The article profiles Kelly Palmer, the chief learning officer of LinkedIn. It discusses how she has transformed LinkedIn's learning function by focusing on personalized, curated content delivered through new technologies. Key aspects of LinkedIn's learning approach under Palmer include using data to better understand skills gaps, focusing 70% of learning online and on-demand, and designing blended learning programs to solve real business problems. The goal is to help employees develop skills to advance their careers both at LinkedIn and beyond.
According research by ATD, only 38% of learning and development (L&D) professionals think they’re ready to meet the needs of tomorrow’s learners. So to help L&D teams better engage employees, Degreed recently surveyed 500+ people to understand the learning culture, values and habits of today’s hyper-kinetic, hyper-connected workers.
In this presentation we'll cover:
-How people really build their skills and fuel their careers in 2016
-What employees think is most missing from the workplace learning environment
-How innovative L&D leaders are adapting to meet the needs of tomorrow's workforce
New Global research updated in December 2016 to help organisations build and develop leaders, managers and a workforce fit for the future. It's about preparing for the future, now.
The near future of learning and development (L&D) is already here. And this new reality includes workers and their managers sharing more of the responsibility than you might be used to. That doesn’t mean your L&D organization, practices and tools are obsolete – they still play an important role. But they do need to evolve. These days, the most successful CLOs do more than just “supply” learning. They also enable their workers to take learning into their own hands. Caterpillar has done just that, having created a dynamic learning environment that empowers workers to both discover and track learning at their moment of need, rather than wait for the next formal session.
Why Learning is the Key to Happiness at WorkDavid Blake
Learning is your biggest competitive advantage – the key to getting and keeping great talent in an ever evolving workforce. People want to develop their skills for the future whether they are just graduating from college and are looking to land their first job, want to get better at the job they already have, or looking to gain new skills for their career of the future. Traditional classroom models are antiquated and outdated, but technology is making new things possible, and easier!
The State of Workforce Learning in Our Digital WorldDavid Blake
Workplace learning is remaking itself whether organizations are on board or not. And there’s a glaring disconnect: Employees are only spending 1% of a workweek on professional development and learning while organizations are spending over $130 billion worldwide in 2014, and rising ever since.
That’s a pricey 4.8 minutes a day!. Learning is among the 10 ten trends reshaping how we work, and a key concern for companies of every stripe, but success is going to take a whole new approach.
What’s needed: a culture of learning, with learning opportunities across every platform we use today: mobile, social, video, classroom, and more. The smartest CLO’s are creating a partnership between employer and employee, are measuring engagement, performance and discern. Empowering those connections means drawing on the best tools out there.
The Power of Informal: Driving People-Based LearningDavid Blake
Digital disruption is drastically changing the way we learn and consume content. Learning follows the path of least resistance. As a result, people look to what is right in front of them – informal options like social and on-demand learning. A recent studyby Degreed found that nearly 50 percent of people search the Internet and 43 percent browse specific online resources when they need to learn something new for work.
The smartest learning leaders are embracing the changing learning habits in today’s workforce, taking advantage of the drive towards informal. Join us for this complimentary webinar, sponsored by Degreed and presented by Juli Weber, organizational development manager at Purch, and Sarah Danzl, head of enterprise communication and content development at Degreed. You’ll learn how Purch began valuing informal learning and realigned its L&D strategy to support employee learning and performance.
According research by ATD, only 38% of learning and development (L&D) professionals think they’re ready to meet the needs of tomorrow’s learners. So to help L&D teams better engage employees, Degreed recently surveyed 500+ people to understand the learning culture, values and habits of today’s hyper-kinetic, hyper-connected workers.
In this presentation we'll cover:
-How people really build their skills and fuel their careers in 2016
-What employees think is most missing from the workplace learning environment
-How innovative L&D leaders are adapting to meet the needs of tomorrow's workforce
New Global research updated in December 2016 to help organisations build and develop leaders, managers and a workforce fit for the future. It's about preparing for the future, now.
The near future of learning and development (L&D) is already here. And this new reality includes workers and their managers sharing more of the responsibility than you might be used to. That doesn’t mean your L&D organization, practices and tools are obsolete – they still play an important role. But they do need to evolve. These days, the most successful CLOs do more than just “supply” learning. They also enable their workers to take learning into their own hands. Caterpillar has done just that, having created a dynamic learning environment that empowers workers to both discover and track learning at their moment of need, rather than wait for the next formal session.
