LinkedIn Learning announced to help professionals learn new skillsets

LinkedIn Learning is a new training portal from LinkedIn that provides on-demand training videos that help professionals acquire new skill, sharpen their skill set to advance their careers. There are over 9000 online courses that are divided into three primary streams Business, Technology and Creative. Given LinkedIn’s vast subscribers list, right set of trainings and courses are offered when LinkedIn users login to the Learning portal and this is done based on their LinkedIn Profile. LinkedIn Learning can be accessed from various devices like PC, mobile, tablet and also supports offline learning. There is no detail on whether LinkedIn will offer individual subscriptions. As of now, free demo is available and the pricing seems to be ‘according to organization needs’.

While the streams are categorized into Technology, Business and Creative streams, LinkedIn Learning subscription is divided into three key packages. On-demand Learning for company will offer company wide training, with expert-led courses on thousands of topics. Account center will provide detailed dashboards to organization to track progress. Companies can also measure individual and group adoption, engagement, check metrics on course views etc. Organizations can also set self paced individualized learning and development for employees. Skill development for teams offers focused just-in-time training for teams to boost productivity. This is to deliver on demand training to dispersed teams (and make best use of training budget). Bite-size videos are also provided for micro learning and immediate problem solving. Other features include tech instructions, leardership training and more. The third package is for educational institutions to support faculty, staff and students with on-demand learning. This not only helps students get more in-depth training, it helps faculty to be up to date with new technologies and IT topics. Teachers can use wide range of technologies like Moodle, Adobe Captivate, LMS etc to make classroom more engaging.

PRESS RELEASE

Today, we are thrilled to announce the launch of LinkedIn Learning, an online learning platform enabling individuals and organizations to achieve their objectives and aspirations. Our goal is to help people discover and develop the skills they need through a personalized, data-driven learning experience.

LinkedIn Learning combines the industry-leading content from Lynda.com with LinkedIn’s professional data and network. With more than 450 million member profiles and billions of engagements, we have a unique view of how jobs, industries, organizations and skills evolve over time. From this, we can identify the skills you need and deliver expert-led courses to help you obtain those skills. We’re taking the guesswork out of learning.  

The pressure on individuals and organizations to adapt to change has never been greater. The skills that got you to where you are today are not the skills to prepare you for tomorrow. In fact, the shelf-life of skills is less than five years, and many of today’s fastest growing job categories didn’t even exist five years ago.

To tackle these challenges, LinkedIn Learning is built on three core pillars:

World-class content: Our library of 9,000+ digital courses are taught by industry experts and cover a wide range of business, creative and technical topics, from leadership “soft skills” to design principles to programming. We’re always evolving the Lynda.com library, adding at least 25 courses a week, and teaching the leading-edge skills you need to stay current. Plus, we also offer courses in German, Spanish, Japanese and French.
Data-driven personalization: We get the right course in front of you at the right time. Using the intelligence that comes with our network, LinkedIn Learning creates personalized recommendations, so learners can efficiently discover which courses are most relevant to their goals or job function. Organizations can use LinkedIn insights to customize multi-course Learning Paths to meet their specific needs. We also provide robust analytics and reporting to help you measure learning effectiveness.
Anytime, anywhere convenience: It isn’t enough to know exactly which course to take – it also needs to be easy to take. Our courses are broken into bite-sized segments that can be viewed anytime, on any device, online and off. Learning content is recommended throughout your LinkedIn.com experience, helping you easily discover relevant courses, and the content can be integrated with a learning management system.
Learning and development professionals and learners are already realizing value. Our pilot process for LinkedIn Learning included companies such as Bertelsmann, Box, Ellie Mae, NBCUniversal and Viacom – along with thousands of learners. We are just starting our journey and are thrilled with our partners’ experiences.   

During their pilot, NBCUniversal saw that learners who use LinkedIn Learning once, come back over and over. “It provides great content and recommendations, all through a great user experience,” said Terence Morley, NBCUniversal director of talent development. “People wouldn’t be coming back unless the content and recommendations were good.”

According to Morley, it’s the recommendations and positioning within a familiar online space where employees feel comfortable, that make LinkedIn Learning a standout solution. He said it enhances individual learning needs through the personalized nature of the platform, something NBCUniversal learners agreed with.

“Out of all the online learning tools I have used, LinkedIn Learning offers the most personal experience,” said Kelsie Freed, who works in NBCUniversal media operations. “The courses model skills and expertise that I identified as important to my development.”

“LinkedIn Learning is cool because it is linked to you, and personalized,” said Charis Gramlich, who works in talent acquisition for NBCUniversal. “It’s really about me.”

Ellie Mae saw the pilot as an opportunity for their organization to embrace continuous learning. “We want a continuous learning organization, and LinkedIn Learning is going to help us foster that,” said Patti Barker, Ellie Mae Senior Director of Learning and Development. “The power of connections and the network, and being able to share recommendations – this is going to be really engaging and really different than any other offering that I’m aware of.”    

Bertelsmann is an active user of the Lynda.com library on a global scale and also participated in the LinkedIn Learning pilot. Dennis Formann, who manages the world-wide deployment of digital learning instruments, said “it’s mission critical to help employees navigate the endless development opportunities available online and find the exact building blocks of professional learning that they need. LinkedIn Learning is right on the mark to address this need and does so by leveraging members’ profiles, which makes it even more relevant and powerful.”

Now, you and your organization can identify which skills are key for achieving career and business goals, and learn those skills in a personalized, efficient and measurable way.

This is just our first step. We’re investing in LinkedIn Learning while continuing to enhance the Lynda.com platform that our customers and members know and love. Our vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. And launching LinkedIn Learning is a big milestone in our journey.