Best Practices for Businesses

How To Manage a Successful Treehouse Business Account

Two integral parts of any significant change within an organization or new program being implemented, include gaining buy-in from team members and developing internal change champions.  Treehouse works hard to offer the best training in the world, but if learners aren’t “buying in” at an organizational level, training can be deemed ineffective.

Meaningful Goals

From working with hundreds of customers, experience shows that team members are more likely to stay motivated with self-directed e-learning over the long term when they perceive the learning goals to be relevant. Motivation is even higher when students can incorporate what they've learned into their job roles.  Learners need to see the direct relationship between training and their personal success. They shouldn’t wonder if learning new things will benefit them – this should be made explicitly clear!

"If you take this training, you will be able to X, Y, Z."

To help make training goals relevant, as an Organization you will need to answer the “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM) for each point of view, keeping your response tied to the student’s weekly tasks.  Taking the time to address WIIFM, will clearly state the value of successful training and connection of how specific sets of newly acquired skills are going to improve their performance, reduce frustration, and narrow their current gap in skills/knowledge.  Helping members connect the dots on how training and education will impact them personally will create deeper levels of engagement to both the training program and the organization itself. This is often the missing piece that challenges education sustainability, application, and true professional development.

Points of view to consider:

• Members
  • Seniority or skill level
  • Specific knowledge gaps
  • Identified training goals
• Leadership Team
  • What’s the intention of the training program?  
  • Clearly choosing either ‘general continued learning’ or ‘specific outcome-based training’ can set the foundation of how to report ROI and effectiveness to your Leadership team.  Not sure how to get started?  Contact your Customer Success Manager
• Stakeholders
  • How is this training program going to benefit your organization or team?
  • As a Team Lead or Manager, would you like to be actively involved with the training program, or more of a “set it and forget it” approach? To effectively manage either scenario, contact your Customer Success Manager
• Admins
  • What is important to you as an Admin?  
  • Are you simply in charge of assigning access to Treehouse, or are you responsible for building the training program and owning the results?

Top 10 Recommendations:

1. Carve out time during the workday for learning, even if it’s just 15-30 minutes a day to maintain consistency. Have this time marked on employees’ calendars.
2. Conduct training needs assessments prior to the training to ensure that it’s relevant to the individual. Map courses and curriculum to ‘role competencies.’
3. Utilize our Custom Tracks service service and work with our Customer Success Team to develop a structured training plan that most effectively meets your needs for onboarding, cross-training, and ongoing learning.
4. Offer recognition to learners for their progress in their training.  Bonus points for doing so in your weekly one-on-one meetings.   Reference our Progress Reporting for details; you will need to be the Owner Administrator, or listed as a Department Admin to access these insights.
5. Make sure the above recognition is visible. Leaderboards are a great way to acknowledge who is making the most progress in their Learning & Development, and remind members about the importance of training (the WIIFM mentioned above).
6. Combine individual training courses into qualifications that are necessary for role development and promotion – a new role could require a specific management qualification that employees can undertake in their own time, for instance. Once they have it, they can apply for promotion.
7. Tie the learning goals to annual performance reviews.
8. Pair learners with mentors at the company. Treehouse training will provide all the resources and guidance needed to learn the technologies and skill sets, while mentors can focus their limited time availability with answering questions and describing how these technologies are put into practice within your company.
9. Use any “All Hands” meetings as an opportunity to show the progress being made by your learners and how it’s benefiting your business.
10. Coordinate with HR to launch an announcement campaign to raise awareness about Treehouse being an available resource and how the culture of learning will be implemented. Give the campaign a name that best suits your company, and don’t forget the WIFFM!!