Manages employee career progression with a learning experience platform (LXP)

A learning experience platform (LXP) can be customized to support employees at every stage of their career. From brand new employees in their early days to experienced senior managers, an LXP is used to bring together people with similar training needs, whether by role, location, seniority or skill set.

How can you ensure that your LXP is adding value to every employee in your organization, from a summer intern to your senior management?

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New employees

In their first days and weeks in your organization, new employees will be enthusiastic, ready to learn and willing to make connections. They want to be proficient in the skills they need to perform their jobs and know where to go to find information.

New employees need a safe place to ask questions, and a way to find the answers they need quickly and easily. The first few days of a new job are usually overwhelming, so giving them a way to find and organize resources will help them refer to the most useful documents.

You can help new employees by highlighting where they can find subject matter experts and who to ask when they can’t find an answer to a specific question. You might also consider creating a glossary of commonly used terms or vocabulary specific to your organization to help them feel comfortable. Creating a workspace for new employees to introduce themselves and connect with others in the organization will also help them create those important connections and begin to put names to faces.

Mid-level employees

Established mid-level employees have acquired many of the skills they need for their roles, and have a wealth of information and relationships with colleagues. At this stage in their careers, they will seek to gain recognition, share their knowledge with others, focus on developing special skills and perhaps build their professional reputations.

If you’re looking to help mid-level employees, they need a quick way to find specific expertise. A great search algorithm will help your mid-level employees navigate to the information they need without having to search through basic data. For experienced employees looking to share their knowledge with others, content curation and resource sharing will help them establish themselves as experts in their field, and in turn, they can be recognized for their work.

Mid-level employees can also benefit from tangible rewards for their training activities. You can consider incentivizing them with a leaderboard, points, badges or real-life rewards such as vouchers or small gifts. The more employees are engaged in training, the better it is for your organization, so this can help motivate your staff.

Experts in the field

Subject matter experts are seen as leaders and mentors in their fields. An LXP is the ideal way for them to share their knowledge with larger groups, avoiding time-consuming one-on-one conversations and constant interruptions to their workday.

To enable subject matter experts to share their knowledge, you can encourage them to create their own collaborative spaces where they can post links, tips, resources they have created and playlists they have refined. This allows them to reach larger audiences of people, reduce duplication of effort and “approve” resources before sharing them with others, ensuring that everyone receives the best quality training materials.

It is also beneficial for the subject matter experts themselves. Other people can ask questions, which keeps your knowledge fresh, and they can keep an eye on other interesting resources that other people have found. It will also help them consolidate their expert position, which can be incredibly useful for their personal career advancement.

Senior management

One misconception about LXPs is that they primarily benefit younger employees more as they develop new skills and learn from their peers. However, senior managers have so much to learn from the collaborative training, content curation and simple communication of an LXP.

A senior manager can use an LXP to identify talent, whether they are emerging subject matter experts, employees who generate interesting content, or employees who provide useful input into conversations. This can contribute to conversations among managers about performance and ensure that employees are recognized fairly for their efforts and their work with their peers.

Senior managers can also use tools such as LXPs to create more engaged employees. They can highlight quality content by “pinning” posts, communicate quickly and easily with entire teams, groups or departments, and publish reports to better understand their employees’ needs and challenges. Subsequently, this data can contribute to future content, initiatives and training programs.

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