected and reported?
Keep your eyes open and your mind curious to constantly enhance the impact you are making.
Wrapping up
Learning Analytics is changing learning at work for the better. It gives useful insights that help to create personalized learning experiences and improve results for employees. When L&D teams use data correctly, they can increase learner engagement and spot where help is needed. As technology improves, AI’s role in learning is getting bigger. This is leading to better predictive analytics and smarter decision-making. Still, there are challenges like privacy concerns and skill gaps that need attention. Looking to the future, learning analytics shows exciting trends and changes that will influence new workplace learning strategies.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Get Started with the Free Training and Development Plan Template!
Grab free L&D resources and more for holistic growth of people managers. Only on Risely.
The old way of simple lectures and too much information is behind us. Now, active learning techniques are a great method to boost student learning and improve the overall learning process. This blog looks at what active learning is, its advantages, and how to put it into practice at work for your team’s success.
Active learning is a big change from old, passive learning methods. Instead of just taking in information, workers are asked to take part in the learning process. This way of learning shows that real understanding comes from doing, asking questions, and getting involved with the subject matter. It is a sure-shot way to beat one of L&D’s common challenge, that is, disengagement with the learning material that many teams face.
Active learning matches well with theories about how adults learn. These theories highlight that it’s important for your learners to have experiences, find relevance in what they study, and actively take part in learning. Adults learn better when they can connect new information to what they already know and use it in real life.
In contrast to passive learning, active learning gets people involved in solving problems, thinking critically, and working with others. This approach helps them understand the course content more deeply. By focusing on the needs and interests of adult learners, you build a better learning environment that is more engaging.
What are some examples of active learning at work?
Examples of active learning activities for adults include group discussions, case studies, simulations, and role-playing. The main idea is to create tasks that make the participants in your learning program think critically, solve problems, and use their learning in useful ways.
For instance, Sarah, a product manager, needed her team to learn a new project management software. Instead of a traditional training session, she structured it this way:
CONNECTING TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE “I know most of you already use Trello for personal tasks, and some use Asana at work. Let’s start by comparing how you organize your current projects, and then I’ll show you how those same principles apply in our new software.”
APPLYING TO REAL WORK Instead of using generic examples, she had the team do simple tasks like migrating their actual current project into the new system, setting up their real upcoming sprint, creating templates based on their most common workflows, and customizing dashboards for their specific needs
MAKING IT RELEVANT When teaching new features, she tied each one to their daily challenges: “Remember how we struggled to track dependencies last month? Here’s how this feature would have solved that problem…” “This automation will save you those 30 minutes you spend each week updating status reports…”
BOOSTING ENGAGEMENT Team members shared their own productivity hacks and they identified process improvements based on new capabilities. Ultimately, everyone contributed to creating team best practices and they immediately saw time savings in their actual work!
The result? The team mastered the new software in half the expected time because they were working with familiar concepts and solving real problems, not just completing training exercises. When your employees take part in the learning process, they think about information more deeply. They link ideas together and create strong mental pictures. This helps them understand better and learn for a longer time.
Why should you choose active learning over other methods?
Adult learning theories, like Malcolm Knowles’ andragogy, highlight how important it is for learners to be in charge of their own education. They also focus on learning through experiences and making sure what they learn connects to their personal goals. Active learning fits well with these ideas by giving your learners control, thus raising the level of satisfaction and trust.
When adults take part in activities, they can use what they already know. They can apply new knowledge to real life. This makes learning meaningful and shows how relevant it is. It also boosts their motivation and engagement. Active learning is becoming more popular in training at work. It works well for adult learners because it meets their specific needs. It shifts away from the old-fashioned, mentor-focused way of learning and promotes a more learner-focused experience. This helps create a deeper and more valuable learning experience.
Using active learning at work does not need a big change in your training programs. You can begin by finding ways to add interactive parts to what you already have and enhance the impact of your learning and development strategies. Even small changes can help. Think about what you want to learn and the topic you are teaching when choosing active learning activities. To make a more lively and interesting learning environment, encourage your team members to work together and share knowledge.
#1 Identify opportunities to use active learning with your team
The great thing about active learning is that it can fit in many different places. It works well in many formats. When you look for chances to use it in your organization, think about:
Onboarding: Instead of giving new hires too much information at once, use icebreakers, group work on real situations, or mentorship programs. This helps them engage early.
