What is an Employee Development Platform?

An employee development platform is training software you can use to develop and organize learning content. It also allows you to track user progress to help you evaluate your programs and create the most effective resources. 

The best employee development platforms can be accessed on-demand, allowing team members to learn in the flow of work and complete online training asynchronously. 

Common examples of employee development include: 

• Compliance training
• Safety training
• sales enablement
• Onboarding
•  Leadership development

Why is employee development so important?

If you want your business to succeed, you must invest in your employees.

Investing in your team members means prioritizing continuous learning and development to help employees perform their best and reach their goals. Creating this type of learning culture benefits your employees and your organization.

“Having a culture that creates successful people and optimizes for growth, a sense of purpose, learning, and sense of community. That’s what’s going to lead to the greatest overall company we can have.”

–Jack Altman, CEO and Co-Founder, Lattice

Read more: Why You Should Put People at the Heart of Your Business

Prioritizing team members doesn’t just improve the employee experience; it also benefits customers and your bottom line.

According to research from Harvard Business Review, “[C]ompanies that perform well on employee experience metrics also tend to perform well on customer experience metrics… suggesting that improvements in employee satisfaction can drive improvements in customer satisfaction.” 

Meanwhile, Gallup data shows that companies with “engaged” employees are 21 percent more profitable—and companies with “highly engaged” employees outperform their competing brands by a whopping 147 percent. From an ROI perspective, that’s difficult to top. 

Simply put, your team members are some of your most valuable assets—and your employees’ satisfaction determines your organization’s success. 

“At the end of the day, it’s your people who are driving change at your organization. Not your documentation, knowledge, or process.”

–Ted Blosser, CEO and Co-Founder, WorkRamp

Read more: LEARN Recap: Learning is the Ultimate Competitive Advantage

Here are four reasons you should prioritize employee learning, from tapping the potential of upskilling and reskilling to attracting more driven, qualified candidates.

Attract and retain top talent

Data shows that most Millennials (and Gen Z), who now make up the largest segment of the U.S. workforce, expect employers to provide career development opportunities—and aren’t afraid to seek employment elsewhere if those expectations aren’t met. 

Offering career development shows candidates that your business is focused on building a positive workplace culture where team members are empowered to thrive and advance. 

Read more: 6 Effective Ways to Support Employee Career Growth

Enhance employees’ careers

Professional development opportunities equip your team members with the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to enhance their performance and advance their career paths. 

Keep employees engaged

Employee engagement is vital because it limits turnover, amplifies productivity, and, ultimately, drives larger profits. 

Data shows providing career development opportunities can encourage higher levels of engagement, like Gallup research linking strengths-based learning to 23 percent higher employee engagement.  

Read more: 26 Examples of Employee Strengths and Weaknesses + How to Improve Them

Upskill and reskill your team

Reskilling refers to teaching team members new skills, like reskilling on-site employees to function as remote workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Upskilling refers to providing the skills, knowledge, and/or training for team members to advance into new roles, such as managing or supervising other employees. 

Upskilling and reskilling are cost-efficient strategies to support employee retention while keeping your workforce ahead of the curve in a rapidly-changing business landscape.

With so much to gain by prioritizing your people, why wouldn’t you invest in a cohesive employee development program? 

What to look for in an employee development platform

Having a secure, centralized platform makes it easier to provide—and track the outcomes of—your training programs. However, every employee development platform offers unique features. That makes it vital to use a platform that meets your current requirements and can scale as your organization grows. 

So what should you be looking for in an employee development platform, and why? Here are some essential features and capabilities.

Internal talent discovery

Don’t overlook internal sources when searching for talent. An internal talent search feature makes it easy to match existing employees with roles or projects that fit their interests and abilities. 

This removes the need to go through a lengthy hiring process, increasing your organization’s efficiency and boosting employee satisfaction at the same time.

Integrations

Technology isn’t as useful if it isn’t compatible with the other tools you use.

Look for a platform that offers LMS integration, which lets your team share and access programs like LinkedIn Learning, and single sign-on integration (SSO), which simplifies logins and access and can connect data with APIs. 

Skill recommendations

Your employee development platform should provide a comprehensive picture of your organization’s skill landscape and gaps or opportunities. 

Specifically, the platform should provide team members with skill analyses and recommendations.

For employees, this provides benefits like comparing career paths or checking how “future-proof” various skills and career paths are. At the same time, it improves your organization’s ability to monitor employee progress to ensure your program is effective. 

Training recommendations

Algorithms let you customize your training and education materials to fill gaps in team members’ knowledge, performance, and skills.

Look for a platform that provides automatic, easy-to-navigate learning recommendations so you can spend time acting on data—not crunching it. 

Data analytics and trackability

Having the ability to analyze and track data, identify patterns, and implement changes accordingly is vital.

Look for a platform with features for tracking employee development progress, completion rates, and time spent.

Accessibility

Online platforms make employee development opportunities more accessible to many team members. In addition, putting resources and data online makes information easily trackable and instantly available.

Why an employee development platform is critical to an organization’s success.

Data shows that when the employee experience is positive, so is the customer experience. Satisfied employees produce satisfied customers—which means higher revenue, especially for your superfans and brand evangelists. 

On the other hand, employees who feel dissatisfied or disengaged—or who are outright bored with their tasks—are in danger of jumping ship, leaving you burdened with the high cost of finding a replacement. 

An employee development initiative simultaneously addresses these issues, helping you retain employees, make your workforce more competitive, boost engagement and productivity, and increase employee and customer satisfaction.

But what’s the best way to implement and deliver your programs? 

Compared to in-person training, using an online platform is one of the fastest, most cost-effective, and most engaging ways to offer professional development opportunities, such as online onboarding, training, mentoring, coaching, and career planning. 

Packed with media-rich learning experiences, WorkRamp’s employee development platform is interactive and fun to use—plus, all your data can be easily managed from a single command center.

 Here are a few reasons why leveraging the right platform is vital to your company’s long-term success. 

 It maximizes employee retention

Offering professional development programs is integral to maximizing employee satisfaction, which is the foundation of a motivated and committed workforce—especially at companies with high numbers of Millennial and Gen Z team members. 

Remember, data shows that replacing an employee costs anywhere from half to 2x that employee’s salary. The cost of using talent development software to upskill or reskill your people is negligible in comparison. 

 It promotes a positive workplace culture

Team member development programs boost engagement and satisfaction by giving employees room to learn and grow in an inclusive, supportive environment—vital ingredients for optimizing productivity. 

Learn more about creating a culture where employees can thrive, or zoom in on strategies to create a coaching culture. 

 It lets you analyze and improve employee performance

Employee development software provides a way to address areas where a lack of skills or knowledge contributes to performance gaps.

Paired with other employee training tools, you have a robust framework for strengthening employees’ skills and achieving better business outcomes.

 Why choose WorkRamp for your employee development platform?

Offering a powerful employee development program is more than just smart or savvy—it’s essential for your success and survival.

You need a platform that’s agile enough to move and scale with you, empowering you to boost employee satisfaction, increase productivity, recruit top talent, retain employees, and upskill and reskill your workforce for a sharper competitive edge.

The Learning Cloud by WorkRamp lets you combine blended learning and custom instructor-led training with on-demand learning content to create effective employee training.

Contact us to schedule a free, personalized demo.