Why Learning is the Key to Happiness at WorkDavid Blake
Learning is your biggest competitive advantage – the key to getting and keeping great talent in an ever evolving workforce. People want to develop their skills for the future whether they are just graduating from college and are looking to land their first job, want to get better at the job they already have, or looking to gain new skills for their career of the future. Traditional classroom models are antiquated and outdated, but technology is making new things possible, and easier!
The State of Workforce Learning in Our Digital WorldDavid Blake
Workplace learning is remaking itself whether organizations are on board or not. And there’s a glaring disconnect: Employees are only spending 1% of a workweek on professional development and learning while organizations are spending over $130 billion worldwide in 2014, and rising ever since.
That’s a pricey 4.8 minutes a day!. Learning is among the 10 ten trends reshaping how we work, and a key concern for companies of every stripe, but success is going to take a whole new approach.
What’s needed: a culture of learning, with learning opportunities across every platform we use today: mobile, social, video, classroom, and more. The smartest CLO’s are creating a partnership between employer and employee, are measuring engagement, performance and discern. Empowering those connections means drawing on the best tools out there.
The Power of Informal: Driving People-Based LearningDavid Blake
Digital disruption is drastically changing the way we learn and consume content. Learning follows the path of least resistance. As a result, people look to what is right in front of them – informal options like social and on-demand learning. A recent studyby Degreed found that nearly 50 percent of people search the Internet and 43 percent browse specific online resources when they need to learn something new for work.
The smartest learning leaders are embracing the changing learning habits in today’s workforce, taking advantage of the drive towards informal. Join us for this complimentary webinar, sponsored by Degreed and presented by Juli Weber, organizational development manager at Purch, and Sarah Danzl, head of enterprise communication and content development at Degreed. You’ll learn how Purch began valuing informal learning and realigned its L&D strategy to support employee learning and performance.
Corporate learning professionals have access to more learning content than ever before. Degreed has cataloged over 250,000 online learning courses and 3 million informal learning activities from more than 1200 sources. Everything from live, virtual and eLearning courses to videos, MOOCs, articles, books, podcasts, webinars, conferences, online communities, apps and more.
A “Bring Your Own Device” learning strategy may make employees happy but can be risky.
Generational trends. For the first time in mordrn history, US workers span four generations. It's common to see 20-year-old new hires workers alongside co-worker five decades their senior. The diversity of thinking and learning styles found in today’s workplace is spurring HR professionals to look beyond traditional training approaches.
Facebook Recruitment and Employer Branding: Best Practices and Ideas From the...RiseSmart
Check out this joint guide from Work4™ and CKR Interactive to learn:
- Specific tactics for optimizing your social recruiting efforts on Facebook
- Best practices for effective employer branding
- The eight building blocks of social recruitment success
Collaborative Enterprise - Social Learning IntroductionPREDA
At Entreprise Collaborative, we are beginning a journey to create a cross-cultural idea laboratory to exchange perspectives on collaboration in the enterprise with experts and practitioners.
We will strive to connect social learning and networked enterprise in order to develop more resilient organizations.
This White Paper is the first in a series on a theme. It provides multiple perspectives on social learning, in two languages and from various business cultures.
Social learning can be viewed as the development of knowledge, skills and attitudes while connected to others (peers, mentors, experts) in an electronic surround of digital media, both real-time and asynchronous.
The contributors to this paper have provided their perspectives on what we believe will be an important factor for the future success of all organizations. One way to read this paper is by using a lens given us by Marshall and Eric McLuhan*. We can ask how social learning will extend, obsolesce, retrieve or reverse what we are currently doing in our workplaces. This may afford some ideas as to what we should be doing.
Mobius is a premier coaching, training and leadership development company. We bring the best in class offerings in transformational learning to senior level audiences. The programs we offer synthesize organizational systems thinking, mindset and capabilities knowledge and personal character development. They are highly customized to each client context and tailored to maximize specific strategic impact.
Creating a Social Networking Recruitment StrategyCielo
Social networking sites are an important tool in a recruiter’s toolbox. However rather than dipping your toe in the water and experimenting tactically, it’s important to take a step back and think about your overall strategic approach to using social media for recruiting.