Team Meetings: Set aside time for brainstorming, solving problems, or discussing case studies related to current projects. This encourages active participation.
Training Workshops: Avoid dull presentations. Add group activities, quizzes, role-playing, or simulations to make the training more interesting and effective.
By using active learning in these areas, you aren’t just sharing information. You are also making a space for people to explore and apply what they learn.
#2 Choose the active learning methods that match your needs
Active learning in the workplace thrives on practical, hands-on methods that connect directly to daily work. One of the most effective approaches that you can try is case study workshops, where teams tackle real business challenges using actual company data and scenarios, developing solutions they can implement immediately. This pairs naturally with peer teaching sessions, where employees share their expertise through 15-30 minute demonstrations followed by immediate practice and feedback sessions.
You can also create skill application sprints provide focused learning opportunities, with teams mastering one new skill each week through deliberate practice and progress tracking. This approach works particularly well with interactive tech training, where employees learn new tools by completing actual work tasks while receiving live support and building an internal knowledge base. Regular reflection sessions, typically 15 minutes weekly, help your teams review what worked, capture lessons learned, and plan implementation steps.
Active learning works best when your employees feel they own their learning. They should not be afraid to ask questions or seek help if they need it. It is also important to have regular feedback and open talks between employees and trainers. This helps everyone improve.
#3 Take a helping hand from tech
Technology is important for improving active learning. It gives us access to many learning resources and tools. Online platforms and team software allow employees to join in exercises, simulations, and group projects anytime and anywhere. Video conferencing tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams allow live sessions. You can have discussions in breakout rooms and get real-time feedback. Collaborative platforms such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 let people edit documents together, manage projects, and brainstorm online.
But that’s just the beginning! For example, instead of regular pen-and-paper quizzes, use online quiz tools. They provide instant feedback and fun game features. You can change case studies into simulations where employees make choices and see what happens safely. Similarly, you can enable role play training for everyone in your company with the help of AI coaches like Merlin.
#4 Consider resistance and approach with an open mind
Implementing active learning can be tough. One big challenge is that some employees resist change since they are used to traditional, passive learning styles. To overcome this resistance, you need to communicate the benefits of active learning clearly. Similarly, to get buy-in from the C-suite, focus on showcasing how it enhances skills, boosts engagement, and leads to better outcomes. Providing training and support during the transition can also help employees adapt smoothly.
Another common challenge is time constraints. To address this, integrate active learning into existing processes or shorten activities without compromising on effectiveness. Prioritize activities based on their impact and relevance to maximize learning in limited time frames. At times, something interactive can save you from hours of lectures, so ensure that you are leveraging this technique with your teams effectively.
Wrapping Up
Active learning helps adults grow by making their education more engaging. When you use active learning strategies, you create a workplace culture that focuses on constant improvement and new ideas. Using technology makes these strategies even more effective. This leads to real benefits for employees and the organization. By adopting active learning in your workplace, you can give your team the skills and knowledge they need. This helps them adapt and grow in today’s changing business world.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Get Started with the Free Training and Development Plan Template!
Grab free L&D resources and more for holistic growth of people managers. Only on Risely.
Learning Design: Why Instructional Design is Old School Today
Designing learning and development initiatives to be great is not as simple as it seems! Learning and development strategies involve multiple steps, including setting learning goals, designing the content in various formats, delivery and distribution, and so on. Learning design, or instructional design, is concerned with the making of the training and development material that you will ultimately use. In this blog, we will learn all about how these designs work, where they can help you ace your L&D goals, and what key ideas are central to making effective learning designs for your team.
Learning design is defined as a framework that supports learning experiences. What does that mean?
Learning design is the systematic approach to planning, creating, and delivering learning experiences that cater to specific learning and development goals. It includes the use of many learning theories and models and aims to deliver effective learning.
Effective learning design is more than just sharing information. It is about making learning experiences that help people gain, remember, and use new knowledge and skills. This approach is learner-centered. It looks at what the learners need and want to help them grow and develop.
What is the learning design process?
The design process in learning design includes several important steps. These steps are analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. Each step is vital to create effective learning experiences.
In the analysis phase, instructional designers work with experts and stakeholders. They figure out the learning goals and see what learning opportunities are needed.
The design phase is about organizing the content, choosing teaching methods, and making engaging activities for the learners.
Development is when instructional materials and resources are made.
