Effective LGBTIQ+ inclusion is fundamental to every workplace

Effective LGBTIQ+ inclusion is fundamental to every workplace. It affects our ability to attract and retain great employees and design market-leading products, as well as our branding and reputation. Most importantly, it allows our employees to bring their full selves to work. 

As such, it’s worth asking, how can inclusive workplace learning be more effective? And how can workplaces make sure they’re doing something beyond tokenism when training their employees?

We asked Dr Elise Stephenson, entrepreneur and multi-award winning researcher on gender equality and sexuality from Griffith University, to share her insights on best practice for learning and development at work to help LGBTIQ+ employees thrive.

Why does LGBTIQ+ inclusion at work matter (and how can we get buy-in for the programs we need to roll out)?

Why does LGBTIQ+ Inclusion at work matter?

Sometimes it can be difficult for us to separate our personal feelings about social issues from their impact on the workplace. It is only recently that we’ve seen marriage equality legislated in many countries, while homosexuality is still illegal in some places. However, when we focus on the workplace, there is a clear case for meaningful and lasting action.

If we make the workplace a safe space for people to share their true selves, employees tend to work harder and treat each other better. As a result, output improves. If we don’t, then not only are we unable to properly care for our employees, but we risk damage to our brand and our product, as well as significant impacts to our bottom line from absenteeism, discrimination, bullying, and harassment.

In this space, learning and development are fundamental to making positive changes happen. It is no longer enough to push these issues to the backlog and revive them once a year. If we are silent, then our inaction condones problematic behaviour. Further, if our employees are not adequately trained and supported year-round, we leave ourselves open to conscious and unconscious incidents of bullying and discrimination. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t start a program this month. Rather, it means any programs you do roll out shouldn’t end when the month is over.

Dr Elise Stephenson elaborates on this, urging workplaces to take a firm stance supporting LGBTIQ+ people in their organisations. 

“If you don’t take a stance at all, you are taking a stance. LGBTIQ+ represents identities that are often invisible or withheld from the workplace and this stops people from bringing their whole selves to work. You might not know that you have people in your midst going through this, but you almost certainly do,” she said. 

What does best practice learning look like?

The good news is the best learning campaigns to support and embrace LGBTIQ+ people aren’t overly complex. They rely on a whole-of-organisation approach, laying the foundation for ongoing training that weaves its way into the fabric of a company’s learning journey. There’s a tendency for issues like this to be aimed primarily at managers, for us to expect leaders to be the ones we train first and with the most depth. However, the most effective learning happens when each function can embed what they learn into their work.

For example, Dr Stephenson talks about how effective education can help companies go beyond short term grabs for the “pink” or queer dollar to gain long-term competitive advantages through the inclusive design of services and goods. If your product designers were making cakes and didn’t think about the gay marriage market, they’d be losing out on an entire revenue stream for your business.

Alongside learning resources, Dr Stephenson also highlighted the importance of shared standards, visions, and goals, adding that the best programs are often those that are driven by people and supported by leadership or led by leadership with community buy-in. In other words, leadership and collective action are equally important. These programs usually involve informal networks, systematic reviews of systems such as preferred names and visible pronouns, and links to broader programs for the workplace.

“There’s particular importance on whole-of-workplace education. Our challenges are often simple social or technical adjustments, but they require everyone at work to have basic awareness,” she said. 

As such, you can take simple steps to support your eLearning by:

Providing easy access to help & resources

Ensuring that resources are non-judgemental and contain accurate information on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression

Ensuring that internal and external branding, marketing, and materials are inclusive

How do we roll out LGBTIQ+ L&D?

The recommended topics for L&D professionals don’t differ too much from the standard inclusion and diversity education required of most workplaces. In general, workplace LGBTIQ+ training should focus on:

Acknowledgements of privileges, biases, phobias, and personal triggers

Understanding of gender identity and sexual orientation, including definitions

Intersectionality, LGBTIQ+, and the world beyond a cisgender man’s experience

With Dr Stephenson’s guidance, we’ve turned this into a helpful shortlist, which matches the workplace actions you can take with key eLearning resources that are all available through Go1.

