The best L&D results are when self-motivation drives employees to learn

There’s a lot to discover when two L&D heads sit down to exchange notes. Over the course of an in-depth conversation, Neeti Sharma, President & Co-Founder at TeamLease Edtech Ltd and Disha Roy, Global Lead, Learning & Talent Development, Publicis Sapient covered how Gen AI can be used to speed up processes and enhance the L&D journey, while also highlighting the importance of being thought leaders in this new, evolving space. Read on for case-studies, real-life successes and more.

As a company squarely in the digital business transformation (DBT) space, Neeti Sharma was keen on knowing how Publicis Sapient went about digitalization - both for its own purposes, and as the DBT partner for various clients.

Ms. Roy’s response offers many lessons to companies that are yet to explore the full potential of Gen AI. Not only does Publicis Sapient employ it as an enabler for its own operations (like speeding up delivery cycles) and for the transformation journey of its clients, but the company has early on pivoted to gaining deep expertise of Gen AI, enabling it to become thought leaders in this space.

Gaining a mastery of this evolving tech allows Publicis Sapient to provide customer solutions that have Gen AI embedded in them. As an example, Ms. Roy referenced an ongoing project for a client based in London, from the horticultural domain. By incorporating Gen AI in the customer-facing app, people can scan a photo of any flower or leaf, and will get the name of the plant, along with other relevant info like ideal growing conditions, etc.

Part of occupying the thought leader position involved building a genuine understanding within Publicis Sapient, on Gen AI. Towards this end, the company rolled out its own platform - PS Chat, which has allowed the entire workforce to learn first-hand, adopt and deploy this tech in meaningful ways. For a company operating in DBT, PS Chat has significantly improved Publicis’ prowess in the prompt engineering and subsequently, quality engineering spaces.

Another key reason behind how Publicis was able to adopt and deploy GenAI in multiple relevant ways was because there was a company-wide L&D focus on helping leadership quickly acquire knowledge on the new tech - thus making the process of getting the workforce to understand the concepts, far easier.
To learn about how Publicis Sapient became thought leaders in the GenAI space, click HERE

The discussion then moved on to other tech tools, apart from Gen AI, that Publicis Sapient used to ensure continuous learning across the organization. Here Ms Roy shared her belief that even more important than tech aids for L&D, the only way long-term learning goals could be met is if employees themselves felt motivated to learn, rather than be required to do so for a particular project. Ms Roy described this as ‘the pull factor’ vs the ‘push factor.’ She asserted that when the average employee spends over 8 hours on their clients’ work, making the time for self-improvement was only possible if self-motivated.

At Publicis, the approach to L&D evolved in a way that mapped learning interventions that were mandatory for business growth, along with those that were personal preferences of employees - with the company also helping employees find new roles within the organization that aligned with their newly-acquired (preferred) skills.

By supporting employees in their L&D journeys in multiple ways, Ms Roy believed that a culture of continuous learning had been established within Publicis.
Regarding motivating employees to learn, read more HERE

Prioritizing both the personal learning ambitions of employees with what skills the business requires, led the conversation to the next level - on the strategies used to balance personalized learning and scalability.

In this context, Disha Roy shared a very interesting and successful L&D intervention, which Publicis had internally branded as Top Gun Academy or TGA. This 4-month long program was designed to fix a very specific problem – the organization’s inability to find architects with the required skills. So when designing TGA, rather than develop a module to re-train architects (which might not have received the desired buy-in), the program was designed for those who ‘aspired to become architects’. This approach worked extremely well, fast-tracking the growth of in-house talent while meeting business needs. The L&D intervention included storytelling and personal branding, along with technical skill development. This personal approach to career development worked well enough to scale, and address the organization’s talent shortage.
To discover how personalized L&D interventions can also scale, read HERE

At this point, Neeti Sharma recalled an earlier conversation with Ms. Roy about how data was being leveraged to meet business growth plans. Now, she wanted to know how data was being leveraged to assess the effectiveness of L&D interventions.

Disha Roy recalled how the organization’s data collection strategies and technologies had matured over the past years. Earlier, the focus was on two or three things like levels of learning engagement, who signed up and from which age group, as well as what employees wanted to learn in the future. But soon, advances in data analytics allowed more relevant learnings that helped improve retention and build the required talent pool by upskilling employees, rather than hiring from outside.

Data collection and analysis also can play a predictive role, like for instance, flagging early warning signals that precede large-scale resignations (and hence prevent them). Ms. Roy did stress that the more engaged and motivated employees were in L&D, the less likely they were to leave the organization. Yet, predictive data analysis was still at the nascent stage within Publicis Sapient. But successful diagnostic data analysis had worked well in studying which L&D programs had worked and hence were worth re-investing in.
Learn more about data diagnostics HERE

This interesting edition of the L&D Dialogues wound up on what were the best ways to upskill teams - to better understand technology, understand data, etc. Ms Roy discussed her 16 years of experience in the delivery space - where one is directly interfacing with clients and is up-to-date on emerging trends in the skills ecosystem.

Regarding an effective large-scale upskilling initiative, she highlighted Publicis’ Brown Bag scheme that comprehensively covered the basics of tech, as well as the more complex aspects of it.
To learn more about what upskilling strategies work best, read HERE

Another powerful force Ms Roy had noticed in L&D was peer-to-peer learning - which motivated SMEs within the organization to create relevant, contextual learning content that they got rewarded for. This win-win model also resulted in better learning outcomes.

Overall, this Dialogue opened up new pathways for L&D professionals to explore, experiment with, and possibly share with us at some future edition of the L&D Dialogues!
For more information, watch the playlist.