Estée Lauder Companies is partnering with LinkedIn’s online education platform, LinkedIn Learning, in an effort to guide corporate employees through rapid, digitally driven job change.
The beauty company first tested a soft launch in March with LinkedIn Learning, which features over 12,000 courses from subject-matter experts and educational institutions on topics like business, the arts and technical fields. Since then, 5,800 company employees across all Estée Lauder brands viewed courses on LinkedIn Learning. The most popular courses for the company were in leadership, data and analytics, and digital marketing, according to Estée Lauder.
Investing in employee education has been an ongoing effort of Estée Lauder’s: Before launching the LinkedIn Learning program, the company tested an augmented reality app that could train sales associates globally. By offering employees access to continual learning opportunities, the company is not only demonstrating an interest in employee growth and engagement, but also facilitating improvements in employee performance, which can in turn increase the company’s revenue.
“With the [advanced]-skill demand in the workforce overall, people understand the sense of urgency in keeping themselves skilled for what’s to come,” said Alyson DeMaso, the company’s vp of global learning and capability building. “We want to make sure we keep our employees engaged, knowledgeable and skilled in areas they need it most.”
Estée Lauder formed the partnership after noticing that roughly 900 employees were already using LinkedIn Learning on their own. Since the launch, the company has had one of the highest activation rates of any LinkedIn Learning partner across all industries, according to the company. Collectively, employees watched over 54,000 videos across 1,600 courses to date, and about 60 percent of users have been young people in entry-level positions to mid-level managers, DeMaso said. According to Deloitte Consulting, fewer than four in 10 millennials and three in 10 in Gen Z who are currently in the workforce believe they are fully prepared and have all the skills and knowledge they will need for the future workplace.
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Estée Lauder purchased a corporate subscription for the company and informed employees through its internal communication channels that they can sign up for free using their corporate email. The content is created by educational institutions and subject-matter experts; LinkedIn Learning was launched folllowing the acquisition of Lynda.com and does not allow Estée Lauder to create its own content, DeMaso said. Additionally, the brand said it hopes all of its full-time office employees will participate in the partnership, but that the educational courses are not a requirement for anyone. Because the individual educational content is short — typically between three and five minutes — Estée Lauder is hoping it can fit into an employee’s schedule when they are commuting or running errands, DeMaso said.
“Work is fast-paced, and people don’t have time to break away and learn, so we want learning to be a seamless part of everyone’s day,” she said.
Following the initial level of interest from employees, Estée Lauder is looking at how to measure the success of its partnership. For now, the company is looking at the number of employees who sign up for LinkedIn Learning, DeMaso said. But, moving forward, the company will track how often employees watch videos, listen to recordings or read content, and overall how many courses are completed. Additionally, the company is interested in the ability to curate their own courses by cherry-picking content, which can be adapted to individual teams and their specific projects or developments, she said.
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“We understand that in order to achieve success, we have to remain highly skilled within the area and trends we are seeing emerge. This is our first step in creating a resource for self-led learning.”