“Tangible change looks different for every kind of organisation or industry. But if we were going to have a look at education, for instance, it might be around how can your curriculum be inclusive? Are you just using the gender binary or are you being more inclusive across sexual orientation and gender identity?,” she said. 

What are the most common barriers to successful learning programs on LGBTIQ+ issues at work?

What are the barriers for L&D in this area?

While most LGBTIQ+ challenges are often simple technical and social adjustments, they require increased awareness across an organisation. The greatest barriers to effective learning programs are that LGBTIQ+ training requires a level of unlearning to achieve results. Our stigmas or assumptions can often cloud us as learners and learning designers. 

Common barriers to programs being successful include:

Unacknowledged unconscious bias or stereotyping in our workplaces

Insensitivity or invisibility, combined with a lack of support and overt role-models

Selective mentoring (particularly for one-on-one mentoring, resulting in individuals only mentoring those “like you”)

The lack of a workplace stance or a hostile workplace stance

A lack of clear and supportive policies (e.g. does your parental leave apply to all parents, or is there only maternity leave?)

“The reality is that organisations often don’t have the capacity to specifically care for and look after every individual. Individuals need the tools to take ownership over their domain and actively practice inclusive skills,” Dr Stephenson added.

What's next for LGBTIQ+ inclusion at work?

For Go1, this process has us excited about the breadth of learning already available to our subscribers. However, it has also highlighted the steps ahead of us to reach a better world for LGBTIQ+ people. We’re grateful to Dr Stephenson for sharing her expertise and will be educating our team on the best approaches to LGBTIQ+ issues at work. 

Additionally, we are always on the lookout for more content partners with high-quality resources in this space. It forms a critical part of a larger body of work for us in our mission to support every workplace to have the educational tools to be psychologically safe. Contact your CSM or email our Social Impact Manager to access our curated playlists today.

If you’d like to contact Dr Elise Stephenson to see what your workplace can do, please don’t hesitate to reach out to her. You can contact her and read more about her work across diplomacy, defence, national security, and workplace inclusion at the Griffith University Policy Innovation Hub here.

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

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Can L&D best practice improve LGBTIQ+ inclusion at work?

Promoting your learning project internally is one of the most significant steps in your L&D strategy. Unfortunately, it is also one of the easiest to neglect. Many teams fall into the trap of thinking that acquiring top-notch learning content is sufficient. However, in reality, that’s only half the battle. You can have the best learning content and the most advanced L&D platform, but if your learners don’t know about it, engagement will suffer and your L&D strategy won’t thrive. 

In general, this comes down to two overarching problems. Firstly, many L&D teams don’t have the skills to promote learning internally and sustainably over a long period of time. Secondly, L&D teams haven’t communicated to employees the value they can add to their professional development.

To help overcome these issues, we’ve put together this guide to promoting your learning project internally. We’ll start by discussing L&D ambassadors and champions, before moving on to promoting learning to your learners and finishing with five essentials to promote your learning project internally. 

Start with L&D ambassadors and champions 

One of the most effective ways to promote your learning project internally is via L&D ambassadors and champions. In particular, buy-in from executives and senior leaders can have a profound impact on your L&D program. 

The good news is that executive championship is on the rise, according to LinkedIn’s 2021 Workplace Learning Report. As of March 2021, 62% of CEOs say they are “active champions” of learning in their organisations — a massive increase from just 27% in March 2020. 

As LinkedIn’s report notes, “we know that when top leadership actively champions learning, it drives higher learner engagement and impact.” For example, 56% of employees say they would spend more time learning if their manager directed them to complete a specific course, while 75% say they would take a manager-suggested course. Clearly, buy-in from senior leadership can have far-reaching impacts on learner engagement. 

As a recent report by Training Industry puts it, “acting as a ‘cheerleader’ for learning and development, internal champions help spread the word, build, carry and sustain the learning momentum...well beyond the walls of the learning department.”

