How Digital Credentials can Foster a Culture of Learning

Offering your employees opportunities to upskill, and just as important, the chance to verify those skills with digital credentials, is one of the most powerful benefits in your hiring and retention toolkit. Most everyone appreciates the opportunity to learn and grow on the job, but it's especially important for millennials who, in countless surveys and studies, including Gallup's "How Millennials Want to Work and Live," report that a clear path to career advancement is one of their top priorities.

By offering a digital credentialing program to your employees and encouraging them to use it to hone and increase their skills, you'll be demonstrating a commitment to their growth and development, which can only benefit you when it comes to promoting qualified people from within.

That's because digital credentials give your managers a clear snapshot of the skills their teams possess, which makes it easy to see who has the skills, experience, and potential to move up the ladder now, who could use more development and grooming for the future, and who may not be as invested as his or her co-workers in learning and growing.

Those benefits are undeniable. But, beyond that, did you know digital credentials can be used to ratchet up the game among teams and co-workers as well?

How digital credentials can kick your team's performance up a notch

Digital credentials are meant to be shared. These are not badges that people keep under wraps; they are proof of achievement that should be celebrated and acknowledged. That kind of public recognition lets the rest of your staff know who has earned what, and what skills they find the most valuable. See the opportunity there for a little good-natured competition? It can only benefit your team's productivity.

Here are a few ways to generate some friendly competition among your staff with digital credentials.

Share. Encourage your earners to share their credentials across various social media platforms, with their contacts, and the greater community at large. This not only beefs up your earners' LinkedIn profiles, but it also gives your company a social shout-out, too.

Recognize. Create a team web page to post achievements like digital badge earning, or celebrate those achievements in other ways. If your team has a weekly email newsletter update, post it there. Or, organize a quarterly get-together to celebrate the team's performance, hard work, and achievements like earning badges and hitting or exceeding goals.

Educate. Say a member of your team has earned a badge in a skill that none of his or her co-workers possess. Set aside time in your weekly staff meeting to have that employee give a brief rundown of what he or she learned and how it might benefit other team members to do the same.

Encourage. Nobody knows better how to improve work processes and procedures than people on the front lines. If several of your team members have earned a badge for the same new skill, charge those employees with brainstorming ways to use that new skill to up the game of your whole team, its performance, and its output.

Study after study, including a recent report by the O.C. Tanner Institute, shows that recognition causes engagement, productivity, and employee retention to increase. Digital credentials are a powerful way to make that happen.

If you're interested in learning more about how digital credentials can benefit your organization, contact us.