Microsoft is reportedly working on a new online learning app in Microsoft Teams that will become available later this year.
The new app – announced during the unveiling on a new digital skills initiative via a June 30 virtual event and on Microsoft’s official blog – will bring content together from a variety of sources to create a learning environment where employees can learn in the flow of their work.
Sources of content will include LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, third-party training providers and an organization’s own content, President Brad Smith wrote in a blog post.
That digital skills initiative includes making stronger data and analytics available to governments around the world to better assess local economic needs and advocating for public policy innovations to help advance skilling opportunities.
Central to that initiative are employers who play a vital role in helping their employees skill and re-skill, Smith wrote.
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As we have talked with our customers, we have heard some key themes:
Employers recognize that they need to train and retrain employees to do current and new jobs well, but more than two-thirds of Learning & Development leaders state that measuring the impact of learning remains one of their biggest challenges.
Employee engagement in learning is a challenge. Many employees report not having enough time or incentive to learn at work. There is low cultural emphasis placed on learning, with research showing that only one-third of employees have leadership teams encouraging them to learn.
The learning experience for too many employees is highly fragmented. Many organizations piece together courses and content across a variety of sources, making it hard and time consuming for employees to easily discover relevant content when and where they need it.
Now, companies need a system of learning similar to systems used to engage with customers. That system will provide a continuous feedback loop between the work, skills and learning required to succeed and grow, Smith wrote.
The Teams learning app will allow organizations to integrate content from multiple sources in one place, ranging from instructor-led training to short, micro-learning content. Managers can use the app to assign and track learning progress and enable employees to have conversations around that content.
That includes tasks like onboarding, skills sharpening or immediate training for first-line workers in the field, Smith wrote.
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