Learning That Transforms: How Custom Learning Solutions Reshape Your Workforce
In the first article of this series, Adapt or Fall Behind: Rethinking Enterprise Training Models for Today’s Rapidly Changing Environment, we explored why both employees and organizations need to embrace modern learning techniques for continuous skills development in today’s quickly evolving business environment.
Companies are faced with a critical question: How can we genuinely build a learning solution that satisfies our specific requirements?
Why invest in custom learning solutions?
While most learning providers offer a one-size-fits-all, off-the-shelf library of live and online courses, meaningful learning transformation necessitates a tailored approach based on an organization’s unique culture, objectives, talent gaps, and learner preferences.
That is why top solutions, such as Cprime Learning Pathways, take a consultative approach, collaborating with leadership and learners to understand goals and build individualized programs with the most relevance and impact.
What exactly are these Learning Pathways?
Pathways offer a blended, skills-building curriculum via a combination of learner-led, self-paced digital content, instructor-led, classroom-based courses, and work-based assignments for on-the-job application. However, that composite core is only the foundation.
The true art is in creating pathways to perfectly fill an organization’s talent demands from both a technical and individual human standpoint. For example, an innovation-focused organization may require paths to stimulate creative ideation, but a healthcare system may require ethical and compliance training. An engineering team may learn best through hands-on projects, whereas an analytical team may prefer self-paced online content.
Cprime collaborates with stakeholders across the organization to identify these particulars and then designs comprehensive Learning Pathways that are aligned with strategic goals, functional needs, and learner preferences.
The resulting custom learning solutions provide individuals with clearly defined tracks to progress skills important for success in their role, today and in the future. Additionally, unlike traditional training, these courses adapt over time to continue boosting both individual and organizational capabilities as demands grow.
Let’s take a closer look at how Cprime creates and deploys these strategic learning engines designed for organizational transformation.
Cprime’s approach to curriculum design
Cprime utilizes research-backed instructional design frameworks to build comprehensive learning programs catered to each organization’s specific environment. The process includes:
Conducting a Learning Assessment
Cprime partners with an organization’s leaders to deeply understand priority business goals, talent gaps inhibiting progress, and required capabilities to bridge those gaps. Methodologies like capability mapping, journey mapping, and skills gap analysis uncover target areas for pathway development.
Mapping skills to roles
Next we map which technical aptitudes and soft skills associates in specific roles require to deliver on those identified capabilities and business objectives. This allows pathways to take a role-based approach, bundling modular skills units into customized tracks to build key competencies.
Defining learning objectives
Each pathway and modular unit includes clearly delineated learning objectives with precise, measurable results that learners are expected to exhibit upon completion. This keeps the focus on real-world application that enhances performance.
Custom pathway development
These insights drive development of flexible pathways with bundled skills aimed at producing high-performing individuals able to execute on critical capabilities. The pathways provide personal learning journeys integrated into talent management and performance enhancement processes.
Continuous iteration and improvement
And because organizations evolve over time, so do the pathways. They are continually aligned to strategic priorities and refreshed to meet changing needs through iterative analysis, mapping, and redefinition in partnership between Cprime experts and an organization’s leaders.
Customizing the learning experience
True customization allows organizations to tailor learning pathways to best suit their culture and learners. Options include:
- Content modalities – Pathways incorporate diverse learning materials from videos to gamification to align with preferences across learner demographics like millennials, Gen Z, remote staff, etc.
- Tools and delivery methods – Organizations can choose to deliver pathways via their existing learning management system (LMS) or learning experience platform (LXP), or implement Cprime’s LMS, purpose-built for pathways.
- Integrating existing training – Client-provided training and eLearnings can be tightly integrated with pathways to leverage existing content.
- External certifications – Pathways incorporate credentials like PMP and SAFe to provide career benefits.
- Configurations – Pathways are configured by department (marketing, product, execs), experience level (new hires, emerging leaders), or methodology (Agile, Design Thinking) for relevance.