Although executive championship is trending in the right direction, not all teams have a senior-level L&D ambassador to rely on. Go1’s 2020 State of Learning Report dubbed executive buy-in “the final hurdle” with 40% of L&D teams feeling this is missing from their strategies. Similarly, Training Industry finds that one-third of learning leaders have trouble securing a champion for training at their organisations.

Ultimately, Emerald Works’ 2020 Back to the Future Report provides a beacon of hope for what L&D teams can achieve with senior ambassadors on board. According to their report, just 22% of L&D teams say that “all stakeholders share our vision for organisational learning.” However, this skyrockets to 88% among high-impact learning cultures (the top 10% of surveyed organisations). As such, high-impact L&D teams have a shared vision from executives through to learners and reap the rewards. 

With this in mind, you might be asking yourself, who are my L&D champions? Who are the people on the front lines drumming up enthusiasm about L&D in my organisation? If you are drawing a blank, then addressing this issue should be your number one priority. Internal championship from executives and other senior leaders is now an essential part of any successful L&D strategy. 

Your champions should be enthusiastic about pushing your L&D strategy forward and promoting it at any opportunity. They should also focus on driving higher engagement and showing your learners the personal and professional benefits of L&D in your organisation. 

You can have the world’s most sophisticated L&D infrastructure, but if your learners don’t know about it, then it’s all for nothing.

According to eLearning Industry, lack of awareness is a major problem for L&D, with a whopping 65% of L&D professionals saying their learners are not aware of the learning opportunities available at their organisation. 

As such, L&D teams must make an effort to ‘sell’ learning to learners. It’s no good sitting back and waiting for your learners to come to you. If they are unaware of the benefits of your L&D program, that day may never come. 

As Training Industry points out, “employees will not always come running when the latest courses are released. They have far too much work to bother with taking on training that does not seem valuable to them. As a result, learning and development (L&D) teams must place a higher priority on marketing their learning programs to see employees engage with their new training offers.” 

In other words, it is vital to actively promote your learning via a variety of mediums that learners are likely to engage with, to ensure they are aware of the full spectrum of opportunities that your L&D program offers. 

Executive championship is one step in this process. However, promoting learning to your learners requires ongoing effort. For starters, ask yourself, what’s in it for the learner? Why should they care about your L&D strategy? What are your unique selling points to engage learners? Once you have clearly defined answers to these questions, you can start sharing these points with your learners to increase interest and engagement. 

Unfortunately, one of the biggest roadblocks in this area is resistance to change. Emerald Works' 2020 State of Learning Report shows that 36% of L&D leaders have traditional expectations that are difficult to challenge. When teams are resistant to change and set in their ways, it is far harder to promote learning initiatives and engage your learner. Don’t be afraid to challenge traditional L&D norms and think outside the box when promoting learning to your learners. 

5 essentials to promote your learning project internally 

Focus on gaining executive buy-in for your L&D strategy 

Promote learning initiatives to senior leaders to turn them into L&D champions and ambassadors 

Actively promote learning to your learners — what’s in it for them? 

65% of L&D professionals say their learners are not aware of the learning opportunities available at their organisation. Don’t fall into this trap! 

Embrace change and be open to new techniques to engage learners 

For further insights on promoting learning to your learners, check out our guides to promoting your online course and driving higher learner engagement. 

Many L&D teams don’t have the skills to promote learning internally and sustainably over a long period of time. To help overcome these issues, we’ve put together this guide to promoting your learning project internally.

How to promote your learning project internally

Which content partner should you look into?

Talent Quest is one of our top providers here at Go1, specializing in all things leadership, from the recruitment cycle to business acumen.  Their 15-minutes courses include engaging videos followed by quick knowledge checks to make sure your learners are on track to better leadership skills. Check out their 80+ courses in the Go1 Content Hub to help upskill your leaders, regardless of where they are in their careers.

