What it takes to scale learning

In this fourth edition of the Making Better Newsletter, I want to talk about something very near to my heart, that should also be near to your heart.

People Data

No matter what company I have worked with, people data has always been one of the primary struggles keeping me from delivering training at scale. In the next episode of the podcast, I sit down with my longtime friend Zach Ledford. He led people HR Data & Automation when I was at SpaceX and is an amazing voice on this topic.

The simplest way people data has impacted my ability to scale learning as always been a lack of knowing who does what, where. Usually, it is some breakdown where job titles or departments aren’t fully agreed upon and standardized across the company.

This makes it impossible to assign training to people.

So, what do you do?

As a learning professional, helping control people data might feel very outside of your wheelhouse. If we were talking about the systems and databases, it might be. But that isn’t usually the problem at smaller and medium sized companies.

The problem at these companies is usually just a lack of standards and process. Not because people think those are a bad idea, they just haven’t gotten to solve those problems yet. Here is a tremendous opportunity for you to lean forward and volunteer to help the business.

Ultimately, we are talking about talent and talent movement within the organization. By taking the time to help sort out challenges like titles and departments, you will gain a much better understanding of what the company does and it will give you a great chance to work with many parts of the business.

Word of warning!

Don’t try to do it all at once. These changes have a high likelihood of dying on the vine simply because they take too long. And there will always be parts of the business that are hesitant, and it can slow everything down.

As much as you can, get quick wins in easy parts of the business. Partner with others in HR and recruiting.

You can make a big difference!