Continuous Learning

Employee Retention: The increasing Impact of Development and Belonging

Navigating the modern workforce is not just a journey, but a strategic dance with emerging trends. Continuous development and a focus on skills aligned with job roles become not just metrics but sparks igniting job satisfaction and retention.

Studies highlight the importance of ongoing development, not just for individuals but also for companies. Without it, transformation becomes impossible. People need to be guided, trained, and, above all, motivated! So, what should be the priorities for companies? What should we focus on?

Five employee priorities for sustainable companies:

#1 Opportunities for Learning and Development:

Integrate personalized learning pathways, ensuring employees have continuous opportunities for skill enhancement and professional growth.

#2 Sense of Belonging

Foster a supportive work environment that promotes a sense of belonging, encourages collaboration, and creates a community where employees feel valued.

#3 Alignment with Company Values

Incorporate organizational values into learning programs, reinforcing a sense of purpose and alignment with the company’s overarching mission.

#4 Focus on Quality of Life

Recognize the importance of work-life balance and well-being in corporate learning initiatives, allowing employees to prioritize both professional and personal development.

#5 Promotion of Collaboration

Develop learning experiences that encourage collaboration and teamwork, recognizing the significance of collective intelligence in achieving organizational goal.

The paradigm shift in HR priorities

The post-pandemic era isn’t just a chapter; it’s a spotlight on the critical importance of internal agility. Companies transitioning to competency-based planning seize a unique chance to foster a learning culture, align with trends like interdisciplinary learning, enhance recruitment, embrace personnel development, and ride the wave of the megatrend—promoting internal mobility.

Why a pivotal moment in organizational evolution is needed

Skill Alignment and Job Satisfaction:
Globally, employees sensing skill underutilization are 10 times more likely to seek new opportunities. *
Unstoppable shift in priorities: If we look at the factors that are most important to employees worldwide “Opportunities for training and development” has risen from ninth to first place in just two years.*
Supporting instead of replacing: Almost 65% of HR developers in Europe agree that retraining employees is more cost-effective than hiring new employees.*

The popularity of learning initiatives brings challenges, a storm of overwhelming workloads in 2023. Increased demands year over year are the winds of change. To overcome this, companies must align learning with business skills, focusing on identifying gaps rather than mere completion rates.

In the theater of corporate learning, the spotlight is on you. Proactive measures are the script, addressing skill misalignment, investing in reskilling, and embracing internal mobility. Seize the opportunity now; it’s not just a chance—it’s a necessity for sustained success. Can you hear the applause of triumph in the evolving workplace learning landscape? Act now; the stage is yours!

Update Recommender System: Never miss updates and exciting articles on your topics again

Our unique recommender system helps learners stay up-to-date on their topics and continue to develop. We compare learner data with new articles, studies, and courses found on deposited websites, internal company sources, or optionally on the Internet in general. Find out in this article exactly what we offer our customers and how it works.

What are Recommender Systems?

A recommendation system, also called a recommender system, is a software solution that makes personalized suggestions or recommendations to users for products, services, or content. It is based on the user’s preferences, behavior and interactions. Such systems are often used in online stores, streaming platforms, social networks, but also on modern learning platforms like chunkx. On learning platforms, they are only usually limited to recommending new courses to learners from the respective platform or from a limited number of partners. We think this can be done better!

Recommender Systems in chunkx

In chunkx, we not only process which courses a learner is taking, but we can directly analyze the content of the many individual learning units. This allows us to make comparisons in terms of content. For example, if you learn a lot about diverse leadership, we can use the content of your learning units and your learning data to match them with skills and generate appropriate recommendations:

1) Matching courses in chunkx
Okay, that’s not a surprise yet, but it’s a very important feature for our customers who use our micro-learning platform.

2) Suitable courses outside of chunkx
Now we are getting closer to innovation. Using AI and well-placed data extraction, we can find suitable courses for you to continue learning. Skills, development goals and other parameters can also be taken into account.

3) Articles, studies and updates
chunkx already supports you intensively in the transfer of learning. But with our recommender system, we also make it easy for you to benefit from new articles, studies, and general updates on your topics. Let’s stay with the example of Diverse Leadership: If you have a great course with a subsequent learning subscription in chunkx, you don’t want to stop at this level of content, but rather continue to develop. As long as you keep the subscription to the channel, we will automatically compare your learning data and skills with newly found items and let you know as soon as we find something suitable for you! In this way, we support you not only in the transfer of learning, but also in continuous learning.