Talent Quest started as a talent management firm that expanded into a market leader who applies behavioral science to their learning solutions.

ej4 – This US-based content provider isn’t new to our library but they are new to the Content Hub. Now as part of our subscription, ej4 offers over 2500 courses, primarily under 15 minutes in everything from IT software to personal development.

International Culinary Studio – This New Zealand-based content partner offers 11 of their premium cooking and culinary skill courses, including Food Safety, Basic Kitchen Prep, and Knife Skills.

Skillpod – This New Zealand-based content partner offers 12 concise courses (all 15 minutes) on important topics like resiliency, psychological safety, and setting professional standards.

Lighthouse Group – This Australian-based content partner offers an Advances Leadership series which is comprised of seven courses aimed to help leaders grow, connect, and scale in their jobs.

My Wellness School – This UK-based content partner offers 13 courses that can be consumed individually or as a series for the full Primary Wellness Challenge, focusing on mental health and mindfulness.

What’s new from our current content partners?

Our content partners are consistently updating our library – adding new content or updating existing content. Here are a few highlights from the last few weeks:

Australian Healthcare and Social Services

Health Staff Ed – 26 new healthcare courses, including AU state-specific courses.

Stone River – 13 updated IT and project management courses

BiteSize – added microlearning for OneDrive and Outlook 

Intellezy – new Zoom, Stream, Mobile Apps, and Teams courses

What’s Shannon’s favorite course right now?

Going into June, I’ve had a lot of requests for diversity training. One of my favorite places to start is with Why Diversity Matters from Enspark. This short video gives an overview of how companies benefit from more diverse workforces, from financial impacts to less turnover. Enspark has a complete series on diversity and inclusion that is worth checking out.

The Go1 Content Insider is your first stop for all things new in the Go1 Content Hub. In this May update, find out the latest and greatest in the world of content!

The Go1 Content Insider — May 2021 edition

Over the past year, Go1 has been making continuous enhancements to how individuals can learn in the flow of work with the Go1 Learning app for Microsoft Teams, while also enabling content to be more accessible through our integration with Microsoft Search.  

Today, Go1 is thrilled to announce that we were included in the Microsoft Build Conference, where our upcoming integration into Outlook was featured with Microsoft’s Universal Actions. Through this enhancement, Office 365 customers will soon be able to leverage automated prompts to learners after content is shared in Teams.  

In the example shared at Microsoft Build, when learning content is shared to a channel in Microsoft Teams, an automated email with a Microsoft Adaptive Card is sent to members of that channel. A learner can then opt to view the content immediately or save the content for later (which puts that learning content on the learner’s “saved for later” list within Teams), all from Outlook. 

These types of experiences, which will be available to Go1 customers in the near future, drive greater engagement in relevant learning content for an individual. If you are looking to enhance the learning experiences you deliver, Go1 would love to speak with you about being a part of this new learning experience. Please reach out to support@go1.com for more information. 

Organizations will soon be able to provide learners with actionable prompts in Outlook to drive greater engagement with learning content.

Go1’s Microsoft Universal Actions integration featured at the 2021 Microsoft Build Developer Conference 

Domestic and family violence is preventable

Domestic and family violence is a complex and worldwide issue. It affects 1 in 3 women, including 10 million women every year in the USA and 49.5% of women in Australia throughout their lifetime. Despite this, L&D professionals often feel like they can’t make a significant impact on this issue and that they must leave it to HR departments to be able to make a difference.

At Go1, we’ve seen the impact that training and effective education programs can have, largely thanks to our partnership with Australia’s CEO Challenge (ACEOC). Together we’ve trained more than 250,000 people in domestic and family violence prevention, brought cutting edge eLearning to life, and supported programs that give back to more than 45 local charities and women’s shelters. ACEOC have given us hope and educated us on the difference we can make. 

We asked Jacque Lachmund, CEO of ACEOC, to talk us through the role that L&D can play in domestic and family violence prevention and strategies for making the workplace safer.

