Bonus Episode: Rethinking L&D for an AI-Driven World (with Chris Eigeland)
Are we finally at a point where the way we’ve approached workplace learning no longer works?
For years, organisations have invested heavily in learning platforms, content libraries, and structured programmes. But if we’re honest, much of it still feels disconnected from how people actually learn today - especially in a world where employees can pick up new skills instantly using AI tools.
So what does effective learning look like now? And how do organisations build an AI-ready workforce without falling back on outdated models?
In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, host David Green is joined by Chris Eigeland, Founder and CEO of Go1, to explore how workplace learning is evolving - and what HR and L&D leaders need to do differently.
Drawing on his experience working with L&D practitioners across the globe, Chris shares practical insights on:
Why traditional approaches to learning are struggling to keep up
How AI is changing not just what we learn, but how we learn
Where organisations are making real progress with AI upskilling - and where they’re falling short
Whether technology can finally reduce the compliance burden on HR teams
What HR and L&D leaders should prioritise over the next 12–18 months
This episode is sponsored by Go1.
Go1 partners with L&D leaders around the world to turn AI into a workforce advantage, combining trusted learning expertise with an AI toolkit designed for organisational assessment and skills strategy, ready to deploy when teams need it.
"With a learning delivery suite designed to deliver expert-led content through AI functionality, Go1 helps people build the skills to work confidently alongside AI"
Learn more at go1.com/ai-with-go1
This episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast is brought to you by Go1.
[0:00:08] David Green: For many organisations, learning platforms have become a core part of the HR tech stack. Yet, if we're honest, a lot of employees still associate workplace learning with ticking boxes rather than building skills that actually help them do their job better or prepare them for what's coming next. And with large language models now putting knowledge directly into the hands of employees, it raises an interesting question about where learning at work actually happens, and whether the way we've traditionally approached learning and workforce development is still fit for purpose. To explore that, I'm delighted to welcome Chris Eigeland, Founder and CEO of Go1, a leading learning content platform that gives organisations access to thousands of courses from top training providers in one place. I'm particularly keen to understand how Chris sees workplace learning evolving, where organisations are making real progress with AI upskilling, and what HR and L&D leaders should be prioritising over the next 12 to 18 months to help with learning transformation. There's a lot to dig into, and we have the perfect guest to walk us through. So, with that, let's get the conversation started.
Chris, welcome to the show. Before we get into our conversation, can you walk us through the journey that led you to found Go1, I believe in 2015, and maybe tell us a little bit about Go1 for listeners that maybe are unaware of you?
[0:01:39] Chris Eigeland: Yeah, well, thanks so much for having me, David. I'm a big fan of the podcast and I feel like a bit of a celebrity, to be honest. The journey for, I think, Go1 and really anyone probably founding a company is not maybe particularly linear, like I didn't come from a formal L&D background. I actually trained in theme park design. I think I'm still the only person in Australia to do a theme park design degree, very much around sort of experience design. Then, I actually moved into law and studied constitutional law, and then ended up living in Haiti after the earthquake in 2011. And that was my first exposure to education systems and particularly those that had been struck by natural disasters in very difficult circumstances. And that was my first exposure to education as a lever for change.
Subsequently, then I went to work at the UN for a while and was exposed to the other end of education policy. And it was through some of those experiences and the mix of those experiences that really anchored on education as being a space that is incredibly exciting, fast-moving, impactful, and particularly professional education, given the magnitude of change that was happening in the workforce ten years ago when we started the business, let alone today.
[0:02:51] David Green: And tell us a little bit, what does Go1 do? What problems do you help customers to solve? I've asked that one first, and then I'll ask you about running a --
[0:03:02] Chris Eigeland: Of course.
[0:03:03] David Green: -- technology firm in that space as well.
[0:03:05] Chris Eigeland: Yeah, absolutely. So, if you think of Go1's origin story around this, or the problem we initially set out to solve, and then I'll speak to about how that's evolved. So, if you think about most LMS systems, they're kind of like the filing cabinets that sit around it, and people need to add all their content and infrastructure and details inside it. So, we started with the opposite hypothesis, that actually it's the content that is the valuable piece of the puzzle, not the system it sits in. And so, we're effectively the largest content aggregator in the world. So, we license and bring together compliance and professional development content from hundreds and hundreds of different amazing content creators globally, ranging from Harvard Business Publishing and Skillsoft through to really small, niche providers that just do one or two things really well. We bring all that together, we aggregate it, we normalise its format, and then we surface that out in the flow of work in a somewhat platformless way, which is, I think, becoming really exciting based on some of the technology changes recently.