Recommendation sources

Quality is a core requirement for our automatically generated recommendations. The first step towards this is to control the sources from which new recommendations may be generated in principle. There are different levels here:

Selected sources
Together with our customers, we determine which sources they want us to crawl on a regular basis. This ensures that only sources requested by the customer are considered for new recommendations. Crawling means that a robot looks at the website again and again and analyzes what new has been published. This content is vectorized to make it easier to compare with learning data.
In-house sources
Of course, customers have even more control over their internal data. And these can also be used for recommendations: Similar to the approach above, we vector internal data, e.g., that of a product database or knowledge platform, and respond to identified knowledge gaps in learners with the perfect recommendations on internal articles.
The free internet
Especially for topics that are highly topical, such as Generative AI, and where things can change on a daily basis, we recommend that customers refrain from restricting sources. Without this restriction, we can find even more suitable recommendations for courses, articles and updates.

Validation of recommendations

Especially with innovative automation, it is important to set up the validation of the results properly. Depending on the use case, an initial validation is already ensured via the restriction and selection of sources. Since our recommender system is primarily based on content proximity between learning units and new courses or articles, there is basically a very good chance of a good fit. All results that are good enough from this point of view end up on a shortlist.

We then have the shortlist analyzed with GPT-4 and compared again with the baseline situation, i.e. the learner data. We only use services via Microsoft Azure here, so we can ensure that none of OpenAI’s data may be used outside of our specific purpose and that all data is processed in Europe (specifically, in France). After processing, a few top results remain.

The top results are humanly checked again before publication, so that really nothing can go wrong. This is true for our asynchronous recommendations, but not for adhoc recommendations, for example, when a learner wants a new course recommendation right now.

Linking with next learning unit

In the image above you can see an example of a recommendation sent by email. What you see below the recommendation: every communication event is used by chunkx to send learners the next learning unit. In this way, we support continuous learning and enable learning directly in the flow-of-work in the channels that people already use anyway (currently we support email and MS Teams).

When do you start with chunkx?

With chunkx, we’ve created the solution to turn your one-off learning activities into continuous learning experiences, including through our recommender systems. Talk to us about your learning culture and the changes in your organization and how chunkx can best support you.

New feature: personalized summaries in chunkx

Sustainable learning requires time and reflection. That’s why with chunkx we make it easy to subscribe to the content of existing trainings & courses to support learning transfer in small units and on-the-job. A great new feature for this is the personalized summaries that are now sent out as part of our weekly learning review. They show learners the key messages of their individually worked learning units from the respective week and make it easy to reflect and anchor learned material again.

Limitations of LMS and LXP

Traditional learning management systems (LMS) or learning experience platforms (LXP) do not directly access the content that learners are working on. Courses are linked via SCORM or other standards and may also be opened directly by the system, but exactly what content is in them is not known to the system. It usually only knows the metadata, such as the title and a short description. In some, and by no means all, cases, the system also knows what the learner’s progress is, such as being on page 5 of 20. However, the system does not know what was explained in terms of content on these first 5 pages and whether any gaps in the person’s knowledge were identified.

Learning content analysis in chunkx

With chunkx, things are different: In chunkx, microlearning units can be created, managed and played out directly. Innovative AI functions also make it possible to transform the learning content of existing trainings and courses into microlearning units and continuously play them out to learners. In other words: Subscribe to the learning content. chunkx thus has direct access to the content and can evaluate which content has been worked on by a learner in a week. For each learning unit, the key message is identified and presented in the user’s language. If more than five core messages are generated in a week, data on the current state of knowledge in chunkx can be used to make the selection even more appropriate and, if possible, support where the most learning is needed.

Seamless learning

Reflecting on what you have already learned is one thing, learning something new is another. Each communication event in chunkx, such as the weekly learning review or new recommendations, is also used to calculate which microlearning unit should be selected next for the user. In this way, communication and information occasions are optimally used to provide a low-threshold opportunity for seamless further learning. The microlearning units themselves are presented as completely as possible in terms of content. So users are not only made aware, but learning can happen immediately. The channels used are email or MS Teams, also for the personalized summaries.

More AI features in chunkx

In chunkx, artificial intelligence and smart algorithms are used in a variety of ways:

In content creation, to relieve authors and to efficiently transform existing learning content into microlearning units including learning tasks.
In keywording, to be able to efficiently analyze and relate content.
This is especially important for our adaptive learning algorithms. Here, we keep on using rule-based calculations, but we also experiment a lot in the areas of machine learning and AI.
In skill analysis and referencing skill ontologies such as ESCO to relate content to standardized or company-defined skills.
For recommendations for further learning. Again, the content is analyzed mathematically and related to other content, such as exciting articles, courses, or other learning units. Particularly exciting for companies and organizations with large product databases and knowledge bases: These can also potentially be used by us to provide learners with optimal recommendations.
In personalizing learning content, such as the custom-created summaries shown here, which we will gradually incorporate at other places in our Learning Experience.

