How LinkedIn Learning Helped Kellogg Advance Toward an Integrated Learning Culture

Kellogg Company Global Learning Director Thor Flosason has a vision to create a truly aspirational learning culture for Kellogg employees.

The platform that’s helping him transform that vision into reality? LinkedIn Learning.

Six months after launching the platform to 10,000+ employees, LinkedIn Learning is helping Flosason accomplish exactly what he hoped for: empower Kellogg employees to learn what they need, when they need it, and to overcome hurdles while growing their careers. And that’s helping Kellogg continue to build an aspirational learning culture.

“It’s been beyond expectations,” Flosason said. “It’s created a buzz. Overall, I’ve been thrilled with the excitement LinkedIn Learning has created.”

Kellogg’s 4 Stages to an Integrated Learning Culture

Flosason considers four stages in which to effectively impact Kellogg employees. The four stages are:

Implementing these stages, Kellogg’s goal is to continue to make steps toward Integrated Learning for all employees in the coming years.

Why Kellogg Invested in LinkedIn Learning: Accessibility and Content

In 2017, Kellogg launched a global learning management system (LMS), allowing the company to easily track and monitor their learning offerings – bringing them from the Ad Hoc Learning stage to the Formal Learning stage.

While this allowed the company to track the learning opportunities, it also proposed a challenge of how to update the courses being offered.

“The LMS is a shell,” Flosason said. “It didn’t come with content. We had a tool that helps you deploy content, but we needed content.” LinkedIn Learning became one of the primary tools to provide content.

Kellogg selected LinkedIn Learning for a few key reasons:

• The breadth, depth and quality of content. With more than 12,000 courses, LinkedIn Learning had the breadth and depth ­of content Kellogg needed. More importantly, the courses are effective and provide relevant training. “The quality of content really stood out for us and as we determined what would be best for our employees, we wanted to ensure the content would be compatible and effective to the work we’re doing,” Flosason said.
• The accessibility of the platform. With a mobile app and online courses split into short video segments, LinkedIn Learning empowers Kellogg employees to learn anytime, anywhere, and around their schedule.
• The tie-in to LinkedIn. An added bonus to the Kellogg Team is LinkedIn Learning’s tie to LinkedIn. It provides instant brand recognition to virtually all Kellogg employees – they can trust the content is world-class, and since many already use LinkedIn daily, LinkedIn Learning fits into their existing behavior. 

How Kellogg Drove Engagement of LinkedIn Learning: Marketing and Partnerships

In February, Kellogg launched LinkedIn Learning to all corporate employees across the globe. To drive platform engagement, Flosason needed to market LinkedIn Learning to all employees – a task he didn’t want to take on alone.

“In order to implement a successful program, we needed our business leaders across the globe to be invested and on-board, helping to emphasize the importance of LinkedIn Learning," he said. "I didn’t want this to be a strictly HR driven initiative.”

Before LinkedIn Learning launched to all employees, Flosason gave various leaders access to the system and ultimately creating advocates for the program. The leaders were featured when the learning team then developed a video for the LinkedIn Learning launch. 

That was just the start. Since, Flosason and Kellogg’s Global Learning Team highlighted LinkedIn Learning in the following ways:

• Continuing the #IGotThis campaign. Building off the video, Kellogg employees continue to post #IGotThis in Yammer, the company’s internal communication platform. Some of those posts include:
  • Just completed first course in LinkedIn learning... This is game-changing education. I’m better now in Excel than I was yesterday. Looking forward to the sales courses next! #igotthis
  • I just completed my first training in LinkedIn Learning. Easy, fast and fun! #igotthis
  • Very proud to be with a company that is helping its employees learn wherever and whenever its convenient for them. Great job to Thor and the entire HR and technology team that brought this to life! #igotthis!
• Prizes. To drive excitement around LinkedIn Learning, the team set up contests and prizes for people who engaged with the platform. For example, when it launched, all employees who completed a course within the first few weeks were eligible to be placed in a drawing for a free Amazon Echo. They gave away a free Amazon Echo by random draw to an employee who completed a course within the first few weeks.
• Launch event. For the initial launch, Kellogg held an all-hands on meeting where Flosason explained how and why to use LinkedIn Learning. Although optional, attendance was staggering – one of the better-attended launch sessions the company has ever seen.
• Friendly competition. If one department was seeing high usage of LinkedIn Learning, then Flosason would highlight that to a less engaged department at Kellogg. This also encouraged more departments to drive engagement of LinkedIn Learning.
• Most importantly, through partnerships. Flosason has continued to build relationships with business leaders and HR business partners to become LinkedIn Learning advocates. “Our intention and our hope was that our department leaders would embrace LinkedIn Learning and promote it,” he said. “And that was what happened, that was really the key.”

The Results: 125,000 Videos and Counting

In just six months, Kellogg employees have watched an astonishing 125,200 LinkedIn Learning videos and spent 6,403 hours learning on the platform.

According to Flosason, the employee reaction has been tremendous. Employees provided the following comments about LinkedIn Learning:

• “I was able to complete a Project Management certification on LinkedIn Learning, it was super effective and convenient.”
• “I’m learning about things that are impacting our business like digital transformation and data science.”
• “LinkedIn Learning is the first place I go to for inspiration and I love the feature to be able to sort by the amount of time I have available.”
• “Finally, I’m able to access the training that I need when I need it.”
• “I’m now taking courses on my commute to and from work. Love the efficiency!”

It’s also freed up the Global Learning Team to be more strategic. Before LinkedIn Learning, the team was constantly responding to requests from the business, trying to fill every learning need. LinkedIn Learning has eliminated a lot of that.

“It takes the pressure off, I’m no longer worried about all the requests we get,” he said. “Now, we can focus on other things because we have LinkedIn Learning in place. Ultimately, this is about our people’s learning and growth experiences, we care about their needs and are now better equipped to deliver against them.”

Most importantly though, it’s helping Kellogg transition to the Agile Learning Stage. Increasingly, Kellogg employees aren’t waiting for an in-person training to come to upskill themselves – they are using LinkedIn Learning to upskill in the moment and immediately improve themselves and the business.

“It’s only one tool in our belt,” Flosason said. “But it’s a critical component to building that aspiration of a true culture of learning.”