[0:04:07] David Green: In terms of running a learning technology firm in the age of AI, what are the things that really excite you about that? And maybe, what's some of the biggest challenges? I'm guessing it's the pace of change.
[0:04:18] Chris Eigeland: Yes, it is. I think in many ways, I'm more excited about the business and more excited at the opportunity than ever before, in certainly the ten years that I've been working in this space. I think it's almost like a moment in time, where a lot of the previous promises, maybe even hollow promises of the education and learning technology players, micro learning, engaging experiences, learning in the flow of work, that I think were maybe big promises and hard to execute on. I think a lot of those are now actually getting to the realm where they are able to be built. And so, in a lot of ways, I see this as hopefully the beginning of a new era for learning and development and compliance within companies. And a lot of the ideas that people had in the past three, four, five years will now be able to execute on in a much sort of more substantive way that drives impact. And that's really reflected in some of our own research where unsurprisingly, 83% of employees say they want their learning experiences to show up where they are. They don't want to have to log out of what they're doing and then log into some LMS somewhere else. Unsurprisingly, that's what people want and it's been hard to execute on until now. But I'm really excited in this AI-native era that a lot of those things can finally come to life and can be really powerful for employee development.
[0:05:47] David Green: And in terms of running the firm itself, obviously we speak to some CEOs of technology firms in this space, what's the biggest challenge? And then, for you, in terms of running the firm, what do you love most about it?
[0:06:04] Chris Eigeland: Yeah. So, I mean you sort of hit on it before. I think the biggest challenge is obviously how quickly things are moving. We have an AI team, we've re-architected our product engineering lifecycle to be AI-native. It's very different to 12 and 24 months ago. We're very lucky, a lot of our major investors are a lot of the players like Microsoft that are on the leading edge of the AI transformation. So, we have access to, in a very privileged way, a lot of the people and knowledge that's on the very edge of this, and it's still hard to keep up, even with all of that. And so, that's both the challenge of the moment, but I think it's also fundamentally the most exciting time to be building, because the culture, I think, around company building and around delivering impact via software has just changed so materially. It's, I think, a far more authentic culture around delivery exploration, learning, and that has to be part of the actual fabric of the business now. I think that's actually one of the most exciting things, is how the nature and DNA of businesses has to and will have to shift in the next phase.
[0:07:18] David Green: Yeah, and obviously, I mean learning is always important, but you could argue it's even more important at a period of massive change like we're in at the moment.
[0:07:26] Chris Eigeland: Absolutely, yeah. It's fundamental, I think, both on an individual level, to be able to position yourself in the labour market and to achieve your own career goals; but it's also fundamental from an organisational culture perspective, because if organisations are not humble enough in their experimentation to figure out what's working, then they'll fall behind.
[0:07:49] David Green: And it's interesting, you mentioned about trying to keep up or stay ahead, as it were, because obviously, I guess your job is to stay ahead of where your clients are in many respects. And it's interesting when we talk to practitioners, either here on the podcast or in the work we do at Insight222, there's a feeling with most companies, even some of the technology companies, that they're behind, certainly when it comes to HR in this space. And the reality is, yeah, of course some are, but no one's really hitting out the park, as it were. You work obviously with, with HR and L&D leaders across a huge range of organisations, Chris. What are the conversations or challenges that you keep hearing again and again?
[0:08:35] Chris Eigeland: Yeah, well, I think first of all, I have a lot of empathy for any HR and L&D leader in the market today. I'm sure their LinkedIn feeds are full of some hype-y AI posts about how someone's used six agents to automate their whole job, and all those sorts of things, which is, I would suggest, not that much truth to it. And also, L&D leaders by nature and HR leaders by nature of their roles deal in very high-trust topics, sensitive people topics, where you have to work through issues or where there are obviously upskilling and reskilling things needed where you need a high level of trust in the subject matter and how it's deployed. And some of those things are areas that are most challenging to tackle with AI at the moment, and rightfully so, because they require a high level of trust and all those sorts of things. And so, I think HR and L&D leaders are really caught in this, I think, right at this moment, a kind of tricky dynamic, where likely the general employee group and the team are maybe adopting AI tools individually, and therefore their expectations of the business's response are rising. And yet, the top-down, strategic, transformational goals of the organisation maybe aren't keeping up. And I think HR and L&D leaders are directly in the middle of this and getting squeezed at the moment.
