Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.
Issue link: http://elmezine.epubxp.com/i/152139
Leader'sView 3 Questions… …for Shawn Price, president of SuccessFactors What role does learning play in short- and long-term strategic planning and in corporate culture? It shouldn't be surprising to hear from me that learning plays a crucial role in all phases of strategic planning and is critical to addressing broader issues. From the short-term – onboarding or product launch – to the longer-term of developing your next generation of executive leadership, learning is fundamental. Whether you are addressing mandatory compliance training, employee and business performance development, or improved training outside the organization to partners and resellers, an efective learning strategy can help drive business performance. And in certain industries such as manufacturing, and health care, which have to comply with quality standards and government regulations, it's even less of an option, it's a requirement. Studies have shown, and we've seen directly, that customers who have a strong learning culture signifcantly out-perform their peers. Tey are more innovative, productive, produce better quality goods, and show greater proftability. 1 What kind of results do you look for in your company's internal learning initiatives? While completions are one easy data point, we leverage our own products to help us measure real results. For instance, we created a new series of sales playbooks for our feld teams. We mandated completion, which included going through the course, completing knowledge checks and recording sales pitches. For those who reached the goal of full accreditation, we saw a 34% improvement in count of opportunities created and a 14% improvement in count of opportunities closed. We also fnd that when we conduct "Sales Boot Camp for New Hires," we see 51% more deals won for those sales people who attend in their frst 30 days and a 35% decrease in sales cycle times. So that's the type of results we're looking for in our own internal learning initiatives. And you should too. We leverage SuccessFactors Learning internally for everything from training on new product launches, to new hire training, to legal and regulatory compliance. One other point: Within SuccessFactors, and for our customers, we are enabling the shif from a "training" approach to a "sharing" one, easily allowing employees to collaborate with subject matter experts, and even be able to do it all on their mobile device. Ultimately, learning initiatives should stimulate business execution and innovation, while also engaging your employees and ensuring compliance. 2 How do you see the learning industry changing? It is changing in large part due to technology, driven by expectations across the workforce for tools like the ones they use in their personal lives — beautiful, intuitive, productive. It's not a stretch to say that when we look to a product like Pandora to deliver a selection of music that resonates for us, we expect our HR tools to give us actionable information delivered anytime anywhere. Te industry is also reacting to increased globalization and competition. Success means getting the most capable people on your team no matter where they are in the globe. And once you do, you have to connect them to the goals of the company. And I.T. is no longer in the business of making all technology decisions. In the end of the day, HR is about contributing to business results by enabling your most precious resource: your people. 3 Elearning! August / September 2013 13