“Although the e-learning course was very good, we felt there would be tremendous value in giving the students the opportunity to interact with each other and expert instructors. So, we developed a complementary instructor-led workshop as well.” — Rob Hill, Cprime Learning Consultant
Cprime partners closely with clients to understand an organization’s teams, challenges, and objectives, to determine the optimal configurations, tools, and content for pathway adoption and business impact. This broad set of options enables standardization for consistency and personalization for relevance.
Measuring the impact of the program
Detailed metrics demonstrate the usefulness of the pathway program and promote continued improvement. Cprime collects both qualitative and quantitative information:
Leading indicators:
- Enrollment and registration metrics show learner interest and content relevance
- Course completion rates demonstrate levels of participation and satisfaction
- Surveys collect learner feedback on course quality, platform usability, and other topics
Proficiency metrics
- Assessments of skills before, throughout, and after completion evaluate knowledge increases
- Badges and certifications indicate the competencies gained by completing modules
Lagging indicators
- Impact analysis connects learning data to increased productivity, higher quality, and other organizational outcomes
- Statistical models depict the return on investment and payback period for the L&D investment
Qualitative findings
- Learner interviews and focus groups provide context for what content and delivery methods are most effective
- Manager surveys provide insight about demonstrated behavior change.
- Leadership talks highlight critical talents that should be emphasized.
While measurement allows for data-driven decisions about pathway content and delivery to improve business results, newly discovered insights fuel additional innovation; the more we understand about how contemporary learning alters businesses, the faster we can drive essential workforce and cultural changes.
Changing your learning environment
Because companies are complex adaptive systems, introducing new capabilities through custom learning solutions gradually alters mindsets and culture. The following are important factors in driving evolution:
- Alignment of executives and managers – Leadership advocates for learning, provides resources, and engages in paths to signify relevance.
- Communities of Practice – New media channels and events, such as Slack/Teams channels, promote peer sharing of learnings and best practices.
- Recognition and celebration – Badges, certifications, and graduation ceremonies all honor learner effort and signal intended advancement.
- Planning for continuous improvement – Evaluating data, trends, and feedback drives systematic improvements to pathway content, tools, and procedures.
Employees increasingly obtain skills and apply learnings on the job independently as the pathway program matures, rather than relying solely on formal training. Instead of being a separate activity, self-learning gets integrated into the daily flow of work.
As individuals constantly sharpen abilities, adapt expertise to new challenges, and accelerate growth, the organization’s agility, innovation speed, and competitive market positioning improve.
To dive deeper into the value and process behind Cprime’s Learning Pathways solution, download our white paper, Modern Learning for Modern Learners: Why Companies Need to Adapt, and How to Do It.
Getting started with Cprime
Interested in exploring how modern learning approaches like Cprime’s Learning Pathways can reshape your workforce? Typical first steps include:
- Learning Assessment – We have an informal discussion to co-create a vision for possibilities and clarify priorities for learning-based workforce transformation.
- Change management consulting – Cprime provides advisory services for evolving existing learning practices, technology, and culture to embrace modern methodologies.
- Pilot program – We pilot tailored pathways with a small group to demonstrate capabilities firsthand and quantify the impact on product metrics or KPIs.
The Learning Assessment allows us to dig into your unique situation, objectives, and needs in order to architect a plan customized for meaningful and sustainable impact at your organization.
From there we identify an initial pilot group, roll out targeted pathways, gather feedback, and showcase measured results on key indicators you’re looking to improve.
Quickly demonstrating an excellent experience and strong ROI with the pilot empowers expansion across the organization, evolution of pathways over time, and continued elevation of workforce capabilities fueling your strategic progress and competitive differentiation.
Let’s connect to explore your goals and how Cprime can help close skills gaps and propel your organization’s key strategic initiatives now and into the future! The first step is requesting a Learning Assessment to explore possibilities. Click below to get started today!
