{"id":9299,"date":"2023-07-14T07:26:51","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T14:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/?p=9299"},"modified":"2023-07-14T07:39:10","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T14:39:10","slug":"creating-learn-it-alls-at-microsoft-with-viva-learning-and-linkedin-learning-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/creating-learn-it-alls-at-microsoft-with-viva-learning-and-linkedin-learning-hub\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating learn-it-alls at Microsoft with Viva Learning and LinkedIn Learning Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MicrosoftAt Microsoft, we\u2019re dedicated to fostering a culture of growth mindset by promoting continuous learning. Learning is core to the employee experience, and recent data shows that if employees can\u2019t learn and grow, they\u2019ll leave. We want our employees to engage in learning, build new skills, advance in their career, and better understand how they can grow and evolve to meet the continually changing world around them. Microsoft Viva Learning in Microsoft Teams combined with LinkedIn Learning Hub is helping us do exactly that.<\/p>\n

Evolving our culture of learning<\/h2>\n

Employees with a growth mindset are always learning, continuously curious, willing to take risks, and learn quickly from mistakes. We\u2019re engaging employees to activate learning at Microsoft to support a growth mindset culture which values learning over knowing\u2014seeking out innovative ideas, embracing challenges, and improving over time.<\/p>\n

To enable this culture, we offer a diverse range of learning and development opportunities. We believe training can include more than formal instruction, and our philosophy focuses on providing the right learning at the right time, in the right way.\u00a0In a culture of learning, our employees demonstrate a growth mindset and develop personally and professionally. When our employees become learners, they learn about our customers and their needs, being diverse and inclusive, working together as one, and\u2014ultimately\u2014making a difference in the world. A culture of learning extends beyond the skills needed for specific tasks.<\/p>\n

Ensuring that our employees have the right skills they need to do their job is important, but equally important is having a broader understanding of how to be a good ally, or how to be a great people manager, or a stronger leader. All of that comes back to the importance of learning. It\u2019s just a fundamental part of the fabric of human life.<\/p>\n

\u2014Joe Whittinghill, corporate vice president, Talent, Learning, and Insights<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Whittinghill
At Microsoft, we\u2019re enabling our employees to become learners all the time across as many areas as they find interesting, says Joe Whittinghill, corporate vice president of Talent, Learning, and Insights.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cLearning encompasses many things,\u201d says Joe Whittinghill, corporate vice president of Talent, Learning, and Insights. \u201cWe learn in many ways\u2013\u2013even just being aware of those around us and seeking to better understand each of them. Learning is building specific skills that allow people to be successful in their roles, to have career growth and progression, and it allows the organization to keep up with changes in our business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whittinghill notes that the evolution of a culture of learning at Microsoft involves providing employees with learning experiences that encourage them to become learners all the time and of many things.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnsuring that our employees have the right skills they need to do their job is important,\u201d Whittinghill says, \u201cbut equally important is having a broader understanding of how to be a good ally, or how to be a great people manager, or a stronger leader. All of that comes back to the importance of learning. It\u2019s just a fundamental part of the fabric of human life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learning is not only a necessity, but something that Microsoft believes is deeply and intricately connected to our overall success as individuals and as an organization. We recognized that to foster a growth mindset at Microsoft, we needed to evolve our learning culture to support changes in the broader organizational culture.<\/p>\n

Our research across many organizations and industries has clearly demonstrated that employees want to learn. Data shows that if employees can\u2019t learn and grow, they\u2019ll leave. Seventy-six percent of employees say they\u2019d stay at a company longer if they had more support for development and learning. Before implementing the new learning experience powered by Microsoft Viva Learning and LinkedIn Learning Hub, we realized employees were facing consistent obstacles related to being able to personalize their learning, find time to learn, find relevant training, and finding training practical to them. We wanted to change that because, at Microsoft, we aspire to be a company where employees build long-lasting careers and embrace a learn-it-all culture where learning and growth are at the core of the employee experience.<\/p>\n

To support the employee needs expressed by our research and foster a growth mindset at Microsoft, we\u2019re enhancing the way that our employees learn. We’re providing learning experiences in the tools they use every day and empowering them to define their own learning journey.<\/p>\n

