Virtual Learning Environments for management and leadership training

Libby Cross, Senior Marketing Executive

High-end, classroom-based management and leadership training backed up with motivational workshops and books, has been the norm. These programs offer tailored content, one-to-one coaching, collaborative workshops, and the chance to meet and learn with your peers in the business. Classes are delivered by subject specialists who are experienced instructors. Courses are often certified by professional bodies. Inspirational texts offer insights into how to be a successful manager and leader.

It is known that organizations spend billions each year on classroom-based training for management and leadership skills. But according to McKinsey, an astonishing 75% of companies report that it doesn’t work.

So, how does online learning counter the view that only traditional forms of training represent a real investment in what promising, motivated managers and potential leaders are looking for to develop their careers?

Accepting the challenge

At Learning Pool, we’ve invested heavily in developing a virtual learning environment in Learning Pool Platform. The idea is not only to deliver all the benefits of high-end, classroom-based training but to use technology, backed by insights from learning psychology and sound pedagogy, to extend and enhance training and development. It’s our view that learning can no longer comprise a series of one-off, episodic events, but should be continuous and career-long, especially in the critical areas of management and leadership.

We challenge the presumption that traditional training has a greater impact. Indeed, studies have shown that while the warm glow of the classroom may linger, the learning itself steadily ebbs away once the class, seminar or workshop ends. Real knowledge comes through the constant application of learning in a working environment. It’s about turning management and leadership theory into practice.

Learning Pool Platform for management and leadership

Learning Pool Platform provides a person-centric social learning environment. Clean and easy-to-use dashboards bring together self-service features and a collaborative, knowledge-sharing ethos to deliver personalized learning that is tailored to the needs and experience of individual learners.

The LXP also facilitates independent learning through its high-grade search engine, an embedded chatbot and recommendation system. The ability to deliver a wide range of learning resources that complement its longer-form courses provides you with a comprehensive, high-end, virtual-learning solution fit for management and leadership development.

Masterclasses

Our masterclass functionality is unique to Learning Pool Platform. Perfect for training those professional skills your employees need to excel for your customers.

Masterclasses are highly social learning pathways that take your learners on a structured journey through a variety of experiences. Offering more than simply content consumption, they allow learners to engage with their peers, reflect on their learning, improve their critical thinking skills, and encourage them to apply what they are learning in the context of their roles.

This is active learning mirroring the depth and detail of the lecture format coupled with interactive exercises. Strategies, such as gamification and social learning, extend the reach and power of learning. Learning Pool Platform recognizes that much of what we learn is through observation of others’ behaviour and informal interactions with our peers. These informal learning moments are a highly memorable and effective way of learning and just as critical as the organized training we sit through.

You can use the masterclass functionality in Learning Pool Platform to create your own masterclasses or you can buy our off-the-shelf masterclass catalogues that work out of the box.

Our masterclass catalogues are regularly expanded and updated. New modules are continuously added to your masterclass package. As it’s digital, content can be easily tailored to your organization’s requirements and culture and as time goes on updated to reflect changes.

For example, our management and leadership masterclass series is designed by experts to equip leaders and managers with the skills they need to build trust, inspire and deliver success. The broad range of topics facilitates the upskilling of experienced leaders as well as developing new leadership talent. Modules such as ‘Becoming an effective leader’, ‘Developing people in the workplace’, ‘Leading innovation and change’ and many more explore exactly the areas that are vital to gaining, maintaining, and upgrading your cohort of leaders and managers. The program is accredited by ILM and credits from the courses can be used to gain an ILM award.

Social Intelligence Dashboard

Yet, however comprehensive our masterclasses are, they wouldn’t be as effective were it not for our commitment to social learning. Social learning encourages engagement and contributions across the organization to create dynamic and shareable learning resources.

Learning Pool’s Platform unique Social Intelligence Dashboard (SID) provides reports and insights from learners’ social comments. These insights allow you to identify behaviour change and highlight strong participants in your management and leadership cohort. Participants who appear to be struggling are quickly identified and can receive additional resources and support. The analysis can help you better monitor career development and identify and develop talent.

SID helps you answer key questions on the effectiveness of your learning programmes: including whether it meets expected standards, which new topics need addressing, how learners apply what they’ve learned, and whether the training has the right direction, focus and duration. SID comes with an out-of-the-box set of features but can be tailored to the requirements of individual organizations.

Learning Pool Platform intelligence

Our Learning Pool Platform offers intelligent features that allow you to automatically deliver learning interventions and mentor learners. The platform can be configured to suit your management and leadership needs. The LXP is available across devices and so always accessible.

Notifications

Learning Pool Platform provides alerts that notify learners of various learning moments such as approaching course deadlines, the need to participate in an assessment, the availability of new content, new comments or feedback posted and so on. Notifications can be used to signal learning interventions to keep the learners active.

Recommendations

Learning Pool’s Platform recommendations feature suggests new relevant content based on an individual’s interests and experience. Recommendations help personalize learning and can be used to map out individual learning paths and close skills gaps

Nudging

The combination of notifications and recommendations helps nudge learners to continue learning and to direct them to the learning they need. Nudging helps sustain professional development.

Microlearning

Learning Pool Platform serves up bite-sized chunks of learning that can be quickly surfaced and digested at the time of need. This helps make learning relevant and current. Microlearning resources facilitate spaced practice which has been shown to enhance the transfer, retention and practical application of learning.

Content curation

A good deal of knowledge resides in the heads of experienced employees. Learning Pool Platform helps foster knowledge sharing and provides a repository for quick, cost-effective informal learning (tips and tricks) that can easily be recorded on a mobile device and uploaded to the system. Learning Pool Platform also allows you to recommend and curate external content so you can access the best, expert content available online, whether it’s a TED talk, a webinar or an online how-to video.

Information access

Learning Pool Platform boasts a high-grade search engine that allows you to find relevant information fast. Learning Pool’s Platform built-in bot enables you to interrogate resources and answer the questions that you need to answer. The search engine and bot deliver independent and just-in-time learning within the workflow.

Management and leadership theory into practice

Learning Pool Platform offers a comprehensive learning solution for high-end, mission-critical training. Our masterclass catalogues deliver high-quality, in-depth management and leadership training and we continually expand these to cover new, topical areas. Learning Pool’s Platform intelligent features and use of social learning provide continuous, practical learning support extending and enhancing what’s available in traditional management and leadership programs.

Using Learning Pool Platform, you not only school people in management and leadership, but also develop them into real managers and leaders able to operate effectively in the workplace.

For more information on the LXP, download our free ‘Guide to Learning Experience Platforms’ or get in touch.