So, I have a lot of empathy for everyone going through this transformation. But I think just take heart, because everyone is going through this transformation. And despite what you might see on LinkedIn, no one has it completely figured out. I think that's also part of the magic of this moment, if we're honest and learn from each other in the process.
[0:10:17] David Green: Yeah, and it's an argument, isn't it? I mean, I don't know how you feel, obviously you've been working in this space for a long time. Is there more pressure on L&D leaders now than there's maybe ever been, or is that a little bit hyperbolic there?
[0:10:29] Chris Eigeland: Well, I think there is more pressure on the organisation to, I think, provide the right upskilling and development programmes, both for the benefit of the employee to maintain their relevance, and also for the benefit of the organisation to evolve and meet the needs of an AI-native organisation. So, I think there's increasing pressure on the organisation, which is then being pushed down onto the L&D leaders or the HR leaders, depending on the organisation structure. And I think when you just think about this is, I think, the moment, probably, I believe it would be the greatest moment in my lifetime, that upskilling and reskilling matters most. It is the greatest need that I think we'll have in my lifetime. And so, there's never been a more important moment for HR and L&D leaders to step up and move to the strategic table and take the bull by the horns here, because the need has never been greater.
[0:11:28] David Green: Yeah. I think the one that I always remember is the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report, which came out last January. And obviously, I think it comes out every two years, and they were projecting ahead. I think it's based on over 11,000 organisations. And obviously, there's a lot of commentary around how AI is going to be a net destroyer of jobs rather than a net creator. The World Economic Forum predicts it's going to be a net creator of jobs. But the disruption is significant. I can't remember the numbers, but it was several, like 90-odd million, or something, jobs will disappear and more will appear. And apologies, listeners, if I've got those numbers wrong. But it's the actual level of disruption. I think something like 35%, 40% of people's skills will change. And that's where learning becomes absolutely critical for individuals to keep up, but also then obviously for organisations as well.
[0:12:23] Chris Eigeland: Exactly, that's exactly right. And I think, obviously, no one knows the future of the job market and whether it will be net positive or net negative, although I'm a believer that it will be net positive for a number of reasons I'm happy to unpack. But I think what is true is that nearly every role in the business will change. It will evolve in some way to meet the needs. Very specifically, for example, our product managers that help us build our product are no longer just doing the traditional product manager role of writing PIDs and doing user research. They actually are now sort of full stack deliverers, because they can synthesise a lot more information through user research, they can generate instantaneous design mock-ups, they can test that really quickly. They can even get to a level of coding fairly fast. And so, we have more product managers in Go1 than we've ever had in our history, but the role is materially different to two years ago.
[0:13:20] David Green: Yeah, and I think obviously that's where learning comes in so important, because let's put the geopolitics to one side for a minute, but we're also living in a time where challenges around labour supply and demand, certainly in Europe and to a lesser extent in the US, but certainly Japan, and I believe maybe less so in Australia. The size of the labour market is shrinking, so actually companies solve problems around skills sometimes by just going out and hiring people. Whereas now, it's far more important to grow your own people, develop your own people, and make sure that you're as close as you can be to the skills that you need in the organisation. And obviously, the way you're going to do that from building within is from learning and development.
[0:14:07] Chris Eigeland: I entirely believe that. And I think that will only become more acute, particularly because I'm a firm believer in culture over experience and culture over skills. I think in an AI-native world, that will only become more acute. And so, the need to grow internal talent, who understands your business, who's eager to take the next step, who's ambitious but humble, those types of people are going to be the ones that deliver real business impact versus maybe going out to market and hiring ten new people. I think there's a much faster route and more effective route for companies to move to the future state, which is primarily centred around upskilling and levelling up your internal team that's culturally aligned.
[0:14:51] David Green: I mean, again, we'll go a little bit more into the experience that maybe HR and L&D leaders are getting with AI in a minute. But, I think let's be clear, L&D is an absolutely key component of your workforce transformation, your workforce planning as an organisation, if you're going to be successful in the age of AI.
[0:15:10] Chris Eigeland: It is fundamental. Yeah. If it's not a part of the organisational strategy by now, then certainly you are falling behind. And the reality is, is that it is still challenging. I think, as part of my most recent learner survey, about 50% of the respondents said that actually, there wasn't a clearly communicated AI upskilling strategy from their leadership team, half. And so, it is a reality that it doesn't exist in many companies, maybe because it's a bit scary or daunting, we don't know where to start. But it's just so critical to an organisation's success in the next two, three, four, five, six years.