A well thought-out, coordinated strategy will ensure that your company’s recruitment message is clear, that the various online channels are integrated, and that everything you do in the web environment helps attract top-level talent and enhances your employment brand.
During this webinar sponsored by ADP, you’ll learn the best practices for creating a social networking recruiting strategy. Michelle Krier, Marketing Services Manager for Pinstripe, will explain:
* What social media is and why it’s important to have a social media strategy specifically for your recruiting function
* How to build a social networking strategy for recruitment (and how it integrates with your company’s overall social media strategy)
* What an integrated strategy looks like via a case study
* The organizational benefits of a social networking recruitment strategy, and
* How to measure success
U-Spring: 2016 Corporate University Global Survey ResultsBPI group
Results of BPI group's 2016 global survey on corporate universities and new methods of organizational learning. Join us in reimagining the corporate university!
Corporate learning professionals have access to more learning content than ever before. Degreed has cataloged over 250,000 online learning courses and 3 million informal learning activities from more than 1200 sources. Everything from live, virtual and eLearning courses to videos, MOOCs, articles, books, podcasts, webinars, conferences, online communities, apps and more.
A “Bring Your Own Device” learning strategy may make employees happy but can be risky.
Generational trends. For the first time in mordrn history, US workers span four generations. It's common to see 20-year-old new hires workers alongside co-worker five decades their senior. The diversity of thinking and learning styles found in today’s workplace is spurring HR professionals to look beyond traditional training approaches.
Facebook Recruitment and Employer Branding: Best Practices and Ideas From the...RiseSmart
Check out this joint guide from Work4™ and CKR Interactive to learn:
- Specific tactics for optimizing your social recruiting efforts on Facebook
- Best practices for effective employer branding
- The eight building blocks of social recruitment success
Collaborative Enterprise - Social Learning IntroductionPREDA
At Entreprise Collaborative, we are beginning a journey to create a cross-cultural idea laboratory to exchange perspectives on collaboration in the enterprise with experts and practitioners.
We will strive to connect social learning and networked enterprise in order to develop more resilient organizations.
This White Paper is the first in a series on a theme. It provides multiple perspectives on social learning, in two languages and from various business cultures.
Social learning can be viewed as the development of knowledge, skills and attitudes while connected to others (peers, mentors, experts) in an electronic surround of digital media, both real-time and asynchronous.
The contributors to this paper have provided their perspectives on what we believe will be an important factor for the future success of all organizations. One way to read this paper is by using a lens given us by Marshall and Eric McLuhan*. We can ask how social learning will extend, obsolesce, retrieve or reverse what we are currently doing in our workplaces. This may afford some ideas as to what we should be doing.
Mobius is a premier coaching, training and leadership development company. We bring the best in class offerings in transformational learning to senior level audiences. The programs we offer synthesize organizational systems thinking, mindset and capabilities knowledge and personal character development. They are highly customized to each client context and tailored to maximize specific strategic impact.
Creating a Social Networking Recruitment StrategyCielo
Social networking sites are an important tool in a recruiter’s toolbox. However rather than dipping your toe in the water and experimenting tactically, it’s important to take a step back and think about your overall strategic approach to using social media for recruiting.
A well thought-out, coordinated strategy will ensure that your company’s recruitment message is clear, that the various online channels are integrated, and that everything you do in the web environment helps attract top-level talent and enhances your employment brand.
During this webinar sponsored by ADP, you’ll learn the best practices for creating a social networking recruiting strategy. Michelle Krier, Marketing Services Manager for Pinstripe, will explain:
* What social media is and why it’s important to have a social media strategy specifically for your recruiting function
* How to build a social networking strategy for recruitment (and how it integrates with your company’s overall social media strategy)
* What an integrated strategy looks like via a case study
* The organizational benefits of a social networking recruitment strategy, and
* How to measure success
U-Spring: 2016 Corporate University Global Survey ResultsBPI group
Results of BPI group's 2016 global survey on corporate universities and new methods of organizational learning. Join us in reimagining the corporate university!
Delivering happiness at work through learning & developmentKelly Palmer
Kelly Palmer, CLO - Learning, Talent Development & Inclusion, Linkedin You've hired the best talent possible. Now how do you keep them happy at work? Learning can be your biggest competitive advantage.
