After the initial outbreak of COVID-19, it seemed like the world took a pause.
Precautions like stay-at-home orders and social distancing helped prevent the spread of the disease, and many tech employers relocated entire workforces from offices to remote setups. While the transition was an adjustment, many companies have claimed to settle into this “new normal.”
Part of the adjustment required finding new resources to support employees who want to pursue professional development. Sending reading materials and links are passive options; in order for employees to grow, leaders are looking for new ways to encourage active participation.
At Toastmasters International, an educational nonprofit that teaches public speaking skills, active professional development involves invoking a little competition. Talent Development Specialist Elana Mamayan said the company supported a three-week LinkedIn Learning challenge to complete a curriculum course. Prizes were given to employees who completed the learning challenge.
From there, Mamayan said Toastmasters engages co-workers daily through channels in Microsoft Teams. Providing space for employees to share ideas, articles and best practices allows for them to support colleagues’ professional development journeys as well as their own. Virtual “likes” help, too.
How has professional development at your company changed in light of COVID-19?
Our professional development has become 100 percent remote; however, it has not become any less active. Learning is now centered around independent courses through LinkedIn Learning, articles on topics relevant to employees, virtual learning challenges and video chats to share information. We also utilize screen-sharing capabilities to allow employees to learn directly from one another’s work in real time.
What interesting tools or technologies are your team using to support professional development, particularly while employees work from home?
We are using Microsoft Teams to support professional development at home. Specific Teams channels allow employees to share ideas, articles and examples, including best remote working practices and ways to avoid phishing scams. We also utilized a three-week LinkedIn Learning challenge for the month of April that focused on building resilience, embracing change and making remote work successful. This was intended to help ease the transition for employees during the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.
Our professional development has become 100 percent remote; however, it has not become any less active.”
What steps have you taken to ensure employees feel empowered to take advantage of these tools?
We have promoted the Teams channels and learning challenge through email updates sent to the entire staff. We also “like” posts on the Teams chat, and encourage others to do the same, to show our support for posting and discussing learning-related topics.
Another step to encouraging participation is sending recommended LinkedIn Learning videos to staff from the company account and highlighting active learners each month in a learning newsletter that is distributed to all staff. Additionally, we had a drawing of all the staff who completed the learning challenge and awarded prizes to encourage participation.