[0:15:51] David Green: AI is changing the way we work, but skills are what make that change stick. Go1 partners with L&D leaders to turn AI into a workforce advantage, combining trusted learning expertise with an AI toolkit designed for organisational assessment and skill strategy, ready to deploy when teams need it. With a learning delivery suite designed to deliver expert-led content through AI functionality, Go1 helps people build the skills to work confidently alongside AI, trusted by leading organisations around the world. Learn more at go1.com/AI-with-go1.
I think that that leads nicely, Chris, to a lot of the conversations that we're having, and I'm sure you're having as well. Yeah, HR leaders feel a little bit, L&D leaders as well, a bit caught in the middle. You've got employees maybe experimenting with AI tools, maybe too many AI tools at the same time, CEOs are saying, "We need an AI strategy yesterday. We need to see the productivity, we need to see the return on investment". Is that some of the things that you're seeing too?
[0:17:19] Chris Eigeland: Absolutely. And to be the cliché CEO, it's what I said. So, it's very real. But I think the reality of AI adoption strategies is not as straightforward as other components of your strategy, because absolutely the most effective AI upskilling and transformation strategies have been a very strong combination of bottom-up and top-down, because the reality is this is a new skillset and you need to give people space to play and be creative and test the boundaries and kind of figure out what works. And then, you need to also couple that with a very strong strategic opinion on a leadership team of what are the two or three different areas that you think will drive the most impact for your business if they're targeted in upskilling and transformation. Actually, it's been incredible inside Go1. So, we've targeted certain areas for that intense reskilling and intense transformation, of which finance, support, those types of areas. But actually, we've had, from the bottoms up, people fiddling and playing. We've had a number of different AI tools that have been built internally to go viral in the organisation, because they've made people's lives just that 5% easier. And so, you have to do both, otherwise I think you'll just get jammed from one or two directions, yeah.
[0:18:44] David Green: Chris, let's look at learning, because obviously this is your area of passion and expertise. Obviously, we've talked about how Go1 was formed in 2015 and you came to it from the various things that you've been associated around education, particularly in Haiti and then the UN as well. How would you say employee learning has changed over the years?
[0:19:06] Chris Eigeland: So, going back to one of the earlier comments, I am extremely excited about this moment in time, because if you think about some of the, I think, pillars of successful, impactful employee learning, if you think of things like, "Well, the learning that I'm doing, I want it to directly relate to my role. I want it to relate to what I'm doing every day. I want to make sure that it's really relevant to me". Or, "I want to make sure it's really convenient. So, if I need to learn how to do a new Excel macro, I don't need to jump out into a different system". You think about some of those pillars of personalisation and contextualisation and if you like, frictionless, convenient access. And if I'm thinking about what's changing now, I think it's actually the realisation of some of those goals where maybe, I don't know, two, three years ago, you would have had to do a kind of standard component of training from your company, which would have been mostly relevant. Maybe it was 80% relevant or 75% relevant, but didn't feel personalised or contextualised to you.
What is now happening and what's been so exciting is that, yes, you can still take that sort of training module, but you get a contextual overlay of, you know, because you're an accountant sitting in Sydney or because you're a salesperson sitting in London, this is how this actually applies to your role. And so, that element of personalisation and contextualisation is, I think, now real and it wasn't even two years ago. And so, I think that's one of the levers that is, I think, really exciting and will be the most impactful as a transformational component.
[0:20:52] David Green: And you talked about people don't want to log out and have to log into an LMS to do learning, they want to be able to do it as and when they need it in ease. I mean, what are some of the things that you've done at Go1 to help enable that?
[0:21:08] Chris Eigeland: Yeah, absolutely. So, we have this vision around what we call 'platformless'. So, wherever you are, your learning should follow you. So, whether you're chatting to a team member in Microsoft Teams or Slack, maybe you're on WhatsApp, maybe your company uses WhatsApp, maybe you're in Salesforce, wherever you are, your learning should follow you. And so, you should be able to surface relevant learning in whatever system that you're in. That's point number one. And point number two, that learning should be smart enough to understand who you are and what you're trying to do and then adapt to that. And so, that's essentially our product, our contextualised learning, so platformless product, is the rich database of content and learning experiences, 100,000-odd sort of experiences that we've built up over the last decade, how do we surface that where you are, and then how do we transform that to be very relevant to you. And it's really exciting to see the increase in engagement and the increase in effectiveness. It's unsurprising, I think, like 7% of employees regularly actually bother to log into their LMS. It's a very low rate. And the reality is now, with the technical infrastructure that's possible, that just shouldn't be necessary.