An important message

If you’re currently experiencing domestic and family violence or supporting someone who is, please know that there is support available to reach out to. A few services that might be relevant to you:

Other - Facebook and UN Women have collated a resource for finding your local helplines and services

Is domestic and family violence a workplace issue?

Jacque, a survivor of domestic violence herself, told us that the most common misconceptions about domestic and family violence are that it is only physical and that it is not a workplace issue. With it affecting so many people at work, Jacque highlighted that we have the opportunity to turn workplaces into a place of safety and support. She is inspired by the wave of change she is currently seeing, with so many workplaces now taking action on this issue.

Jacque highlights that the major points of impact that workplaces can have are:

training people to recognise signs, respond, and refer people to support

providing a safe space for people to be in if they are experiencing violence or abuse outside of work

making people feel welcome and able to thrive, irrespective of gender and sexuality, and

allowing people to perform better by bringing their true selves to work.

In particular, she sees a number of positive outcomes from effective L&D programs, especially when paired with workplace policy and procedural improvements, and improved support from HR teams for those affected by domestic and family violence. Jacque recommends that all L&D programs go hand-in-hand with holistic workplace programs. To that end, ACEOC have developed a comprehensive suite of eLearning, face-to-face training, policy and procedural support options for the workplaces they work with.

What role can L&D play in preventing domestic and family violence?

Despite L&D professionals often feeling like this serious issue is beyond their sphere of influence, we’ve found that learning is the tool that makes the most impact on this issue. Learning is the key lever in long-term change and the driving force behind systemic cultural shifts that make workplaces able to be truly effective. 

We asked Jacque and her team for her shortlist of the key areas that L&D can make direct change happen.

rolling out learning to every employee about what domestic and family violence is and how to recognise signs, respond and refer people to help

supporting employees with key policies and procedures

providing leaders and managers with their own training so that they are ready to refer people to help at work and support staff who need it

developing broader learning programs made up of short, effective eLearning on topics like gender, leadership and unconscious bias so that deeper cultural change can occur.

Through Go1's partnership with ACEOC, we’ve faced all kinds of social, cultural and technical barriers in making change happen on a large scale. We’ve delivered eLearning across 47 different LMS and LXP systems, dealt with countless security settings and certification requirements, and coordinated this with a face-to-face training program for key leaders and change makers. While this is sometimes challenging, we’ve built systems to deal with this and can quickly and easily roll out our programs together.

However, it’s the cultural barriers that we’ve found the most confronting. Many L&D professionals feel unsure of where to start, especially when their workplace or industry is male dominated, such as construction or mining. L&D professionals can feel hesitant to engage with a topic like this, for fear of confronting a large portion of their workplace. They also often feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with compliance requirements, instead of feeling like they can also include an issue like domestic violence in their focus.  

What do great L&D programs look like?

At their core, successful learning campaigns are quite simple. They focus on two things: 

Educating people so that they can recognise signs, respond, and refer people to support when they are experiencing domestic and family violence.

Training people to combat the contributing factors to domestic and family violence - factors that also make the workplace better, such as gender equality, inclusion, unconscious bias, and effective leadership.

Successful L&D programs are then always paired with effective policy and procedural change at work. And Australia’s CEO Challenge is an expert organisation in supporting businesses on both fronts.

To do this, ACEOC have built a simple system with Go1 for making change happen:

To begin, ACEOC will assess where a workplace is at on their domestic and family violence prevention journey. This happens within a week or two of someone requesting it through them, or through one of our learning experts at Go1

Go1 will then develop a learning plan with your organisation, while ACEOC work with your HR and workplace executives on any policy and procedural recommendations that need to happen

Then we roll out a curated, blended learning solution with your L&D and HR teams
- training every employee on the basics of how to recognise, respond, and refer
- developing a broader, curated journey with you for tackling broader issues like gender or bias, and 
- supporting eLearning with face-to-face or virtual workshops for champions and management staff, to ensure a core group of competent respondents available in every workplace.

Want to take action on domestic and family violence?