Intervento dell'Ing. Daniele Rossetti durante l'ENERGY DAY presso il POINT di Dalmine. Evento organizzato con l'obiettivo di sensibilizzare sull'importanza dell'efficienza energetica quale priorità per ogni tipo di impresa e occasione di risparmio economico.
Keynote for the AICPA Global Manufacturing ConferenceThe number one issue facing businesses is a need to innovate. Innovationis fundamentally about learning and how to keep your rate of learning (as individuals and as organizations) greater than the rate of change and greater than your competition. We think (and research supports this) it is time for a “paradigm shift” in talent development and learning. The need for a strategic and systematic approach to talent development already is under way in many high-performing organizations. Are you ready for these sweeping, even disruptive trends? Participants will learn:
• The latest trends in learning and talent development facing organizations
• How to approach learning and talent development in a strategic and systematic way and develop five action steps to take back with the
The Democratization of Learning and DevelopmentDavid Blake
The future of learning and development (L&D) is already here. This new reality includes workers and their managers sharing more of the responsibility than you might be used to. That doesn’t mean your L&D organization, practices, and tools are obsolete—they still play an important role. But they do need to evolve. These days, the most successful chief learning officers do more than just supply learning. They also enable their workers to take learning into their own hands.
leading and managing graduate recruitment and development, including talent management / human resources professionals, career development advisors, service providers and professional associations.
Redefining Workplace Learning For The 21st CenturyBy Jenny Dearb.docxsodhi3
Redefining Workplace Learning For The 21st Century
By Jenny Dearborn, Vice President, Chief Learning Officer, SuccessFactors – an SAP company
Forbes, October 2013
Disruptive technologies and shifting demographics are redefining the workforce. In response, smart companies are reinventing workplace learning in an effort to make their programs more relevant and effective, and to create a culture that encourages continuous learning and develops innovative leaders at all levels of the organization.
“Today, workplace learning has achieved mission-critical status,” says Sam Herring, CEO of Intrepid Learning. “Global CEOs face an environment that is more competitive than ever—one in which they live or die by their ability to lead innovation, which can only be realized by having world-class talent that is highly competent, motivated and engaged. Top companies understand this connection, and they know that success requires more than waging a war to acquire talent; it requires that they strategically develop the talent they need to envision and execute the business strategies that will make them successful in the future.”
Get out of the classroom
For most of the last century, workplace learning had a familiar look and feel: students sat in rows taking notes as an expert stood at the front of the room and dispensed information. Technology offered new ways to communicate and learn, but all too often technology-based learning programs turned out to be little more than upgraded versions of the same traditional K-12 model.
Today, that is changing rapidly. New advances in mobile devices and cloud technology, a deeper understanding of neuroscience and how humans learn best, and the emergence of the millennial workforce—the tech-savvy generation that is the largest in U.S. history—is creating a growing demand for more innovative and informal approaches to workplace learning.
“Employees no longer see their careers as the function of a single organization, but as the culmination of a purposeful set of development experiences they own themselves,” says Mary Slaughter, senior vice president and chief talent officer at Sun Trust. “When you combine their motivations with ubiquitous, on-demand access to skills and knowledge, and the unrelenting pressure to increase workplace productivity, it’s fruitless to maintain traditional, static learning architectures.”
How workplace learning is changing
In the very near future, workplace learning will be about social collaboration, team-based activities, and decentralized peer-to-peer learning. Learning will be mobile, and access will be continuous and instantaneous. Workers will attend fewer scheduled classes and online training sessions. Instead, short videos, game-like simulations, and peer communities that offer networking, information sharing and informal coaching will engage and motivate workers by delivering “anyplace, anytime learning.”
In the future, workplace learning will be increasingly experiential and relationsh ...
An effective learning environment balances several key elements. Here’s how we’re accomplishing these in an online environment:
World-class faculty combining relevant, deep expertise with immediate application.
Active engagement between participants to leverage their experiences.
Experiential learning to put new frameworks into action and practice working in teams.
Has the pace of change changed leadership? Tom Hood will share the latest research that highlights how leadership is changing and what emerging leaders need to know now.
Tom draws on his experience designing and running the AICPA and MACPA Leadership Academies and recent custom developed partner development programs to share the critical competencies needed for leaders in today’s rapidly changing and complex environments.