[0:22:34] David Green: That's really interesting. I mean, that kind of leads quite nicely to the next question, and we don't mind a bit of provocation here. Is the way we've been approaching learning and workforce development, traditionally approaching learning and workforce development, is it still relevant? It sounds like it isn't.
[0:22:53] Chris Eigeland: No, not really. In a good way, in a good way. I think it's like, a lot of the promises of the L&D industry and L&D technology players of the past sounded really great on paper, and haven't been able to translate into a great learner experience, a really impactful, personalised learning journey that means that people actually learn what they want. And that's why historically, engagement rates have been somewhat low in L&D products as one of a number of reasons. And so, it's not necessarily that the ideas were wrong. I think the thematics have been maybe noble, but the reality is, is that the execution has been pretty poor. And now, we have the opportunity to actually build what the industry has been promising for the last half a decade.
[0:23:47] David Green: When we talk about building an AI-skilled or an AI-native workforce, what does it actually look like in practice beyond the buzzwords? And how can technology like Go1 help with that?
[0:23:59] Chris Eigeland: Yeah, so it's certainly not just about having access to all the tools. You don't just need to give ChatGPT and Claude and all these things to everyone and rack up a ton of money. Obviously, you need to have the right tools, but it's not just about that. If you think about AI-skilled and AI-native workforce, the foundational point is -- it sounds basic -- AI literacy, you know, what is an LLM? How does it work? What is it good at? What is it not good at? Understanding the limitations and constraints on this technology, which can seem a bit of a black box, it can seem a bit scary, so that's a really good foundation. There's a little bit of imagination. And again, this sounds simple, but we've seen the unlock. It's that because this world is so new and because there's so much hype around it, it's really hard I think sometimes for people, even myself, to imagine what can be done with it. And so, you sort of need to demystify part of it and then you need to prompt people's imaginations of the power of it and how it can be used to augment and sort of grow your impact. So, sort of the foundations that you lay.
Then, there's obviously the kind of upskilling piece that sits on top, which needs to be, I think, a mix of obviously prompting, but then also into the world of automation. And this sounds really technical, but actually, there is a way to do it that means it's very accessible to the whole company. They don't need to be a software engineer, they don't need to have found a technology company. There is a way to meet people where they are that means they can get some of these productivity benefits and feel like they are part of the change, not it being done to you. And then eventually, you want people to be empowered to start using these tools in ways that they feel they need to, like with some autonomy, with the right amount of skill to then build the future. And in terms of how Go1 plugs in, this is a core part of our sort of value proposition. If you think about that journey that people have to go on from very conceptually and theoretically understanding what is an LLM and how does it work, through to what can be done, through to what does it mean for my role, and what are the most common prompts that people you can use as an accountant to get value from your role. That's effectively what we do. We piece together that whole journey from a number of different creators and authors, and overlay that with our own personalisation and context around the employees and the company goals. So, that's roughly the journey that a company needs to go on.
[0:26:39] David Green: I want to take a short break from this episode to introduce the Insight222 People Analytics Program, designed for senior leaders to connect, grow, and lead in the evolving world of people analytics. The programme brings together top HR professionals with extensive experience from global companies, offering a unique platform to expand your influence, gain invaluable industry insight and tackle real-world business challenges. As a member, you'll gain access to over 40 in-person and virtual events a year, advisory sessions with seasoned practitioners, as well as insights, ideas and learning to stay up-to-date with best practices and new thinking. Every connection made brings new possibilities to elevate your impact and drive meaningful change. To learn more, head over to insight222.com/program and join our group of global leaders.
And I think it's back to what you were talking about earlier as well, around there's an element of prioritisation. We had Dawn Klinghoffer, Head of People Analytics at Microsoft, on the show about September last year. And obviously, as you'd expect, Microsoft is one of the organisations where AI adoption is higher than most. Of course, you'd expect that. But it was interesting finding what they found, because they were studying adoption. They were trying to study employees that were thriving with some of these tools versus ones that were maybe struggling more. And they found that the people that were thriving with it were maybe prioritising and focusing on maybe two or three tools and becoming extremely proficient with those, and obviously being supported by learning and everything else to do that, rather than trying to spread themselves too thin and try and do all the 10, 12, 15, 20 tools that you can use. And it kind of makes a lot of sense, actually. And I'm just wondering, I don't know if you've seen that either within Go1 itself or with some of the organisations that you're working with.
