Co-creation | Online communities | Learning & development

Launched in 2002, LinkedIn is the world’s leading professional online network with more than 364 million members, employing 7,600 staff in over 30 cities around the world.
The company has a diversified business model with revenues coming from talent
solutions, marketing solutions and premium subscription products.
As part of its continued diversification plan, LinkedIn sought to develop the future of online learning and development (L&D) solutions by engaging and collaborating with its talented global workforce to develop new ideas and
fresh thinking. The challenge was how to achieve this quickly, cost-effectively and also respectfully to the various parties involved.

The Solution

Further was commissioned to build a private online community that
removed physical barriers and overcame the inhibitions of internal
communication. We designed a dynamic, fun and engaging way for employees to share ideas, experiences and promote their innovation capacity.

Working in partnership with LinkedIn, Further enabled better insight
and innovation by:

1. Shaping the overarching project plan to deliver this initiative, alongside
   working in close partnership with LinkedIn’s Director of Learning.
2. Providing battle-tested technology consistent with brand guidelines
   to create a safe, secure environment for people to participant.
3. Co-creating a strategic engagement plan and stakeholder engagement programme.
4. Moderating and managing the community to encourage employees to share their inner thoughts, feelings and experiences.
5. Helping analyse and filter data to generate themes, ideas and
   develop brand new concepts.

The community was used to engage members over three waves:

EXPLORATION: We delved into evolving career paths of employees
and revealed the latent and un-met Learning and Development needs of their people.
DEVELOPMENT: The LinkedIn Team used the insight and ideas generated in the initial wave to create a number of new concepts.
EVALUATION: A third and final wave saw concepts evaluated and shortlist drawn up. This was then used to identify and prioritise internal investment and outline further areas for development.

The Results

• Richer understanding through a variety of discussions, surveys and creative tasks, in turn leading to improved quality of concepts
• Enhanced employee engagement and improved levels of buy-in helping to create an ‘evangelical audience’.
• Future Learning and Development solutions evolved and iterated in weeks rather than months, something previously unachievable.
• Plans to launch solution(s) internally from 2016, with commercialisation to follow.

With Further’s support we were able to connect employees across Europe, North America and Asia to tell the ‘human story’, bringing creativity to planning enhancing engagement and the quality of feedback and insight achieved as a result.
Richer context and understanding has helped us to create much more effective and compelling L&D solutions with widespread stakeholder support.

Director of Learning & Development