At 360Learning, we love telling compelling stories about how Collaborative Learning works.
We do this with our L&D interview series CLO Connect, with our client case studies, and with our weekly newsletter showcasing the best our blog has to offer. And now, we’re thrilled to introduce the newest member of the 360Learning family: L&D Plus: The Collaborative Learning Podcast.
With L&D Plus, we’re showcasing how L&D teams work across the business to make Collaborative Learning a reality. Each episode features interviews with learning partnerships from leading companies. We’ll dig into the tough questions about why these partnerships work, why they don’t, and what we can learn from them.
Today, learning should be a team sport. And with L&D Plus, we’re going to show exactly how you can make that happen.
Here’s a taste of what we have in store with our first three interviews with learning partnerships from Zapier, Spendesk, and Drift!
L&D Plus Operations–Zapier: What do all top-performing teams have in common?
[Check back in on July 8 for the full recap article]
Every company wants to foster top performance. But what does ‘top performance’ really mean? And how can you make sure your managers share the same definitions and benchmarks to get better in the right direction?
It’s a tough question, but that didn’t faze Danielle Meinert and Dara Hashemi of Zapier for a second.
Working in partnership between L&D and Operations, Danielle and Dara conducted an incredible amount of research to define exactly what high-performing teams look like at Zapier. Then, they turned this into a self-assessment tool–complete with its very own L&D robot!
"One of Zapier's company goals is to build a diverse and high-performing global organization. The next step for us was to define what high-performing itself means. Is it simply to reach our company goals? If so, how do we measure team performance within that? What is a team anyways? Those were some of the big questions we had floating around."
We had a blast chatting to Danielle and Dara about the highlights of this collaboration, as well as some things they’d try to improve the next time around. Listen to the full episode here:
L&D Plus People–Spendesk: How can you turn subject-matter experts into content creators?
[Check back in on July 15 for the full recap article]
Great onboarding is always critical. But COVID-19 gave rise to a new challenge: how can you ensure great new hire experiences from a distance? How are we supposed to feel connected when we’re glued to our screens at home?
"Okay, we have workshops, and workshops, and workshops. Onboarding means workshops. There was both this format problem of having just workshops, and the fact that we just added other workshops without thinking about the coherence of the whole experience."
For Tom Morisse and Lucy Warwood of Spendesk, there was only one solution: transform experts into content creators.
With their partnership between the L&D and People teams, Tom and Lucy took a hard look at their current onboarding program and harnessed Spendesk’s internal expertise to create relevant and impactful content to help ease new hires into the job.
"So we decided to take a step back - maybe there were some parts of the ramp-up experience that we never thought about before that we needed to address. And here, especially the social component of it was something that was a blind spot for us."
Lucy and Tom brought a lot of honesty to this conversation and were more than happy to discuss the real challenges of transforming the new hire experience mid-pandemic. Check out the full episode now:
L&D Plus Marketing–Drift: Is L&D turning into marketing?
[Check back in on July 22 for the full recap article]
A lot of the world’s leading companies are rethinking the role of L&D and finding new ways to capture and share internal expertise. To do this, you need a clear internal brand–but what if you took that one step further and actually combined your L&D and marketing teams?
"When you think conventional learning and development, you think of classroom, or you think of very stale, sometimes boring material. And Drift is anything but boring."
For Allie Winkelman and Colleen Koslosky of Drift, this is exactly the solution they’ve chosen. Recently, Drift’s L&D team was brought within its wider marketing team to strengthen the company’s distinctive voice in both its learning and marketing content–notably within Drift Insider, their community dedicated to all things marketing and sales.
"Our co-founders want to create a brand first and foremost, that was exciting, that was pushing the envelope. And so we need to make sure every part of our business really reflects that, and that includes learning and development. So we wanted something that's fun, exciting, and engaging for our learners."
Allie and Colleen were a lot of fun to talk to, and they had a lot of insights to share about what the relationship between L&D and marketing should look like today. Get the full episode here:
Keep listening for more Collaborative Learning stories from L&D Plus
We hope you’ve enjoyed this taste of our first three episodes of L&D Plus. We’ll be featuring weekly in-depth recaps covering the key points and actionable steps from these discussions, so keep an eye out for those coming your way soon.
Thanks once again to Danielle and Dara of Zapier, Tom and Lucy of Spendesk, and Allie and Colleen of Drift for taking the time to talk to us about all the highs and lows of their learning partnerships! We’ve got even more great conversations in store, so be sure to subscribe and stay tuned for new episodes. (Or subscribe to our blog newsletter below so you’re sure not to miss them.)
Do you have a learning partnership of your own you’d like to tell the world about? How about an example of Collaborative Learning that could help other businesses grow? Let us know in the comments below, and we’ll be in touch!
Our weekly newsletter of the best insights from L&D peer to L&D peer.
By providing your contact info, you agree to receive communications from 360Learning. You can opt-out at any time. For details, refer to our Privacy Policy.