Get in touch with Cam Cliff, Go1's Social Impact Manager, or your dedicated Customer Success Manager, about what programs are available for your workplace.

Join us in supporting programs like Darkness to Daylight as we come together at the end of this month to walk and run and take a stand against domestic and family violence.

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Jacque Lachmund, CEO of ACEOC, talks to Go1 about the important role that L&D can play in domestic and family violence prevention and strategies for making the workplace safer.

Can L&D do something significant about domestic and family violence?

As much as we would like them to, L&D budgets don’t stretch infinitely. As a result, value is often a hot topic in L&D circles. Getting the most bang for your buck is crucial to maximising the impact of your learning content. Unfortunately, this is often easier said than done. How do you know if you’re really getting value from a learning content provider? 

Of course, price is a factor, but the true value of a learning provider goes deeper than surface-level costs. There are many different types of value depending on your organisation’s goals and your learners’ needs. 

To help optimise the value of your L&D strategy, we’ll look at techniques to assess L&D’s value, before exploring ways to evaluate different learning providers, and answering the question on everyone’s lips: how can I get more out of my L&D budget? 

Depending on your learners’ needs, there are many ways to assess L&D’s value. For starters, price is always a factor. Therefore, it is a good idea to consider a range of options to ensure you are getting the best value for money. However, there are other important criteria when assessing L&D’s value. 

In recent months, we have discussed learning value vs business value extensively. According to Learning Strategy Expert Michelle Ockers, “L&D continues to struggle to create value. One significant reason for this is that L&D has focussed on the wrong kind of value – learning value rather than business value.”

If you need a quick refresher, learning value focuses on principles such as activity, engagement, usefulness, and efficiency of learning, whereas business value relates to things such as performance and culture. Put simply, focussing on business value means aligning L&D with broader organisational goals and objectives. 

Focussing on business value over learning value is an excellent way to ensure you receive maximum value from a learning content provider. Emerald Works’ 2020 Back to the Future Report highlights the benefits of prioritising business value over learning value, finding that only 28% of L&D teams say their people appreciate the value of learning to the business. 

In contrast, this figure skyrockets to 81% among high-impact learning cultures, defined as the top 10% of surveyed respondents. In other words, the most successful and impactful L&D teams prioritise business value and reap the rewards. 

Emerald Works’ 2020 Back to the Future Report offers several key insights into how L&D teams view their value. For example, only 55% of learners feel their contribution is valued by their organisation. If nearly half of your learners don’t feel appreciated, it’s safe to say you are not getting the best value out of your learning strategy. 

Further, only 32% of L&D teams say their managers recognise the value of on-the-job learning (88% among high-impact learning cultures). Perhaps most notably, just 28% of L&D teams say they deliver “greater value for money” compared to 55% of high-impact learning cultures. 

5 ways to assess the value of your L&D strategy 

Prioritise business value over learning value 

Consider a variety of platforms and approaches to learning to ensure you are getting the best value for money

Focus on getting internal buy-in when evaluating different learning providers 

Ensure the provider offers a satisfactory after-sales support service 

Make sure your learners feel valued! According to Emerald Works, only 55% of learners feel their contribution is valued by their organisation 

Evaluating different learning providers 

Evaluating different learning providers can be a challenging process. How can you be certain one will provide more value than another? Your first step should be to analyse your learners’ needs. After all, it’s no good settling on a learning provider if their content doesn’t align with your learners’ goals. For further insights on assessing your learners’ needs, check out our articles on what the modern learner needs and how to assess employee training needs. 

Once you have a solid understanding of what your learners need, there are several other important considerations. Does the learning provider offer a high-quality after-sales service? Are you prepared to manage several contracts and relationships with multiple providers, or would a centralised learning library be more suitable? Are you getting the best value for money? How will you get internal buy-in? 

This last point can be particularly tricky. As we know, 40% of organisations still feel executive buy-in is missing from their L&D strategies, with Go1’s 2020 State of Learning Report calling executive buy-in “the final hurdle” for L&D teams. Adopting a business value mindset can help, demonstrating L&D’s value to the organisation in a way that encourages executive buy-in. 

