The skills gap is something many organizations have cited as a barrier to them achieving their strategic ambitions.  A recent partnership between Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning and online learning platform Degreed aims to help tackle the gap.

Alongside the launch of the partnership, the pair released the results of a survey showing that 85% of people are pretty confident in knowing the skills gaps they have, but many also highlighted that their employer needed to do a better job of understanding how these skill gaps hampered their ability to achieve their personal goals.

To help provide a more coordinated learning pathway, the partnership will collaborate on the next version of the Harvard ManageMentor Spark, which is a tool that supports the development of a personalized learning journey.

Personalized learning

“We are coming to a point where AI, data and automation will become table stakes in business, and success will be determined by how well talent is driving disruption and execution through increasing complexity and on a global scale,” said Ian Fanton, senior vice president and head of Corporate Learning, Harvard Business Publishing. “At Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning, we identified the need to bring our industry-leading content to a best-in-class solution, and this partnership with Degreed on our latest release of Harvard ManageMentor Spark allows us to accelerate the delivery of an unmatched learning experience.”

The partnership will provide users with high-quality resources in an on-demand, collaborative and social way.

Drawing on a variety of over 15,000 learning assets from Harvard Business School and Harvard Business Review, with new assets added daily, Harvard ManageMentor Spark enables organizations and learners to address current and emerging hot topics, such as authenticity, big data and analytics, design thinking, and digital transformation.

The solution provides learners with daily learning feeds focused on their own interests—as well as the interests of those they follow—and the ability to join groups and make their own recommendations, while also giving L&D leaders opportunities to help them master skills through curated pathways. Predefined and customizable learning pathways can be personalized to address key business issues, providing the organization the ability to pinpoint specific skills and areas for growth.