[0:28:51] Chris Eigeland: Yeah, we've seen that both internally and with organisations. And the temptation will always be, because of the nature of the hype that's around this technology, it will be to feel like you're always behind and feel like you're not doing enough or not deploying the next best tool. But the reality is, yes, even though the tools are evolving quickly, they're evolving somewhat incrementally. So, you don't need to feel this pressure of needing to do everything. Actually, what you have to do is just pick one lane and just run at that for a period, and you'll learn pretty quickly the pros and cons of that particular tool or that particular skillset that you're now building. So, yeah, I think it's a symptom of the fact that there is a lot of hype and everyone feels the need to jump from tool to tool to tool. But actually, they're all incrementally better, not transformative.
[0:29:45] David Green: Yeah, and a wider question on that, Chris, from what you've seen with the organisations that you're working with, and again on this, please feel free to share any case studies or examples that you can, where are companies making real progress with AI upskilling, and where are they perhaps struggling a little bit more?
[0:30:02] Chris Eigeland: Yeah, so I think as you would expect, product and engineering and software teams are on the bleeding edge of it, as you would naturally expect. Even then, you still have to be very conscious of the change management and the skilling support, because there's a completely different way of working. So, you're still trying to support people, even though they are quite technically minded, in a pretty major transformation in how they work. So, it's not simple or easy, even for those that are deeply technical. Obviously, there are areas that I think are further ahead in the transformation. I think operational roles, HR and finance, is another area that I'm particularly really passionate about. I think there is a lot of tasks that people do within their role in those spaces that people don't enjoy, that they maybe spend two to three hours a week or two days a week doing, but don't really add value. They don't move the business impact forward. And so, that's another area where I have seen where businesses have invested in AI upskilling in some of those back office functions, they've gotten real benefits. So, I would absolutely also focus there.
Yeah, they are, I think, a couple of the areas that I've seen real tangible progress, but it does require time, prioritisation, that real leaning into the experimentation culture. Otherwise, it's likely it will fizzle and not make a difference.
[0:31:38] David Green: And again, I know you've done some research on this at Go1, and we've talked a little bit about some of the topics such as focus, prioritisation, having a strategy, for example. What are the companies that are making progress maybe doing differently to those that are making less progress?
[0:31:59] Chris Eigeland: So, maybe per a couple of the threads that we've spoken about. So, one is setting up the right culture. Second is, it has to be a key part of the overall strategy of the business, not just the HR strategy, not just the technology strategy, but it has to be in the top three, four pillars of the business, very clearly signalled. Leaders have to lead by example, which can be uncomfortable, because that requires us to all admit that actually, we don't really know how these tools work and those sorts of things all the time, because it's changing so fast. So, that can be uncomfortable. But the reality is that leaders need to lead by example.
But where I've seen that working well is actually, there's a massive opportunity for people managers to get extra leverage here, because these tools allow you to synthesise lots of different data points and detail from a variety of sources. So, previously, it was hard for you to get information from maybe one or two layers down in the business. Now, it's much easier. So, when you do lean in and are authentic and admitting when things are working, not working, there is a lot of leverage there, so as I say, modelled by the leaders. And you need to have very clear upskilling and training initiatives that both, I think, are self-paced and contextual, and also it's helpful for them to be collaborative, so people can share their wins and their losses and, "Hey, I fiddled with this", and, "Oh gosh, it did this, and I wasn't expecting that". That's all part of this journey because of the nature of the technology. And so, if you do all those things, then I think you're sort of off to the races, yeah.
[0:33:38] David Green: And obviously, one of the things that we always hear about learning is return on investment. And obviously, I'm sure you can tell me better than I can tell you that it's hard to show that. I mean, is that something that you get involved with helping your clients at Go1 to do? And if so, or even if not, what recommendations would you provide to maybe L&D leaders or other HR leaders that are listening to this around how they measure success? Because it's not just about money, is it? There's other things that you can measure as well.