Ultimately, evaluating different learning providers is a balancing act. It is crucial to find an appropriate balance between value for money, fulfilling your learners’ needs, and meeting broader organisational goals.

Getting more value out of your L&D budget

With Go1, a little can go a long way. One subscription unlocks a whole world of learning. All your training needs are covered with the world’s largest eLearning library, the Go1 Content Hub, available to you in a simple subscription. 

For more information on weighing up different learning providers, be sure to read our article on how to evaluate online learning programs, or to get more out of your digital learning budget, check out 5 essentials to maximise your L&D budget in 2021. 

To help optimise the value of your L&D strategy, we look at techniques to assess L&D’s value, before exploring ways to evaluate different learning providers, and answering the question on everyone’s lips: how can I get more out of my L&D budget? 

How to know if you’re getting the best value from a learning provider

Choices are what makes life unique. Chocolate or strawberry? Cats or dogs? A big night out, or a cozy night in? This variety ensures that no two days are ever the same. However, in an L&D context, too much choice can sometimes lead to information overload. It’s probably a familiar feeling for many; you’ve had to make a million choices that day, and it feels like your brain will explode if you have to make even one more. 

The good news is you’re not alone. According to research by the IDC, the average “knowledge worker” spends approximately 25% of their time either searching for information or analysing it: 9.5 hours searching for information and 9.8 hours analysing information. Given that, it’s little wonder that searching for the right learning content can often feel overwhelming. 

Additionally, a 2018 study by Josh Bersin and Deloitte found that learners do not suffer from a lack of content, but rather, “the issue is that there is too much available content, making it a task itself to sift through the bad to get to the valuable.” 

In other words, there is so much content available that learners are struggling to find content that is relevant to their needs. When learners are spending more time looking for the right content than learning, something has gone wrong. 

As such, we’ll examine ‘analysis paralysis’ before analysing the pitfalls of fragmented learning content and looking at how centralising content can help your learners. 

Too many learning options can lead to information overload. As Christoper Pappas, founder of the eLearning Industry Network, explains, having too many choices can cause a psychological phenomenon known as ‘analysis paralysis’ in which there are so many options to choose from, people are unable to make a decision about which option would be best for them. 

From a learner’s perspective, analysis paralysis can make finding relevant learning content like finding a needle in a haystack. To combat this, centralising your learning can be an effective strategy. 

For further insights on reducing learner overload, be sure to read our articles on what the modern learner needs and selecting digital learning content for your next project.

According to leading L&D analyst Josh Bersin, content curation is both the art and science of identifying the best learning content for an organisation, providing it with context, and ordering it.

As such, carefully curating content relevant to your employees and using it to support the learning process is a great way to avoid information overload. 

Rather than trawling through multiple sources to find a single piece of relevant learning content, a centralised approach to learning can ensure that the information you share with employees is relevant, up-to-date, engaging, and easy to access. 

Guiding learners to a single platform means they can store information and return to it when needed. Ultimately, this saves employees time searching for answers and sifting through irrelevant content.

In addition to analysis paralysis, a fragmented learning experience can have several business-wide ramifications. 

For example, purchasing multiple providers to cover all your learning needs can become very expensive, especially as the cost per head starts to increase quickly. On top of this, signing contracts with multiple content providers can be tricky to manage because it entails lots of relationships to juggle plus any hidden costs associated with support and renewal.

Perhaps most importantly, using several vendors makes it difficult to manage learning projects effectively, leading to multiple accounts for individuals and a high degree of difficulty when trying to track and report on learner engagement. 

The bottom line is that learners are less likely to be proactive if they are confused about where their learning is sourced. Again, something has gone wrong with your L&D strategy if learners are spending more time looking for learning content than engaging with that content

How centralising content can help your learners 

Emerald Works’ 2020 Back To the Future Report identifies a few worrying L&D trends. According to their findings, 32% of L&D teams are concerned about the cost of set-up, development, and maintenance, 26% are concerned about lack of skills among employees to manage their own learning, and 29% are concerned about the pace of technological change. Worse, all of these percentages are trending in the wrong direction compared to 2019 findings. 