Mike Gamson, Sr. VP, Global Solutions, LinkedIn
Eddie Vivas, Director, Product Management, LinkedIn
Tanya Staples, Sr. VP Content, lynda.com, LinkedIn
Join Mike Gamson, SVP of Solutions for LinkedIn, as he shares our mission and vision, and introduces us to the next generation of LinkedIn. Mike will be joined by Tanya Staples, SVP of Content for Lynda.com, and Eddie Vivas, Head of Product for LinkedIn Talent Solutions, who will talk about how we are putting learner-centered education at the heart of building professional knowledge, and how LinkedIn is re-imagining recruiting.
Revolutionize Corporate Learning: Beyond Formal, Informal, Mobile, Social Dic...Marcia Conner
A report for business decision makers interested in abolishing traditional corporate training functions, creating instead vibrant modern collaborative cultures. Why? The corporate learning field is in dire need of bravery, insight, creativity and boldness. It has been stuck in an antiquated rut for too long. Full classrooms and smile-sheet summaries only indicate employees can successfully sit through training, not that these strategies demonstrate value or engender growth in competitive organizations. With a nod toward early twentieth-century innovations, moving the art world toward natural forms, the corporate education function should aim to become learning nouveau. The people responsible for fostering education throughout organizations ought to consider becoming artists. Here's how. [Additional information at http://www.marciaconner.com/learning-nouveau/]
Career education-review-robert-starks-jr-social-media-strategies-max knowledgeMaxKnowledge
Robert Starks Jr., Vice President of Learning Initiatives for MaxKnowledge and Founder of Careertipster, discusses the opportunities to use social media strategies in the private postsecondary education sector in an interview for Career Education Magazine.
SkillsCamp is a soft skills training company. We are helping you retain and maintain engaged, effective employees through soft skill development.
Across all industries, employers and industry leaders are identifying soft skills like communication, teamwork, time management, emotional intelligence, and leadership as critical skills for prospects and employees alike. Yet these core skills and several others take a backseat in the traditional education model. The result is students who become employees without the requisite abilities to excel in their careers. SkillsCamp teaches this “missing curriculum” to help people become more employable and more effective leaders and contributors.
The Tools You Need to Build the Learning Culture You WantDavid Blake
Most business leaders say they want a culture of learning. But less than one third of corporate learning leaders believe that their organization has one. Part of the problem is that many employees are already looking beyond their employers’ training and driving more of their own development. And the traditional tools of the trade just aren’t enough anymore – not for these hyper-connected, hyper-kinetic workers.
1. March 2016 | CLOmedia.com
➤ The Problem With
Executive Education
➤ Leadership Lessons
From the EMBA
➤ Roadmap to Effective
Executive Education
➤ Hot List of Executive
Education Providers
LinkedIn’s
KELLY PALMER
SPECIAL
E DI T I O N
2. 8 Chief Learning Officer • March 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS MARCH 2016
Features
XX
18
28
32
38
CLO as Brand Ambassador
Wendy Webb
Branding is more than logos, snazzy commercials and
targeted hiring practices. Those are important, but in the end
it’s all about learning.
Special Edition: Executive Education
Kellye Whitney
Online learning is having a big effect on executive education.
Fortunately, providers are adapting to ensure leaders have
the skills they need to succeed in business.
The Problem With Executive Education
Bravetta Hassell
For executive education to survive and thrive, it needs to pay
close attention to the business community’s leadership
needs and pick up the pace of curriculum change.
Leadership Lessons From the EMBA
Randall P. White
Leadership development is part and parcel of executive
MBA programs. It’s also a hefty investment, but many
organizations find the ROI worthwhile.
Hot List of Executive Education Providers
Compiled by Bravetta Hassell
Executive education programs with a global presence.
ON THE COVER: PHOTO BY JAY WATSON
ON THE WEB
Join the CLO LinkedIn Group
What hurdles have you faced
when implementing social learning
tools? How do you establish a
learning objective when someone
does not self-identify a skills gap?
Discuss these topics and more in
Chief Learning Officer’s LinkedIn
group. Plus, we’ve been featuring reader comments in
the magazine, so come chat with us and get your
thoughts published.
Join today to engage with peers and post your own
questions at CLOmedia.com/LinkedIn.
