Management today
Being a good charity manager includes being a good people manager, as the articles below show.
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Transforming learning and development through online learning
Every charity has a responsibility to ensure its money accelerates the pursuit of its mission. This includes budgets for learning and development (L&D). Too often though, training can be seen as a “nice to have”, not a “need to have.”
At Alzheimer's Research UK, our mission is to find a cure for dementia. To do this, we need to equip all our teams, from leadership to research and fundraising, with the right skills and knowledge to thrive. Our people are our best asset, and we firmly believe that investing in them will improve our ability to tackle this cruel condition.
While recent societal and technological changes have created new challenges that learning and development leaders must navigate, they have also unlocked new online and digital learning opportunities for us to leverage. As the head of learning and organisational development at Alzheimer's Research UK, it’s my job to investigate, question and, where appropriate, introduce them.
Embracing virtual learning
The rise of virtual learning is an exciting development in the L&D space. One major advantage this creates is flexibility. It enables employees who work remotely to access training materials wherever they are in the world, rather than travelling to a physical office or classroom.
One of the virtual L&D tools that we have rolled out across the charity is LinkedIn Learning, an online educational platform that helps our employees discover and develop new workplace, technology, soft and creative skills by accessing over 20,000 video courses hosted by expert instructors. Materials can be downloaded and accessed offline, along with accompanying exercise files and assessments.
In a world where our teams are used to consuming snackable content and short-form reels (vertical videos) on their personal devices, bite-sized training videos are particularly effective at encouraging them to dip in and out of learning.
Expanding your L&D curriculum
We are passionate about providing our employees with 360-degree learning and development. Online learning platforms make this easier, by providing access to thousands of hours of material on a wide variety of subjects.
According to our platform data, softer skills like “interpersonal communications and public speaking” and “personal development and career management” are in the top five most popular learning categories. These insights show that we are succeeding in encouraging our teams to acquire those broader soft skills required to thrive throughout their careers.
In addition, the data shows there is also high demand for more practical skills like “time management and hybrid working” and IT systems such as Excel and CRM, which enable teams to boost their efficiency and productivity in pursuit of our big, important, strategic goals.
Once employees have completed a course, they receive tailored, personalised recommendations for the next stage of their learning journey.
Breaking down learning silos
Prior to the introduction of online learning at Alzheimer’s Research UK, the process of creating, developing and implementing new L&D programs could often be time consuming and resource- heavy.
However, after investing in an online learning platform, we are now able to build consolidated L&D content hubs that bring video content, exercises and resources together in one place around specific subjects and training categories. These hubs can be quickly and easily scaled across the charity.
I have found it to be like having an extra member of the team, working alongside me to deliver fit for purpose content, which can be built into personalised individual learning paths. Over 95% of our LinkedIn licences have been activated, illustrating the popularity of the platform internally. Learners typically engage for an average of one hour per month.
Building engagement through advocacy
As with all workplace technology, it is critical that online learning platforms are rolled out thoughtfully. Certain internal processes must evolve to unlock the benefits, and internal champions must actively encourage employee engagement.
An approach that has worked effectively for us at Alzheimer's Research UK has been encouraging employees to participate in community learning - sharing their L&D updates in team meetings and on internal communication platforms. We have found this to be a quick and effective way of sparking interest across the wider team and getting more people actively engaged.
As a platform, LinkedIn Learning lends itself well to this style of L&D, as it encourages employees to post about their completed training courses and share certificates and achievements. We also leverage additional tools such as enterprise social networking site Viva Engage to encourage inspiration sharing, and also book summary service Blinkist to help succinctly explain and digest information.
In a similar vein, asking our leadership team to openly engage in L&D programs and share their experiences has also supercharged on-platform engagement. Many of our leaders go a step further and actively recommend courses to their direct reports or members of their wider team. In short, top down role modelling pays dividends for all learning initiatives.
Using data to demonstrate ROI
Data that proves a charity is putting donor funds to the best possible use is a powerful tool. Online learning platforms generate a significant amount of data that can be used to evolve and optimise L&D programmes and demonstrate the value of our investment in them.
It enables us to analyse KPIs such as the most popular courses and how many hours of training different teams are putting in. In addition, at the end of each year we send out an internal survey inviting team members to request and recommend training materials or courses that would be beneficial to them.
We regularly review this data against our overall priorities as a charity to ensure we are tackling our skills gaps and prioritising critical capabilities. We package this information up into dashboards for our leadership team to demonstrate our progress against L&D objectives, inform our next set of priorities at operational planning and, if needed, secure additional funding.
Skilling up for the journey
Finding a cure for dementia is a journey, and we must ensure our charity has the skills required to thrive over the next decade and beyond. With this in mind, we set our L&D priorities with a three to five year time horizon firmly in mind.
Looking ahead, the progress that we have made in implementing online learning systems, processes and behaviours will serve us well as digital and AI become even more pervasive. Tech platform partners like LinkedIn will continue to equip us with the cutting edge technology and functionality we need to succeed.
Our online learning platforms will enable us to offer tailored, personalised training journeys more cost effectively than before, lowering costs, and allowing us to maximise time spent in in-person workshops, reducing costs and freeing up more resources to deploy in the right places.
Finally, the data we are creating through our L&D programs will enable us to “test and learn”, experimenting with new curricula as we look to identify, grow and embed the skills needed to thrive tomorrow in our workforce today.
Equipped with the right passion, direction and skills, I firmly believe small teams can achieve big things – and for us, there’s nothing bigger than stopping the heartbreak of dementia.
"Once employees have completed a course, they receive tailored, personalised recommendations for the next stage of their learning journey."
"As with all workplace technology, it is critical that online learning platforms are rolled out thoughtfully."