AT&T Shares Best Practices for Learning and Development

Learning and development programs are vital to functioning businesses both because of the training for future-of-work skills and employee engagement and experience. More and more employees are expecting their bosses to take a vested interest in their career development.

AT&T recognizes the importance of L&D programs and is offering personalized education to employees, says Robert Stojanowski, Director of Learning and Innovation Labs at AT&T. Recently, Stojanowski talked to HR Exchange Network about the company's approach to training and response to these trends in learning. Stojanowski will share his thoughts in a session "Case Study: Scaling the Learning Function for Continuous Improvement" during the Corporate Learning Spring online event. 

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HREN: How would you describe your company's philosophy when it comes to learning?

RS: Our company has had to reinvent itself time and time again across 140-plus years of existence. Continuous learning and reskilling is embedded in the culture because it has to be. Moving from traditional phone service to the internet to mobility services, cybersecurity, or consulting requires a vast set of skills.

In 2008, we launched AT&T University, which was a dedicated organization with a sole purpose of creating the content needed to bring our teams the training they needed to move into the future. We've committed to driving continuous learning across our more than 200,000 employees because it allows us to keep our institutional knowledge in place, and the costs of replacing a worker is almost 20% of that person's salary. The numbers point to reinvesting in our current teams instead of bringing in new talent and hoping they ramp up quickly. 

HREN: There's been much discussion about customizing learning for the individual. How does a large company like AT&T manage such a task? What makes learning personalized?

RS: Because AT&T is so large, even with outstanding resources like AT&T University, the business units manage the direction of learning. Dedicated teams in these business units are closer to the work and results to determine what is needed and when. 

In the organization within AT&T that I manage, we've pivoted to targeted and relevant learning programs. We hear over and over again that teams want training that is relevant to their job function. We've mapped out our more than 30,000 employees to more than 50 personas. We then start at the top, and ask what is important to the leaders of these organizations. 

This gives us some direction, ownership, and commitment to participate. Then we focus on the supervisors of the individuals we want to target. By interviewing the managers we find out what is important to them and build a "persona" learning path that is more than virtual learning. It's invite-only and focused on cross-functional "personas," so there might be something new that a peer in another organization might have suggested and might bring a new a-ha moment. 

We also find that pushing learning paths out and telling teams what to do causes the opposite reaction than desired. While we are inviting teams with common needs to learning paths, the ownership of their learning plan is theirs to determine. The persona plans are starting points, and everyone needs to plan his or her own learning and career plans. 

HREN: What L&D trends do you see on the horizon? Will they last? Why or why not?

RS: What teams are using more and more is "social learning" or "citizen trainers" to bring knowledge to the forefront. The budgets for training will never be large enough, and we intend to use all the resources available to us. 

The folks sitting in the seats are our most powerful resource, not a new platform, technology, or third-party speaker. Because our organization is so large, just asking the question if anyone is interested in training, get dozens of hands going up.  The course might not be polished, or of the same quality a training designer might put together, but for some training "good enough" needs to be "good enough." 

HREN: Is there anything else you’d like to add? If so, what?

RS: Have the supervisors of front line employees in your organization be your champions. The executive leadership might want something launched but the supervisors will be the ones that make it happen. 

Don't miss Stojanowski's session and the others at Corporate Learning Spring online event. It's free to register here.