The implementation stage is where the learning experience is delivered.
Throughout the design process, regular evaluation and feedback are key. This helps gather information and make changes to improve the design. This way, learning opportunities are always being updated to better serve the needs of the learners.
At the heart of effective learning design is really knowing the learners and their situation. By figuring out what they already know, their skills, what drives them, and any problems they face, instructional designers can create learning experiences that connect with the learners and meet their needs.
Evolution of the learning design landscape
Because of its interdisciplinary nature, learning design is impacted by many areas. In its earlier avatar, it was known as instructional design, but the modern world has called for a more holistic approach and a new name for this facet of corporate learning and development.
In the very early days, learning design was informed by psychology theories, including behaviorism, which focused on stimulus and response relationships, and cognitivism, which shed light on the mental processes underlying how we learn. In the later years, new developments in the fields of linguistics and neuroscience have added more insights.
Technological advancements have added their share of impact by forcing some of these changes. Back then, corporate learning was restricted to classrooms and seminar halls, so at best, you only designed instructional material. The later focus on using video as an effective learning medium and the current wave of AI has forced L&D teams to rethink the entire paradigm and tilt in favour of ideas that keep the learner at the center. As a result, there is a higher emphasis on engagement with the end-users (the employees in our case), focus on their unique needs and preferences, and personalization in learning design.
How does learning design differ from instructional design?
Learning design and instructional design are closely related but have distinct differences. While instructional design focuses on creating effective learning materials and strategies, learning design goes a step further by emphasizing a more learner-centered approach.
Instructional design primarily deals with the development of training materials and methods to facilitate learning. It is more about the technical aspects of delivering information effectively. On the other hand, learning design takes into consideration the specific needs, preferences, and motivations of learners. It aims to create experiences that not only transfer knowledge but also engage, inspire, and empower learners to apply what they learn in real-life situations.
Why can’t we just stick to instructional design? There’s not a lot of change after all. Except, there are very important reasons why your success as an L&D professional depends on how you use and understand learning designs. Let’s understand them in some detail below:
#1 Learning design is critical in L&D success
You have a great learning and development strategy. Your content was built by in-house subject matter experts and is ready to be sent to everyone across the team. But there’s one issue: the learning content is a document lasting 100+ pages. We both know that no one is reading it. Learning design practices can save you from blunders like this by informing you what learning methods and mediums of delivery would be well received by the end-users in your organization. It ensures you match the objectives and helps you create memorable learning experiences. These further help reduce inefficiency and improve knowledge retention and practical application.
#2 Adult learning principles
The learning design approach is informed by many learning theories and models in the context of adult learners in workplaces. It uses frameworks such as Bloom’s Taxonomy, Gage’s Nine Levels of Learning, ADDIE, and GROW coaching models to inform actions in the L&D function.
It ensures that employee training methods have a theoretical basis and evidence backing their efficacy. As a result, we can maintain higher levels of motivation and engagement. Learning design helps boost engagement. It changes old, boring ways of learning into fun, interactive experiences. By using gamification, storytelling, and real-world simulations, learning designers can spark interest, encourage active involvement, and make learning more enjoyable.
#3 Content development
Learning design processes structure the entire content development, creation, and delivery timeline into a systematic flow of events. As a result, you create digestible chunks of learning arranged in a logical sequence, which helps balance theory and application-based learning. Along with the content, you can create assessments and other activities in the learning and development process to build milestones and monitor progress as you go. Ultimately, the clear learning paths you get are helpful for the employees navigating the learning material and also simplify the process of calculating the impact and ROI of learning.
#4 Technology integration
Most teams are looking forward to using tech to reach more learners and create more impact. But the question is, how do they do it best? Learning designs help you in this journey by enabling a mix of appropriate delivery methods (e.g., eLearning, blended, instructor-led) to balance in-person learning with digitally delivered one. As a result, you can utilize learning technologies instead of merely getting lost in the huge jungle of emerging tech.
When you approach learning and development with design thinking, you can also cater to the unique needs of your employees working in distributed teams across the globe, such as the language options we have on Merlin. Risely’s AI coach can talk to people managers in over 40 languages! Similarly, a design process enables you to create many more ways to build inclusivity and accessibility within your learning experiences.