With chunkx, we’ve created the solution to turn your one-off learning activities into continuous learning experiences, such as personalized summaries. Talk to us about your learning culture and the changes in your organization and how chunkx can best support you.

Continuous Learning: Key Factor to Successful Business Transformations

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, organizations are constantly challenged to adapt and transform to stay competitive.
One critical factor that separates successful transformations from unsuccessful ones is the emphasis on continuous learning. By building a sustainable learning culture, businesses can drastically increase their transformation readiness, enhance their transformation efforts, and better overall performance. This article explores the importance of continuous learning in driving successful business transformations.

“The speed of adapting to change is of the essence. The faster the enterprise moves, the easier it is to turn a business challenge into a new business opportunity.”

Karl-Heinz Streibich, Chairman and CEO, Software AG

Building a Culture of Continuous Learning

A continuous learning culture acts as a catalyst for successful business transformations. A study by the Association for Talent Development (ATD) shows that companies that place a high priority on learning and employee development experience higher employee engagement, productivity, retention and overall performance.

To embark on a successful transformation journey, organizations should prioritize learning and development as an integral part of their change efforts. It entails creating an environment that promotes knowledge-sharing, collaboration, and experimentation. By fostering such an environment where employees have easy access to training and development programs, organizations empower their workforce to acquire new skills, stay up-to-date with industry trends, and adapt proactively to changing circumstances.

In a learning culture, rigid hierarchical structures give way to collaborative, learning-oriented networks, encouraging innovation and agility. Individuals are encouraged to learn from their successes and failures, paving the way for continuous improvement. A positive learning culture not only equips individuals with the necessary skills for transformation but also nurtures a mindset that embraces innovation, resilience, and collaboration.

Spaced Learning: Maximizing Impact Learning On-the-Job and in Small Nuggets

During business transitions, the integration of learning activities into daily routines is crucial for effective knowledge acquisition. While larger courses and trainings are very valuable, they should be complemented with on-the-job learning experiences. Encouraging employees to learn in small nuggets during their regular work activities allows for more precise skill analytics, better application of newly acquired knowledge, and flattens out the forgetting curve.

This approach is called Spaced Repetition Learning or short: Spaced Learning. It helps to reinforce knowledge retention and enhances the impact of learning activities. By spacing out learning experiences, individuals can revisit and reinforce previously learned concepts, preventing information overload, and ensuring long-term retention. Especially in the context of constantly changing environments, spaced learning on-the-job becomes increasingly important to keep up with the pace of the transitions.

Transformation Readiness and Continuous Learning – or: Changes are a normal flow of things

Often, individuals are resistant to changes as they push us beyond our comfort zone. We may perceive a loss of control over significant aspects of our professional lives due to all the uncertainties. Changes introduce additional work as we must allocate extra time and effort to devise and experiment with novel ideas while managing the ripple effects that often manifest in unforeseen ways. We are not always adequately prepared for changes, leading to doubts about possessing the necessary knowledge and skills to navigate the new reality.

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving".

Albert Einstein

Transformation readiness is the organization’s ability to embrace and drive change successfully. A continuous learning culture and employees who adopt lifelong learning are instrumental in developing transformation readiness. By prioritizing learning and development initiatives and by giving employees the tools at hand to integrate learning into everyday life, organizations send a powerful message that continuous learning is valued and encouraged. This fosters an environment where employees feel empowered to explore new ideas and adapt to emerging trends. Lifelong learning and readiness for change are key factors of personal success in a world of digital transformation.

Unlock potential

In the face of rapid technological advancements and ever-changing market dynamics, continuous learning is no longer a choice but a prerequisite for successful business transformations. By building a learning culture, integrating learning into daily routines, leveraging spaced learning techniques, and embracing lifelong learners, organizations can enhance their ability to adapt, innovate, and thrive in today’s competitive landscape.

Continuous learning empowers employees, promotes agility, and enables organizations to stay ahead of the curve. Embracing a culture of continuous learning is the key to unlocking successful business transformations and achieving sustainable success in the long run.

With chunkx, we have created the solution to turn your one-time learning activities into continuous learning experiences. Reach out to us for a chat about your learning culture and business transformations and how chunkx can support you.

Category: Continuous Learning