[<\/em>Read more about fostering a culture of learning at Microsoft with Viva Learning.<\/em><\/a> Explore evolving our culture with Microsoft Viva.<\/em><\/a> Discover driving adoption of Microsoft Viva at Microsoft: Lessons learned.<\/em><\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

Fostering a growth mindset with a new learning experience<\/h2>\n

Our new learning experience, powered by Microsoft Viva Learning and LinkedIn Learning Hub, is replacing existing learning portals and eliminating the requirement for learners to search different platforms to find the learning resources they need.<\/p>\n

The Microsoft Viva Learning app makes content from LinkedIn Learning Hub and many other sources readily discoverable, shareable, and consumable from Microsoft Teams. Features such as learning keyword and interest searches, assigned learning, and sharing resources through social channels support learners in Viva Learning. LinkedIn Learning Hub provides an extensive library of content organized by skill, profession, and business group and allows learners to create, curate, and contribute to learning for themselves and others.<\/p>\n

Whittinghill points it all back to employees: \u201cWe want engaged employees who feel they are supported in great careers, and so much of that is supported by learning and skilling. We can connect them to the learning resources they need and, through other Viva products, different aspects of learning such as knowledge management, sharing with their peers, engaging with a mentor, or better understanding how they make the most effective use of their day. It all fits together in creating that experience that employees desire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Launching the new learning experience required a large-scale change management effort sponsored by learning executives and supported by a program team and both product teams. The efforts included three primary pillars:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. To prepare learners for the transition, a variety of communications were sent to content owners, program owners, and key learning stakeholders across Microsoft to inform them of the change and increase readiness within their organizations.<\/li>\n
  2. Stakeholders from across learning organizations took on change agent roles, circulated readiness resources, provided feedback, and stayed informed of the changes to come.<\/li>\n
  3. Both Microsoft Viva Learning and LinkedIn Learning Hub were available for users to use and test for several months before the launch of the new learning platform. It was critical to ensure a seamless transition between the old learning platform to the new learning experience. Therefore, both experiences remained available for 2 months in parallel after launch to ensure learners had time to get familiar with the new experience. Operating both experiences also gave content and program owners adequate time to move their content to the new experience.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Fostering a growth mindset is at the forefront of learning. By adopting the new learning experience, over 200,000 global learners at Microsoft, representing a breadth of cultures, languages, and learning interests now have the unique experience to act as Customer Zero.<\/p>\n

    Contributing to a better product as Customer Zero<\/h2>\n
    \"Mead
    Our learning transformation has been fueled by feedback from employees, says Christopher Mead, principal product manager for Employee Learning and Development.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Before Microsoft customers and partners ever interact with new products and services, we evaluate those products on their behalf. For Microsoft Viva, the product groups have partnered with Microsoft Digital Employee Experience (MDEE) and Microsoft Human Resources (HR) to evaluate the app experiences with employees around the globe, serving as Customer Zero.<\/p>\n

    As Customer Zero, we\u2019re at the forefront of development and implementation, working in collaboration with the Microsoft Viva Learning and LinkedIn Learning Hub product groups. The key to succeeding as Customer Zero for the new learning experience is to envision and establish best practices for learning experiences, then use our insights and knowledge to inform direction and development in multiple ways. We listened to our global employees to better understand their learning needs, including factors such as language, culture, and specific compliance requirements. Then, we worked with product engineering to co-envision the right user experiences. We anticipated and addressed learning requirements that other large enterprise customers have, based on our experience managing large tenants at Microsoft. We researched employee needs, analyzed feedback, and used our insights to collaborate with product groups to influence design and development.<\/p>\n

    There are many examples of product improvement and evolution from our collaboration. We helped refine the process for automatically assigning informative thumbnails for courses. We requested the ability to assign relative weight to learning content to make certain content easier to discover. We also recommended that the Viva Learning product group provide an option to remove assigned learning from certain regions to comply with local regulations.<\/p>\n

    Throughout our collaboration with the product groups, integration of Microsoft\u2019s learning catalog was at the center of our conversation. Our subject matter experts at MDEE and in HR contributed to defining enterprise grade API configurations that allow the inflow of our learning catalog, learning assignments, and course progress data into Viva Learning. These integrations, known as \u201ccustom LMS integrations,\u201d are critical for large organizations that have a learning data services layer to manage data movement within their ecosystems. Three core APIs were developed:<\/p>\n