#5 Communicate value to stakeholders easily
As we noted earlier, due to the precise targeting of specific strategic learning objectives and high clarity, learning designs are a great tool to calculate ROI and demonstrate the impact of your L&D operations. A well-curated learning design will help you showcase a variety of programs focused on specific goals, the depth of your learning interventions, personalization and employee satisfaction that you created, and, ultimately, the performance improvements you enabled.
When we are talking about stakeholders, the C-suite is just one side of the equation. The employees who are the end-users of your L&D programs are much more directly impacted by learning designs. Ensuring that their needs are met and preferences are kept in mind will help you get more satisfied learners. When this ties in with personal development goals and internal mobility, you end up happy employees who believe that learning is their super power.
Read more: How to Obtain Buy-In for Training from Stakeholders?
#6 Meet the learners where they are
Employees are an important cog in the L&D machine. A good learning design will keep them at the center of everything and focus on meeting their needs regarding what they want to learn, how they want to learn, and when they want to learn. For instance, most manager development programs take people out for two or three days and place them in a seminar hall with an expert offering tips and tricks. It’s great, but what if they have a challenge they cannot discuss in front of a crowd? It happens more often than not; we have all been there, hesitating and keeping challenges to ourselves.
In such spots, you need an AI coach like Merlin, who will surely not share the concern with anyone ever and will answer as many questions as the manager needs. Keeping such things in mind ensures that your design does not burden the learners but gives them a safe space to correct themselves and develop better versions. As a result, you will also witness a higher level of learning transfer and application in the workplace.
What are the pillars of effective learning design?
Now that we know why learning designs matter let’s focus on the key question: What makes some learning designs good?
#1 Strategic alignment
Impactful learning designs are strategically aligned. It means that there is a clear connection to business/organizational goals. For example, suppose the organizational goal is to increase sales over the next quarter. In that case, your learning design will incorporate an online course to give product knowledge to everyone and mentoring sessions to enhance negotiation skills. Thus, it is mixing up two methods to cover two different areas as needed for the broader goals. Similarly, the learning process has goals and milestones to help track progress. Such learning designs are relevant to the organization and employee as they focus on addressing performance gaps critical to their success.
#2 Learner centricity
The learner is the pivot for any effective design. Learner centricity means that their needs and preferences are considered during the development of the learning plan at every moment. These choices are not made by someone else and imposed on them. Learner centricity is critical in getting engagement for your programs. It further secures buy-in, enhances learning transfer, and raises the satisfaction levels of the employees. It could include designing learner personas to understand the people you have, creating learning content at the right difficulty level, focusing on inclusion, and remaining sensitive.
#3 Engagement factors
We don’t want the learners to be bored, do we? Otherwise, they will just drop out of the program. If the learning program is mandatory, they will sit through it, find it annoying, and never apply anything to their daily work. That’s why you need engagement factors and consciously design for them. Overall, the program should provide a challenge that they can tackle but one that forces them to think. It is similar to how SMART goals are set – they are achievable but need effort. Beyond that, think of interactive and participatory elements that bring real-world applications and examples. You can also use story-driven or scenario-based learning to create the right balance of content and activity.
#4 Effective structure
Good learning design follows an effective structure in delivering the learning content. It has a logical content progression and chunked information for better retention. For example, if we are talking of project management principles, it should ideally look like this:
Module 1: Project Basics (Foundational Concepts) Chunk 1: What is a Project? (15 min) Definition and characteristics Types of projects Quick knowledge check Chunk 2: Project Life Cycle (20 min) Initiation to closure Key milestones Practice Activity: Identify phases
Module 3: Execution Skills (Application) Chunk 1: Team Management (20 min) Roles and responsibilities Communication plans Role-play exercise Chunk 2: Risk Management (25 min) Risk identification Mitigation strategies Scenario-based practice
The progression follows: Understanding basics > Learning planning tools > Applying management skills
Each chunk starts with clear objectives and contains 3-5 key points. It also includes a practice element, gives an approximate timeline and ends with a quick review, Having a clear structure is essential in ensuring effectiveness of any learning plan.
#5 Learning transfer
Did you notice how the plan above had some practice elements? The 2nd chunk of the 2nd module asks the learners to create a timeline just like they would do in real life while handling projects. Such actions break the friction that learners experience while applying new things at their jobs, But hesitation is one aspect, there are many more sources of concern. A good learning design breaks them down by creating opportunities for learning transfer. It can include follow-up mentorship sessions or activities, peer groups to continuously engage on the topic, or reinforcement strategies like the nudges Risely uses for people managers.