[0:34:16] Chris Eigeland: No, absolutely. And so, this is the sort of challenge that has plagued L&D for decades of, how do you think about measuring success? And I think it is getting easier, which is encouraging. So, maybe if you went back a few years, still you would rely on the proxy of engagement. So, did people take this course? If yes, okay, we're being effective. And that's an okay proxy. There's nothing inherently wrong about it, but obviously it's not the most accurate. But if you pull apart a couple of the things we've been talking about, I think internal mobility is extremely important in this next phase. So, you think about, well, are more people being promoted internally than historically? How are they performing? There is, I think, also a really exciting opportunity to have much faster feedback loops than there was previously. I'm very passionate about the destruction of the quarterly or six-monthly performance review cycle. That does not need to be the case. And so, there is a much bigger opportunity now to provide faster task-based feedback, which can be augmented by sort of an AI tool, for example, one of our skills benchmarking tools. And that will help you get much faster feedback on, "Is someone's skills progressing?" than has ever been possible before. So, for internal channel mobility, you have an actual task-based view of skills improving. And then, you can cross-reference that against engagement and those sorts of things to then get a closer, I think, view of impact.
There is also impact for the L&D and HR leader though. And I want to be thoughtful about that as well, because yes, their role, the L&D and HR leader, is to support this organisation through this transition and deliver maximum impact. But their roles themselves are also undergoing massive change. So, you also need to think about how is the L&D and HR role evolving? And this is something I'm really passionate about because I very strongly believe that there is one to two days a week that L&D and HR leaders still spend, no matter your role specifics, on admin work, building matching compliance courses to the right requirement, building the compliance campaign, sending it out, following leaders up when their people don't do their training. All of that admin work, even with off-the-shelf LMS, I think is still very time-consuming. And so, you can see a world, and obviously we're building a world, where a lot of that admin stuff disappears, which then changes the nature of the L&D and HR roles. And I think that's also really exciting, because it's not just pressure to do more and deliver more impact. It's actually, how is the L&D role going to change? And then, that gives people the right leverage to then deliver that impact.
[0:37:15] David Green: So, we're kind of at a point, and this will only increase, where the technology can potentially take some of that burden -- compliance is a good example there -- off the shoulders of the L&D and HR functions. And maybe if I play on a little bit what you said earlier about Go1 as well, maybe L&D functions are becoming more product functions rather than --
[0:37:38] Chris Eigeland: I think so, I believe so. Yeah, I think that is absolutely the trajectory. So, one of our most recent builds is an L&D Copilot that has the goal of freeing up L&D manager time. And so, you think about all the administrative things that an L&D leader has to do, the goal of that Copilot is to get rid of them for you. And that's freeing up already hours for our L&D leaders per week. And we're still relatively early in the build, we only went live with it in January. And so, you can see a future where your Copilot takes care of a lot of those pieces. And then, your role becomes, how do you deliver -- I really like the language -- the best product to the organisation that meets people where they are, that provides the maximum impact and ultimately supports them in upskilling in, yeah, a really important moment in time, where no matter your role, you're going to have to be upskilled in AI-native systems, or whatever language you want to put around it.
[0:38:48] David Green: And that comes nicely back to your background in, I love the fact that you're the only person probably in Australia that's done theme park design as a qualification, but you link that to experience design. And surely, the more we go down the product road, L&D has to be a good experience, doesn't it?
[0:39:09] Chris Eigeland: It has to be. And again, it's one of those promises of the industry that I think hasn't really come true. But now, I think there is a very, very unique opportunity, with the right components, the right technology, to bring that to life. If you think about a theme park, it's like the ultimate experience, because it has to surround you at all sides. And in some ways, it's an ultimate learning experience as well. And so, you certainly think about a world where those principles are applied. It's sort of like it hits you on your emotional level, it builds a really engaging and memorable experience, it brings people together, it makes you feel connected. It's sort of personalised for you and builds on your interests. They're the same principles that I think will deliver truly exceptional and impactful L&D over the next one, two, three, four, five, six years.
[0:39:56] David Green: Right. A couple more questions, Chris. We're going to do one on governance, never the most exciting subject, but very important. And then, we'll look forward and look about guidance for CHROs and Heads of L&D. So, how should HR leaders or Heads of L&D, how should they think about governance as AI becomes more integrated into work?
[0:40:15] Chris Eigeland: Governance for the AI tools itself, or governance in terms of how an organisation might think about its policies and that in an AI-first world?
[0:40:25] David Green: Yeah, I think governance as it relates to probably more around L&D, but maybe some of the tools that the organisation's using as well.