26-43
Sp e c i a l Ed i t i o n
43
3. Chief Learning Officer • March 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com 9
4 Editor’s Letter
The Quest for Executive Education
49 Advertisers’ Index
TABLE OF CONTENTS MARCH 2016
Departments Experts
Resources
22
22
44
46
Profile
Case Study
Business Intelligence
Dreaming Big to Make Learning Happen
Kellye Whitney
For Kelly Palmer, LinkedIn’s chief learning officer, the
future of learning is now, and it’s all about technology,
personalized, curated content and social learning.
BBVA Bancomer Plays the Change Game
Sarah Fister Gale
BBVA Bancomer used gamification, social media and live
actors to transform a traditional banking culture into a
collaborative, environmentally focused digital organization.
How Are You Handling the Internet of Things?
Evan Sinar
Employees need to know why, how and when data about
them will be used — and it pays to promote a developmen-
tal rather than a punitive slant on data collection.
ARE YOU A PART OF THE CLO NETWORK?
twitter.com/CLOmedia
Follow us:
CLOmedia.com/youtube CLOmedia.com/LinkedIn
Watch us: Join the group:
CLOmedia.com/facebook
Like us:
10 IMPERATIVES
Elliott Masie
Stop Calling It ‘New’
12 SELLING UP, SELLING DOWN
Bob Mosher
What’s in a Number?
14 LEADERSHIP
Ken Blanchard
4 Dialogues for First-time Managers
16 MAKING THE GRADE
Lee Maxey
A Reason to Identify and Connect Talent
50 IN CONCLUSION
Erika Andersen
Be Willing to Be Bad
18 44
4. 22 Chief Learning Officer • March 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com
PROFILE Kelly Palmer
K
elly Palmer is a builder. Not the bricks-and-
mortar, feet-on-the-ground, put-X-tab-into-
Y-slot-type builder one might expect from a
leader with an engineering background. In-
stead, the Issaquah, Washington, native is a
kind of dream builder, one who was recruited away from
Yahoo Inc. almost four years ago to build a learning func-
tion from the ground up at LinkedIn Corp.
With more than 400 million members in more than 200
countries and territories and counting, the professional net-
work’s vision is a grand one: create economic opportunity for
every person in the world. It makes a similarly big promise to
its employees — to help them transform themselves, the
company and the world — and learning is a key enabler of
that value proposition.
That vision aligns neatly with Palmer’s personal and pro-
fessional goals. As the company’s chief learning officer —
with some responsibility for talent management as well as
diversity and inclusion — she is in the perfect position to
transform careers and lives.
“When you join LinkedIn, the promise from LinkedIn
and from the learning and development organization is
we’re going to enable you to transform the trajectory of
your career,” she said. “You’re going to be able to build the
skills and the knowledge to get better at the job you have
today, but also get those knowledge and skills so you can
get your dream job of the future.”
It’s an unusual idea. Organizations don’t, as a rule, con-
cern themselves with an employee’s future prospects, even
when learning and development is a priority. But this tactic,
while a bit counterintuitive, is one way to secure the best
talent; and talent is the bellwether with which LinkedIn will
achieve its lofty, global vision.
Richard Socarides, head of public affairs at Gerson Leh-
rman Group Inc., a membership network for one-on-one
professional learning, said he has watched LinkedIn’s trans-
formation with interest, in part because GLG is a large
consumer of the company’s products.
“To attract the best talent, which I think they’ve done,
you have to approach the whole professional learning par-
adigm in a new way,” he said. “No matter how great your
current place of employment, in three, five or seven years
you’re going to be working somewhere else.That’s the new
normal. LinkedIn is fully embracing that idea. It’s quite
bold and something that’s really hard for people to do.”
The Engineer Brain on Learning
Technology is a key enabler for a value proposition
around learning as a transformation tool. Palmer has
worked in some facet of technology almost her entire ca-
reer, including time at Sun Microsystems Inc. in the
1990s and 2000s. She began in product development and
user-experience design and expanded into roles including
director of Java tools engineering and director of product
engineering. When Sun began acquiring companies, she
was asked to expand her role of managing a 250-person
organization in 2002 to help integrate some of the new
acquisitions into the engineering business unit.
