How YouTube inspired The Floow's L&D strategy

‘You have to be odd to be number one' - These words from Dr Seuss sum up the rapid innovation that technology has delivered over the past year or so. For example, Amazon has plans to open an air traffic control system for its delivery drones, Domino’s is trialling robots to deliver their pizzas and the traditional skyline office space is being replaced by coffee shops. But how can technology really be harnessed to add value to workforces?

Michelle Futter, HR Director at The Floow, explains that whilst technology has a role to play in the learning and development sphere, she believes that it is more useful in tracking development needs, than it is in the identification of requirements. “We favour the human touch when it comes to debating and deciding on areas to be addressed,” she says.

Whilst technology can of course, aid learning, “organisations really must pay close attention to the ways in which their teams prefer to learn,” Futter continues. “I'm not really talking about the traditional learning style questionnaires, this is more about learning channels taking into account their working habits and social preferences.

“We are a technology business so standard e-learning would seem like an obvious choice, however, by taking the time out to ask the right questions, we found that our colleagues were investing huge amounts of their own time developing their technical skills with the help of YouTube tutorials.