Learning At Large

Following a period of rapid growth, Lush North America needed to adapt - and a new learning strategy put its mission center stage. Hear Shauna Grinke, Head of People and Culture, share her insights into these changes. Find out how connecting your people with your purpose can see real results, and explore why the human element is key to effective retail L&D.   (Ep20)

From technological advances to evolving customer demands, the workplace is changing. And the skills and knowledge organizations need to succeed are changing too. In this week's episode, find out how Stefaan van Hooydonk, Chief Learning Officer at Cognizant, keeps up. Hear how he’s taking a new approach by building a culture of curiosity and embracing continuous learning. Enjoy!   (Ep19)

With fast-paced change and high employee turnover, retail is a unique sector. L&D in this dynamic landscape presents many challenges. In this week's episode hear Roberta Guinzoni, HR Director at Flying Tiger Copenhagen, share her insights into what makes retail L&D successful. Find out how she keeps pace with change and why being experimental is essential.   (EP18)

This week I'm joined by Melissa Taylor, Global L&D leader at Porter Novelli. In this episode, we hear how Melissa’s vast experience in behavior change communications plays out in her L&D role. We explore: why supporting conversations at scale matters, how Melissa created space for learning in the business, a live example of how you can motivate someone to want to learn, and how they manage to support a global audience without an LMS. Enjoy! (EP17)  

In this week’s episode, I speak to Bob Phibbs, also known as the Retail Doctor. We explore how to make a business case for learning and development, the vital missing ingredient for most training programs, why learning must be a personal choice, and finally, some examples of scalable learning interventions that have boosted company profits. I hope you enjoy the episode. (EP16)

Today I'm joined by Miguel Primoli, VP of HR  at Walgreens Boots Alliance. In this episode, we take a dive into: how to support the fast pace of change in retail, empowering people to become experts, personalized learning at scale, and the skills your workforce will need for the future. Enjoy! (Ep15)

In this episode, I speak to Dr Iris Ware, CLO at the City of Detroit. We take a dive into: how Iris built an entire L&D function from scratch to support 9,000 workers, how you can make a societal impact and not just an organizational impact with your learning strategy, how Iris used the Mayor's vision to deliver learning on the ground which has genuine purpose and meaning, and finally, how to do more with less - using the lean startup methodology to make an impact more quickly. Enjoy the episode! (EP14)

This week, I talk to David DeFilippo, who has over 25 years of experience in corporate L&D. In today’s episode, David shares insights into the role of a CLO and knowing when to push back, whether learning really happens when delivered at scale, the science of instructional design, getting organizational alignment, and how to respond quickly to change. I hope you enjoy the show.  (EP13)

In this week’s episode, we take a dive into lessons learned from developing thousands of digital learning products with Treion Muller, CPO at Strategy Execution. We look at how to manage vast microlearning libraries, how to develop a microlearning journey that has a genuine transformational impact, localization challenges and how to overcome them, and tips for moving from the classroom to online. Enjoy the episode.  (EP12)

This week we took a slightly different approach to Learning at Large, looking at L&D through the eyes of Nigel Travis, Executive Chairman of Dunkin’ Brands. In this episode we explore—amongst other things—a new way to design compliance learning, secret ingredients for a healthy culture, what a CEO might look for in a successful L&D team, and how embracing the ‘challenge culture’ can transform your organization. Enjoy the episode. (EP11)

In this week’s episode, I speak to Tracy Tibedo, Director of Commercial Training at multinational biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific. We take a dive into how to socialize learning design methodologies to get the support you need from your business, how to deploy learning across multiple languages and cultures, and how to spot exceptional learning designers at an interview. Enjoy the episode. (EP10)

Today, I’m joined by Jon Kaplan of Corvantus Consulting. In this week’s episode, we take a deep dive into the skills that companies must develop in order to keep up with change, why digital learning itself needs a change of pace to keep up with the learner, and how you can use xAPI to build new insights into performance. (EP9)

Today, I speak to Karen Hebert-Maccaro, Chief Learning Experience Officer at O’Reilly Media. Supporting over 2.5 million technical specialists worldwide, the complexity of what Karen manages is absolutely mind-blowing. This episode is useful to anyone who is looking for new ways to personalize learning at scale. (EP8) Music by Scott Holmes  

Today, we’re lucky to have two guests on the show from Aviva. Aviva has a workforce of 30,000, and our guests today, Gemma and Paul, oversee the global learning strategy from the headquarters in London. Between them, they are treading a new path and setting an example for what an effective L&D team looks like. With design at its heart, this episode is useful for practitioners looking to build a team that will make a real business impact. Enjoy. (EP7)

In this episode, I'm joined by Nick Shackleton-Jones. Nick puts his theories into the context of an L&D leader, showing practical guidance on a bottom-up approach for delivering human-centered learning at scale, which types of learning experience will build better engagement, how to benchmark the effectiveness of your learning strategy, and finally, how to capture authentic stories on camera within your organization – and why. Today, I’m joined by my colleague Kirstie Greany, who is herself an expert in digital learning. (EP6)

Today, I talk to Tom Marsden, CEO of technology company Saberr. In this episode, we discuss the role personal values play, psychological safety, setting team norms, building an environment where people can tackle challenging issues, and how to trickle-down organizational values into something that is much more meaningful at a team level.  (EP5)

In episode 4 I speak with Lars Hyland, Chief Learning Officer at Totara Learning. Lars is an advocate for the positive impact that technology can have on education and learning. We talked about how to demonstrate business value early on to control groups, identifying the right business problems to solve, knowing when to push back the role of a learning team, and how to decentralize learning and development to support a more scalable learning culture. (EP4)

In episode 3 I talk to special guest Sam Taylor. A learning leader for nearly 20 years. Sam believes in putting the learner first and has found ways to achieve that scale by shifting the conversation from training to development. We talk about digital first learning strategies and how to build a successful culture in your organization. And finally, why confidence is an important indicator of effectiveness. (EP3)

In episode 2 I talk to Daniel Hunter, Global Trainings Manager at 350.org. We talked about the power of storytelling, speaking to feelings, using campaigns to build a network, group learning techniques, and above all, how to get people to get into a mindset where they’re actually prepared to take action on something they care about. (EP2)

To kick off the Learning at Large podcast, I talk to Paul Goundry, Head of Learning at Utility Warehouse. We talked about what CLOs can learn from product designers, how to show the value of L&D by linking it to business impact, and Paul shared a number of resources and insights that have helped him develop his quite unique perspective on learning at scale.  (EP1)