#6 Evaluation framework
Ultimately, we need results. And for that, we need to measure things. As we started, there has to be a clear focus on learning goals derived from business goals. Further, along with goals, you must define success metrics and create regular assessment points. For instance, in the example above, some chunks of learning ended with a quick quiz to reinforce and track learning until that point.
The data you collect this way is quite helpful in two key areas:
First, it will help you present the program’s ROI to the concerned stakeholders. Based on this, you can enable more data-driven decisions and seek higher budgets and bigger roles in the organization.
Second, the data regarding the evaluation of learning programs helps improve the program itself. Multiple feedback points such as employee surveys, satisfaction scores, and beyond-the-performance scores help you shape more effective learning designs.
#7 Support systems
Last but not the least. People can be your biggest enablers but also your biggest source of trouble. Leadership development programs worldwide have faced challenges because the senior leadership is not role modelling the values they call these programs to propagate. Similarly, if the employees don’t see value in your programs, there’s bound to be trouble. The key is to anticipate and beat these challenges by design.
One of the foremost things is to provide adequate learner support. That’s where a lot of plans fail. Because the content might be great but there’s no one to answer a question. Some organizations building leadership development programs have been stuck there too, and now they have incorporated Merlin in their L&D plans to provide support when humans cannot. That’s just one angle. There’s more to creating a support system for learning at work including solid peer networks that motivate progress, managers who support training and application, and creating resources to be used once the training is over – because learning does not end the moment training does.
Janis Cooper shed more light on this topic in a podcast with Risely about building great learning experiences at workplaces:
Wrapping up
Learning designs are very important for how employees perform and how successful a company can be. When companies connect learning goals to their business needs, use engaging activities, and take advantage of technology, they can boost how involved and motivated employees feel. To make learning better, it is key to check how well these designs work by using clear measurements. Keep up with the best ways to learn and assess how good your learning plans are to help keep and grow your staff.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Get Started with the Free Training and Development Plan Template!
Grab free L&D resources and more for holistic growth of people managers. Only on Risely.
How To Make Great Training And Development Plans (Free Template)
Training and development plans are the backbone of a successful L&D function. They are important for helping your employees grow and reach company goals. This blog post is a complete guide on understanding, creating, and implementing effective training and development plans along with a free template. These plans will help your team members and company achieve business goals in the best ways possible.
Training programs are special efforts made to help employees learn the skills or knowledge they need for their jobs. They are like quick boosts for better performance. An employee development plan is different. It focuses on the long-term and looks at future growth.
A good employee development plan takes into account current skills and future job roles. It aims to close the skills gap and get employees ready for career growth in your company. This plan might include on-the-job training, mentoring, coaching, and formal education programs to suit your needs.
What’s the difference between training and development?
Training helps people do their current jobs better by teaching specific skills. It focuses on what is needed right now. For instance, teaching a new customer service worker how to use your company’s software is training.
On the other hand, development looks at the bigger picture. It is about growing professionally and advancing over time. This means giving employees the tools and knowledge they need to move up in the company and take on new challenges.
Training and development plans are not just static documents; due to their many advantages, they are critical pillars for a successful L&D function.
Alignment with strategic goals: Training and development plans are the pivot for executing most of your efforts. A solid training and development plan ensures alignment with your company’s strategic goals and further supports efforts in prioritizing various learning initiatives for your team. Ultimately, it helps demonstrate the impact of your L&D strategy due to a clear connection with business outcomes.
Optimal resource allocation and usage: That’s the best part of any plan ever! A great training and development plan will help you figure out the best ways to combine limited resources for maximum impact. It ensures that your budgets are utilized well, the personnel and resources are efficiently used, and there is minimal wastage.
Quality control on training: Planning helps your L&D function create standardized features and practices across the organization, which makes learning easier to access and absorb for everyone. Consistent learning experiences also ensure that you are upgrading and evolving opportunities available to employees regularly and meeting their needs.
Easy measurement and tracking of ROI: Setting up a training and development plan also calls for benchmarking against internal and competitive standards so that you can easily measure changes and progress in your team’s skill profiles. It also helps in improving the programs based on feedback collected. Additionally, as you define and track several metrics throughout the implementation, you generate substantial data points to demonstrate the L&D team’s impact on business outcomes.