“I came to the point in my career where I was very
successful, and I was doing a lot of interesting things, but
I really didn’t feel like I was having an impact on the world
Dreaming Big to Make
Learning Happen
BY KELLYE WHITNEY
For Kelly Palmer, LinkedIn’s chief learning officer,
the future of learning is now, and it’s all about technology,
personalized, curated content and social learning.
ON THE WEB
Executive Education at LinkedIn
Is an Internal Affair
clomedia.com/LinkedInEducation
6. 24 Chief Learning Officer • March 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com
PROFILE Kelly Palmer
the way I wanted to,” Palmer said. “So I stepped back. I
did a little soul searching, and ended up going back to my
roots in education.”
She applied for and got a job as the senior director of
Sun’s learning organization in 2006 and simultaneously
earned a master’s degree in instructional and performance
technology — with an emphasis on learning technology —
from Boise State University. Palmer said she had always
loved education and learning for the effect it can have on
people’s lives. She even earned a bachelor’s degree in En-
glish and communications from San Jose State University
with the intention of teaching at the university level, be-
fore an aptitude for technology lured her away.
Some years later, while firmly entrenched in the world
of work, she said she thought about quitting high tech
and going into education in the nonprofit sector so she
could use technology to effect change. She ultimately
didn’t; instead she satisfied her philanthropic leanings in
2014 by joining the board for the Taproot Foundation,
an organization that seeks to drive social change through
pro bono work.
After four years at Sun in an executive learning posi-
tion, Oracle Corp. bought the company in 2010, and
Palmer took a role at Yahoo, leading a large learning orga-
nization as vice president of learning. She spent two years
there before Linkedin recruited her in 2012. “It was an
amazing opportunity. I haven’t seen many start a learning
organization from scratch. It was exciting to think about
learning as a blank canvas, to think about all the things we
could do, how we could think about learning differently.”
Palmer said the learning community has been talking
about the need to do things differently for decades, yet
traditional learning hasn’t changed much beyond using
newer, technology-enabled delivery systems. That’s the
thing about having big, lofty goals. They can be tough to
realize. But in her current role, Palmer has been able to
shift the learning paradigm and put things in place that
employees actually use.
“She’s definitely a big-picture-idea person,” said Patri-
cia Wadors, senior vice president of global talent and chief
human resources officer at LinkedIn. “So she surrounds
herself with people who can execute and implement her
ideas, which is great. Being self-aware is a good thing.”
Wadors said when there is a problem to solve, Palmer is
loath to look at what has been done before, even if it was
successful. Instead the CLO considers, “What will work
right now?” Sometimes that means pushing back and look-
ing long term vs. adopting a short-term solution, “which I
appreciate,” Wadors said.
In addition to thinking like “an engineer” to solve prob-
lems, Wadors described Palmer as a thought leader when it
comes to business development and company strategy. She
was active in multiple facets of the company’s acquisition of
Lynda.com in 2015. “It’s been fun watching her play in
that space and evaluate the larger market significance and
LinkedIn’s potential role in it.
“She’s not afraid to try new things,” the CHRO said.
“It’s part of being a big thinker. She will look at what sticks
in our culture and employee base and can we modify it.
And, she’s an active learner herself.”
Intersection of Technology and Culture
Every learning program at LinkedIn reinforces its cul-
ture and values. Its products, vision and mission are part of
the same conversation beginning on new hires’ first day.
Onboarding involves a New Hire Roadmap, which out-
lines week by week a list of things they need to do to be-
come successful and productive in their first 30 days. Fur-
ther, the roadmap is gamified, with a progress bar across
the top to show the employee exactly how they’re doing
during the experience.
Next employees can access a tool called The Trans-
formation Plan, which aids their efforts to get better at
their current job and think about their career in the fu-
ture. “We serve up skills in this program so you can pick
what you want to focus on,” Palmer said. “Then you
can drag and drop curated learning assets into this trans-
formation plan, and track your progress over time
against those career goals.”
The platform upon which all of this happens is called
Learn[In], and it’s a far cry from traditional learning man-
agement systems, which Palmer said often don’t do what
learning leaders want them to do. “One of the first things I
did was hire a couple of developers and said, ‘Let’s build
this learning platform that will allow us to do curated con-
LinkedIn recruited Kelly Palmer in 2012 to build its learning organization from scratch,
which was “an amazing opportunity,” she said.