[0:40:33] Chris Eigeland: Yeah, so I think I am a little bit more of a fan of, I'm not sure if you've read, No Rules Rules, which is the Netflix approach, which is you set very clear cultural guidelines, which reduces the necessity for overburden of governance and policies. And I think that that approach is only becoming more relevant because the reality is, what these AI tools will allow you to do is to deliver more. They'll increase your throughput and your delivery. There'll therefore be more decisions that people are making throughout their day. And so, you are going to have to place trust in your team arguably a lot more than before. And you can't police or govern every single little decision that people make, even if you wanted to. And so, I think governance in a sort of AI-native world, in any principle, not specifically of L&D, is more around clarity, cultural clarity, guardrails and clear accountability, and then allowing people freedom to move within it.
So, from an L&D perspective, I think you need to have a set amount of top-down, mandated, "This is really high-priority upskilling initiatives that are very set". And then, I do think you need to then take your foot off the brake, not really the right expression, but you need to give people some freedom to then explore what's important to them, because that freedom means that they'll sort of test their own limits and figure out where the gaps are and build that high-trust culture that I think is really important. So, you can't just mandate everything. You have to have a chunk of that, and then you need to give people space, supported, to then explore on their own term and times and interest areas.
[0:42:33] David Green: And then, last question, Chris. If you put yourself in the shoes of a CHRO listening to this or maybe a head of L&D as well, what would you advise that they prioritise over the next 12 to 18 months? Now, let's narrow that lens, otherwise it could be anything. Let's think about workforce development in the lens of learning and development.
[0:43:00] Chris Eigeland: You have to start at the leadership layer. Full stop, you have to start at the leadership layer. And the leadership has to be seen to be embracing the learning process of this new skillset. They have to be genuinely doing it and they have to be genuinely authentic in their journeys in doing so. There is so much value in, I think, the leadership being vulnerable, where they have made mistakes in this sort of transformation process and this re-skilling moment with AI, and where they've absolutely kicked goals. I think there is so much power there, because the employee group and the broader team will be feeling exactly the same thing. So, I think you have to start with the leadership layer, there is no question.
You have to have AI literacy embedded in every single role in the business, again, without question, every single role. And the nature of that should be role-specific with some common elements that run across it. So, you should have two or three sort of foundational AI literacy skillsets that run across the whole organisation. And then, from there, the rest should be contextual and role-specific. And then, you need to find a way to deliver that in a mix of mandated, very structured upskilling and freedom to explore, freedom to experiment kind of upskilling and learning opportunities. I think if you do that, you'll be in a pretty good position to then sort of embrace the next wave of change that will come.
[0:44:36] David Green: Really good. Chris, really enjoyed the conversation. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today and learning more about you, your background, and obviously what you're helping customers to do at Go1. How can listeners follow you and find out more about what you're doing at Go1?
[0:44:52] Chris Eigeland: Yeah, absolutely. So, I'm a fairly frequent LinkedIn poster, so you can follow by LinkedIn. The profile is just Chris Eigeland, and I focus on obviously learning and development and the changing nature of that in AI world, but also on the changing nature of organisational structures and dynamics and leadership principles in an AI-native world, two things that I'm really passionate about. And then, obviously, you can Go to go1.com, or follow the Go1 blog for some of our more structured research pieces that we release after speaking to our network of thousands of HR leaders.
[0:45:27] David Green: Great. And we'll put all the links in. It's really easy. It's Go1.com
[0:45:33] Chris Eigeland: Fairly straightforward!
[0:45:34] David Green: Go1.com. But we'll put that in the show notes as well. Really enjoyed the conversation today, Chris, and love what you're doing at Go1 with the team as well.
[0:45:43] Chris Eigeland: Great to speak, David. Thanks for having me.
[0:45:46] David Green: Thank you again, Chris, for joining me today to discuss the current and future state of workplace learning. For those of you listening, I'm curious, what stood out for you most from today's episode? I'd love to hear your thoughts. So, please head over to LinkedIn, find my post about this episode, and let me know what resonated with you. I always read the comments and love learning about the different perspectives in the field. And if this conversation got you thinking, please do subscribe to the podcast and pass it along to a colleague or friend who might benefit from hearing it too. It really does help us bring more of these conversations to you, HR professionals, across the world. If you want to stay in the loop with what we're working on at Insight222, follow us on LinkedIn or head to insight222.com. You can also sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter at myHRfuture to get the latest on HR, people analytics, workforce planning and everything shaping our field. Right, that's us for today. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week with another episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast. Until then, take care and stay well.