Meeting employee needs: Employee satisfaction and low turnover rates are directly connected to the professional growth opportunities provided by their workplaces. Training and development plans are a key step in this as they add clear learning and development pathways to fulfill the needs of the employees and ensure that they have structured development routes.
How to create the best training and development plans for your team?
Some L&D housekeeping:
Before you start your training program, get the needed resources. This means getting budget approval, picking the right training materials, and finding trainers inside or outside your company.
Setting clear objectives is very important. Rather than saying something vague like “improve communication,” make specific goals like “increase active listening skills by 20% based on post-training assessments.”
Always keep in mind that training should not be the same for everyone. Think about each employee’s needs, their professional goals, and how they learn best. It is important to link training with the larger goals of the company, but individual needs are also key. Talk with your team members about their career goals. How can the training program help them grow in their professional development and improve their career path? Creating personalized learning paths will help them engage more and remember what they learned.
Bring your L&D strategy into focus
Start by stating your company’s business goals. What do you want to achieve in the next year? What are your goals for the next five years? You should look at your place in the market, find chances for growth, and set clear goals to improve or expand.
Next, change these business goals into real needs for your organization. For example, if your plan is to move into a new market, you will need workers who understand that market and can handle different cultures.
If your company has a strategic document, use it. This document should show your mission, vision, and long-term goals. It can help you figure out the skills and knowledge you need to reach those goals.
Step 1: Assess the current skills and competencies
A complete skills gap analysis looks at the skills your current workforce has. You compare these skills to the ones needed to meet your organizational goals. You can do this in different ways, such as using skills assessments, performance reviews, and surveys. Next, look at what each employee needs for development. Have you gotten feedback about certain skill gaps? Are there specific skills your team members want to improve?
Start by defining the perfect skill set for each job in your organization. Then, check each employee or team to see if they have these skills and how well they meet them. Don’t forget to look at both technical skills, like software skills, and soft skills, like communication and problem-solving. Find areas where training and development programs can help close the skills gap.
Focus first on gaps that will greatly affect how your organization can meet its goals. Keep in mind that employee development is not only about fixing current gaps. It is also about getting your workforce ready for the future. Think about new trends in the industry. Anticipate the skills your company may need in the years ahead.
Step 2: Define training goals
Once you know what training you need, turn those ideas into clear learning goals. Think about what skills or knowledge employees should learn from the program. Also, consider how this new knowledge can help them work better towards the company’s goals.
Learning goals should meet the SMART criteria: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. This method makes things clear, helps set goals for success, and allows for good evaluation. Make sure to connect both company-wide goals and individual goals. This means that training goals should match the company’s plans and the employee’s career goals. That way, everyone benefits.
Step 3: Design training content
Now it’s time to make your training program fun and useful by creating interesting content. You might need to make presentations, pick case studies, design interactive activities, or find outside resources.
Think about different learning styles to keep everyone engaged. Some people learn better with visuals. Others do well with hands-on activities. By using varied content, you can keep training exciting. This also supports a culture of learning in your organization.
The main goal is to give employees practical skills and knowledge they can use in their jobs. Good training helps them perform better, boosts their confidence, and improves job satisfaction. All of this leads to a better work environment.
Step 4: Implement the training and development plan
The implementation phase is where we put theory into practice. Prepare your trainers with the right resources. Clearly tell participants what to expect, and make sure logistics go smoothly.
Training often includes change management. Employees may need to adjust to new processes or software. They will need ongoing support and encouragement. Keep clear channels open for communication and feedback during the program. Check on employee’s progress often to make sure they understand the material and meet the learning goals. This might involve quizzes, assignments, or just watching how they use new skills in their daily work.
Step 5: Evaluate the training and development plan
After the training is done, it is important to check its effect. Did the program meet its goals? Did people’s performance get better? Getting feedback from both the participants and their managers is key to knowing if it was successful. Use a clear method to collect feedback. This can be through surveys, tests after the training, or personal interviews. The aim is to see what worked well and find ways to make the program better next time.
Training and development plan example (with free template)
Let’s see a training and development plan in action with this example:
We will start with the professional objective and it’s priority, further break it down into key skills that the employee needs and define actionable steps on those lines.