7. Chief Learning Officer • March 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com 25
tent, to build a new hire roadmap and this transformation
plan so that we can do with learning what we always imag-
ined we could do.’ ”
After the transformation plan, learning strategy diverg-
es even more from traditional approaches. For instance,
instead of the popular 70-20-10 model, Palmer uses a 70-
30 model.Traditional learning is a bit antiquated, she said.
Worse, the lecture model — where people get in front of
people, then learners memorize facts and take tests — has
found its way into the corporate world.
At LinkedIn, she said 70 percent of the way people
learn is to get information when they need it, learning in
context of how they
do their job, or
learning in the con-
text of how they
want to move their
career rather than
use prescribed learn-
ing competencies or
learning paths. That
translates to a heavy
use of readily available online content. Some of that con-
tent is LinkedIn specific, and the company’s offerings were
greatly enhanced by the Lynda.com course repository.
The other 30 percent includes classroom training, and
that’s not all. “A few years ago people were under the im-
pression that if you did a lot of stuff online, you were say-
ing that you didn’t want to do anything in person any-
more; I couldn’t be saying anything further from that,”
Palmer said. “But the fact is people don’t have time to sit in
in-person activities a lot.”
Instead, when people do step away from their busy jobs
to spend time together, it should be done in intact work
groups where they’re solving real problems and practicing
activities they can immediately apply on the job. For in-
stance, last year Palmer and her team developed a four-
week program called Conscious Business to help employ-
ees put LinkedIn’s culture and values into practice on a
day-to-day basis.
Collaborating effectively, improving relationships, how
to communicate with co-workers, how to solve problems,
how to act with integrity — the program covers all of
these ideas in a variety of ways. Participants learn in cohort
groups and through videos, knowledge checks and prac-
tice activities with co-workers in real business scenarios.
They can share via a discussion board, and meet weekly
with a facilitator to synthesize learning. “It’s minimal time
in person, but very powerful. That’s an example of the fu-
ture of learning: It’s blended, pedagogically sound. It takes
it to a whole new level,” she said.
It’s All About the Data
Analytics, learning insights and dashboards are in con-
stant use at LinkedIn. The company uses data to mitigate
the challenges associated with information overload,
something all learners suffer given the amount of informa-
tion coming at them on a daily basis. Managing that over-
load is also why Learn[In] actively curates content for em-
ployees rather than just making it available.
An employee’s Google search to learn more about so-
cial media might produce thousands of hits. A Learn[In]
search, on the other hand, serves up the eight or 10 best,
most relevant pieces of learning content to help employ-
ees find what they need when they need it. Today, the
company handles content by topic area, but Palmer said
it plans to individualize curated content based on an
employee’s existing
skills and those the
employee hopes to
acquire.
Wadors said
Palmer often bases
learning strategy on
data, which the typ-
ical learning leader
doesn’t. For exam-
ple, “If people look a lot at how to code in mobile applica-
tions, she’ll see the trend and validate the need for the skill
to business leaders: Should we develop learning? Are you
trying to hire for it? Should we develop a solution?”
GLG’s Socarides said that kind of evaluative, learn-
ing-based approach to solving business problems is neces-
sary for today’s professionals to be successful and stay in-
novative. “The pace of innovation today requires all top
professionals to be lifelong learners,” he said. “And at the
center of that is taking a big-picture approach to what
learning means.”
Big-picture thinking is what LinkedIn, and Kelly Palm-
er, are all about. It’s likely a match made in heaven, given
both want to have a hand in changing the world.
“We have this notion of dream big, get shit done, and
know how to have fun,” Palmer said. “That’s a bit crass
because of that one word, but the idea is that dreaming
big is part of who we are as a company. If I’m leading
learning at LinkedIn, I have to dream big and make
things happen.”
She said CLOs in general have to think differently
about learning because the future will be more about
inspiring people rather than controlling them, help-
ing overwhelmed learners find what they need when
they need it and using talent analytics differently to
measure learning impact. There should be no more
butts-in-seats-type data. “It’s about using technology
to mirror back what people are doing with learning
and how that can help them with their jobs or to nav-
igate their careers.” CLO
Kellye Whitney is Chief Learning Officer’s associate editorial
director. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.
‘If I’m leading learning at
LinkedIn, I have to dream big
and make things happen.’
—Kelly Palmer, chief learning officer, LinkedIn Corp.