How Kellogg Evolved its Learning Culture with LinkedIn Learning

When Kellogg began their learning evolution, they were starting at stage 1. Through the techniques and tactics outlined below, in a few short years they’ve moved all the way to Stage 3.

Here are the key tactics that have helped them so far:

To drive adoption, Thor needed to market LinkedIn Learning to employees – a task he didn’t want to take on alone. “In order to implement a successful program, we needed our business leaders across the globe to be invested and on-board, helping to emphasize the importance of LinkedIn Learning," he said. "I didn’t want this to be a strictly HR-driven initiative.”

Before LinkedIn Learning launched to all employees, Thor gave various leaders early access to the platform. He also incorporated them into a launch video that premiered during the LinkedIn Learning launch. This hands-on approach ultimately created strong advocates for the program because other business leaders felt they were a part of the learning culture.

“Our intention and our hope was that our department leaders would embrace LinkedIn Learning and promote it,” he said. “And that was what happened, that was really the key.”

The L&D team wanted to extend their campaign beyond just the launch. To do so, they needed a tagline that people could get behind for months to come. They created their marketing campaign around the hashtag #IGotThis. 

David Castillo, a learner at Kellogg explains, “The hashtag #IGotThis is great because it emphasizes that we are in charge of our own development.”

Kellogg employees continue to post #IGotThis in Yammer, the company’s internal communication platform. Some of those posts include:

• Just completed my first course on LinkedIn learning... This is game-changing education. I’m better now in Excel than I was yesterday. #IGotThis
   

• Very proud to be with a company that is helping its employees learn wherever and whenever it's convenient for them. #IGotThis!

Allowing learners to learn when and where they want is a great benefit, but simply having the tools by themselves doesn’t change a culture. Thor explains that, “learning is not only for you, it’s about sharing. What are the insights you generated from that LinkedIn Learning course? We need to make sure that learning becomes a social thing as well.”

To improve the social aspect of learning, Thor and his team used three key drivers:

• Friendly competition. If one department was seeing high usage of LinkedIn Learning, Thor would highlight that to a less engaged department at Kellogg. This encouraged more departments to drive engagement of LinkedIn Learning.
   

• Prizes. To drive excitement around LinkedIn Learning, the team set up contests and prizes for people who engaged with the platform. For example, when it launched, all employees who completed a course within the first few weeks were eligible to be placed in a drawing for a free Amazon Echo. 
   

• Recognition. To create positive reinforcement around learning, the L&D team has been formally recognizing colleagues from around the world. They not only highlight when a learner completes a course, but also when a learner shares a course to help someone else.
   

Thor says, “We wanted to encourage learners to complete courses and then share what they learned, to share insights. That really helped create that community of sharing. It’s very powerful, very simple, and we got phenomenal reach just through those simple activities.”

So far Kellogg employees have watched an astonishing 485,000 LinkedIn Learning videos and spent nearly 25,000 hours learning on the platform.

According to Thor, the employee reaction has been tremendous. Employees provided the following comments about LinkedIn Learning:

• “I’m learning about things that are impacting our business like digital transformation and data science.”
   

• “LinkedIn Learning is the first place I go to for inspiration and I love the feature to be able to sort by the amount of time I have available.”
   

• “I’m now taking courses on my commute to and from work. Love the efficiency!”
   

It has also freed up the Global Learning Team to be more strategic. Before LinkedIn Learning, the team was constantly responding to requests from the business, trying to fill every learning need. LinkedIn Learning has eliminated a lot of that.

Thor explains a few of the key benefits of choosing LinkedIn Learning were:

• The breadth, depth and quality of content. With more than 15,000 courses, LinkedIn Learning had the breadth and depth ­of content Kellogg needed. More importantly, the courses are effective and provide relevant training. “The quality of content really stood out for us and as we determined what would be best for our employees, we wanted to ensure the content would be compatible and effective to the work we’re doing,” 
   

• The accessibility of the platform. With a mobile app and online courses split into short video segments, LinkedIn Learning empowered Kellogg employees to learn anytime, anywhere, and around their schedule.
   

• The tie-in to LinkedIn. An added bonus to the Kellogg Team is LinkedIn Learning’s tie to LinkedIn. It provides instant brand recognition to virtually all Kellogg employees – they can trust the content is world-class, and since many already use LinkedIn daily, LinkedIn Learning fits into their existing behavior.
   

“It takes the pressure off, I’m no longer worried about all the requests we get,” Thor said. “Now, we can focus on other things because we have LinkedIn Learning in place. Ultimately, this is about our people’s learning and growth experiences, we care about their needs and are now better equipped to deliver against them.”

Most importantly though, it’s helping Kellogg transition to the Agile Learning Stage. Increasingly, Kellogg employees aren’t waiting for an in-person training to come to upskill themselves – they are using LinkedIn Learning to upskill in the moment and immediately improve themselves and the business.