Centralising where your learning content is sourced and accessed by learners can address all of these issues, making it easier for learners to actually learn. Using a single platform can significantly reduce set-up and maintenance costs. Similarly, centralised learning reduces the need to adapt to different learning technologies while also making it easier for learners to source and manage their own learning. 

Go1 can help on this journey, offering a centralised platform so your learners can spend more time learning and less time jumping from platform to platform trying to find relevant content. 

With Go1, one easy subscription unlocks a whole world of learning. Simplify online learning with the Go1 Content Hub and deliver the right training to up-skill, re-train, and retain employees without having to compromise on quality or quantity.

When learners are spending more time looking for the right content than learning, something has gone wrong. We'll analyse the pitfalls of fragmented learning content and look at how centralising content can help your learners.

Centralise your learning to avoid information overload

Custom content or off-the-shelf learning? It’s an ongoing L&D dilemma. 

As an L&D professional, you’ve probably found yourself deliberating over the pros and cons of off-the-shelf learning compared to custom content. 

Both buying content and building your own have their advantages and disadvantages, while a combination of both off-the-shelf learning and custom content is also a popular choice. As such, it’s best to know the benefits of both types of learning content before making a decision. 

Here’s everything you need to know about the pros and cons of off-the-shelf learning. We’ll start with a snapshot of the pros and cons, before exploring each of these points in greater detail. 

Snapshot: pros and cons of off-the-shelf learning

According to LinkedIn’s 2019 Workplace Learning Report, 73% of talent developers say they use off-the-shelf learning content to train employees, while 85% of talent developers say they use internally created, custom content to train employees. 

These figures show two things. Firstly, both off-the-shelf learning and custom content can be beneficial in certain learning scenarios. Secondly, combining both off-the-shelf learning and custom content is a common and popular choice for many L&D teams.

Despite this, many L&D teams struggle with their content procurement process. While both forms of content are popular, often, teams find it difficult to know when one type of content is more suitable than the other, leading to an amalgamation that doesn’t fully address the original issue. 

For example, Emerald Works’ 2020 Back to the Future Report finds that 39% of L&D teams say they are overwhelmed and under-equipped, while 26% cite a lack of attractive, high-quality digital content as a major concern. Additionally, 95% of L&D teams say “digital content development” is a priority, yet, only 29% say they have the competency to deliver on this goal. 

A recent Deloitte survey also found that only 5% of companies believe they have mastered the content and technology capabilities needed to make digital learning an accessible and compelling experience.

In other words, there is a lot of room to improve the content procurement process. Many L&D teams are still uncertain about which content is the most suitable for a learning project. 

When is off-the-shelf learning your best option, and when does custom content come out on top? Let’s find out. 

One of the biggest pros of ready-made off-the-shelf training courses is the ability to reduce your spending. This type of content allows you to deliver informative and engaging learning for your employees at a lower price than most customised training programs. By using off-the-shelf learning, you also do not need to hire consultants, designers, or experts to create a course — you simply download the program and add it to your LMS.

Off-the-shelf learning is also perfect for providing training on particular systems and programs, such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, and so forth. It is also great for courses that cover generic topics like team building, compliance training, change management, negotiation skills, and customer service. These generalised, skill-based courses contain content that can be successfully applied across various organisations.

Another benefit of off-the-shelf learning is the ability to save time and have training exactly when you need it. As the content is available immediately after purchasing, all you have to do is download it and add it to your LMS, meaning a quick turnaround time for your learners. 

Breadth and diversity of content is another pro of off-the-shelf learning. Instead of designing course after course from scratch, a wealth of content is already available, waiting for you. 

As an L&D professional, you’ve probably found yourself deliberating over off-the-shelf learning vs custom content. Here’s everything you need to know about the pros and cons of off-the-shelf learning.