Goal: Transition from Senior Developer to Technical Lead within 12 months
Priority: High – Critical for team growth and succession planning
Skill Gap Analysis
Skill Name
Current Level
Expected Level
Skill Gap
Technical Architecture Design
6
8
2
Team Leadership
5
8
3
Stakeholder Management
4
7
3
Based on this analysis of skill gaps, we can define a training and development plan as follows for each of the areas. Here’s what it can look like for Technical Architecture Design:
Skill Area
Weekly Goal
Monthly Goal
Quarterly Goal
Technical Architecture Design
Review one system architecture pattern
Complete one advanced architecture course
Get cloud architecture certification
Document current system architecture decisions
Lead one architecture review meeting
Design and present one major system enhancement
Practice system design exercises (1 hour)
Create proposal for system improvements
Mentor two junior developers on architecture principles
There are two more critical areas that we need to define for a full-fledged training and development plan:
Progress Tracking
Weekly self-assessment
Monthly review with mentor
Quarterly evaluation with manager
Success Metrics
Architecture: Successfully implement two major system improvements
Leadership: Achieve 80% team satisfaction score
Stakeholder: Receive positive feedback from 3 key stakeholders
Training and development have existed for centuries, but recent years have brought some upheavals, especially with AI taking a lot from our plates and increasing needs for digital literacy among employees across the organization. What best practices of training and development should you keep in mind to make your ideas fail-proof? Let’s explore.
#1 Focus on alignment between the individual and the organization
A focus on alignment with your organization’s strategic objectives is more important than ever. L&D budgets were never in a free-flow state, but the post-COVID years saw some fall backs and cut down on innovation in favour of easier, in-house methods of training, which put less burden on the pocket. Impact then becomes critical to ensuring that the C-suite sees your work and understands how crucial your role is in keeping things moving forward.
It means focusing on not just building and executing plans but also picking the right metrics that matter to the business’s success and resonate with your stakeholders, including the executives and the employees attending the training and development programs. Think of key impacts that you can bring to the table, such as a competitive edge in a new technological area, a better learning-focused employer brand, or positive employee advocacy, and use your best efforts to communicate them everywhere.
Read more: Think Of These 4 Trends In Your Corporate Learning Strategy
#2 Leverage tech and AI smartly
Everyone wants an AI in their flow of work, but let’s be honest: most people are not sure of what, why, and how it fits in with the existing network of learning and development opportunities around them. Before heading out and planning training and development initiatives for 2025, look for areas where AI can help. These are places where you need personalization or areas where you need to automate manual actions happening repeatedly.
For instance, in leadership development, many companies see value in coaching and microlearning, and about 47% are set to do more with the help of AI. In such use cases, Risely’s AI coach Merlin can help increase access to coaching for people managers in your company who are often left out of expensive leadership training programs. Similarly, Harvard Business Online highlighted that organizations want more leaders to be ready to tackle challenges; it’s no longer just about the C-suite. We all know how expensive this can be. But we have AI! It can bring personalization, scale, and flexibility at the level you need to reach more people through training and development initiatives.
Read more: 3 Reasons Why Your Digital Learning Strategy Fails
#3 Design with a focus on ROI
How many companies reach the measurement stage with their learning and development programs? As per a LinkedIn study, this number stood at about 5%. Most organizations, if not all, are unable to make the most of their training and development programs because of either one:
Their measurement was not in-depth, or it was not standardized.
They picked metrics to track that did not align with strategic goals.
They could not conduct both pre and post-assessments during the training cycle.
Converting the data into insights was difficult.
It’s high time you stood out from the crowd and made smart choices to showcase your efforts in training and development initiatives. There are many ways to do it; you look into training evaluation exercises such as surveys and interviews with the employees to understand their perspectives. This evaluation is also critical in ensuring that the programs are up to date and meeting the needs of end users; otherwise, it is just a one-way communication of learning-related ideas.
You can also check out tools like Risely’s leadership skill assessments, which form the basis of a personalized learning journey and AI coaching sessions for every people manager on your team. It takes away a lot of hassle – from measuring the current skills and continuous progress on those to identifying new and evolving challenges as they appear in the lives of your company’s people managers.
Wrapping Up
In conclusion, creating good training and development plans is important for growth in organizations and success for employees. First, identify goals and check skills. Then, set clear objectives to make a path for ongoing learning and improvement. Use new ideas like technology and soft skills development. Avoid mistakes such as unclear goals and not following up. Update your plans often to keep them useful and effective. Use the template given to make your training easier. This will help your team achieve their best. Begin making your own training and development plans today for a more skilled and motivated team.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
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