Now is the time for workplace learning to shine

In conversation with HR Leader, Workday’s chief learning officer discusses the platform’s new Workday Learning offering and why now is the time for the L&D function to take centre stage.

Late last month, enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT Workday unveiled Workday Learning, powered by Sana, which it said brings AI into each part of the learning experience.

The solution, the platform said in a statement, combines Workday’s trusted people and skills data with Sana’s AI-native learning experience, “so organisations can deliver personalised training grounded in the workforce data they already trust”.

“Checking the box isn’t the same as building a skill,” Workday chief AI officer Joel Hellermark said.

“With a personal AI tutor, interactive quizzes, and learning tailored to each employee’s role and skills, Workday Learning, powered by Sana, turns required training into engaging experiences employees can apply in their day-to-day work.”

Speaking to HR Leader, Chris Ernst – the chief learning officer for Workday – said that bringing together Workday Learning and Sana Learn into one solution is a “game changer”, in terms of being able to create, deliver, and manage learning, rather than having piecemeal tools to navigate. Because the offering is grounded in Workday’s data governance, permissions, and reporting, he said, learners can “get the right content at the right time for the right needs of their organisation”.

Such innovation is “especially important” in the current climate, Ernst explained.

“I believe the future of work is learning,” he said.

“Every organisation is preparing to prepare their people for changing roles, for using new technology, and new skill requirements. And, we can no longer predict the future. And so, the winners of the future are going to be those organisations that can learn the quickest, that can have teams and leaders that are learning, adapting, and taking advantage of the opportunities that AI creates.”

Traditional understandings of and approaches to workplace learning are increasingly unfit for purpose in the age of AI, Ernst said, and to be able to have learning happen at the speed of AI advancement, “you have to get it right” for workers, content creators, and learning administrators.

“The days of employees clicking through generic content that has little connection to their jobs just doesn’t fit the real world,” he said.

“We need to be able to have personal AI tutors, where you can ask questions, where you can explore difficult concepts, where you can learn in the flow of work. Employees also need to be able to use natural language to find what they’re looking for, rather than going through generic training modules that continue to repeat over and over again.”

Reflecting on Workday’s experience implementing AI-powered learning internally, Ernst recounted the importance of having empathy for the problems workers are trying to solve, then connecting those back to the learning modules being provided.

“When we were launching Sana learning courses, we would sit with end users and just watch them interacting with the quizzes, the interactive polls, the videos, and understand how that experience was different from a traditional click-by-click course experience. There’s as much unlearning that these new technologies require as net new learning, to make it happen,” he said.

On the question of what will separate workplaces that can successfully build a culture of continuous learning from those that struggle to keep pace, Ernst said that “the winners are going to be those that can read the signals from the noise, learn, adapt, pivot, [and] iterate”.

Market shifts, he added, are happening 24/7, rather than quarterly, and as a result, “this is the moment for L&D to shine”.

“Some could argue that AI will make the L&D function less relevant, because AI can do things. I feel it’s just the opposite: this is the moment for L&D professionals to harness these technologies to help create a competitive advantage for their organisations,” he said.

“All technology exists in a moment in time, and this moment is uniquely poised for new learning solutions, because of the requirements [being placed] on organisations in the age of AI.”

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