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Assessments: Identifying High-Potential Employees

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Assessments: Identifying High-Potential Employees

It is a truth universally acknowledged that organisations must invest in their people to enable growth.

Identifying and upskilling future leaders is central to achieving this.

According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report, organisations that fully embrace career-driven learning – just 36% of companies – are outpacing their peers in profitability, talent retention, and leadership development. It is important to be able to identify and upskill employees who are willing to take your organisation to the next level. These employees, when given the right opportunities, will flourish in leadership roles, thus putting your company ahead of the competition.

However, there is a challenge that may be faced. Just because a person excels in their current role doesn’t mean they will be a great leader in the future. High performance in a role doesn’t automatically translate into strong leadership potential. While great managers are often good performers, the skills that make someone excel in their job, like technical expertise or individual achievement, are not the same as those required for effective leadership, such as emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and the ability to develop others.

Organisations should evaluate leadership competencies separately from performance metrics. By doing so, they can identify leadership talent across the entire workforce, not just among high achievers, and build a stronger, more balanced leadership pipeline.

What Makes an Employee “High-Potential”?

Prior to implementing these strategies, it is imperative to understand what your organisation considers to be “high-potential”.

According to a 2024 Harvard Business Review study, most organisations identify high-potential employees by three key characteristics:

  • Ability: Skills, knowledge, and potential for leadership, including vision, creativity, and learning agility.
  • Drive: Motivation, ambition, and work ethic to take on more responsibility and grow within the organisation.
  • Social Skills: Emotional intelligence, relationship-building, resilience under pressure, and alignment with company values.

High-potential employees are not just top performers; in fact, in some cases, they may not be high performers in their current role. These individuals are quick thinkers, problem solvers, and fast learners who do not shy away from difficult tasks. They are also strong communicators, proactive, comfortable with change, and excel when dealing with complexity and ambiguity.

Data is Essential for Identifying Leadership Qualities

Assessments allow employers to identify in their team members the qualities that are needed for leadership success. Unlike informal assessments or biased managerial decisions, these assessments are data-driven and offer insights into areas that are imperative for long-term success and organisational growth.

Here’s how organisations can get the most out of the various types of assessments to identify future leaders:

1. Critical Thinking Assessments

These assessments evaluate an employee’s ability to:

  • Analyse data
  • Solve problems
  • Critical thinking skills

Leadership roles often require that the person be able to manage the unknown, be able to make good decisions and be at the forefront of cutting-edge technology. Cognitive assessments measure whether a person is able to think critically and under pressure.

2. Personality and Behavioural Assessments

Understanding how someone behaves under pressure, works with others, or makes decisions is a key element in leadership development.

Popular tools assess:

  • Emotional intelligence
  • Risk tolerance
  • Communication style
  • Resilience
  • Leadership motivation

These insights help businesses identify who can lead with empathy, stay calm under pressure, and build high-functioning teams.

3. Leadership Competency Assessments

Leadership-focused tools measure specific competencies relevant to your organisation, such as:

  • Strategic vision
  • Influence and negotiation
  • People management
  • Ethical judgment
  • Change management

By comparing employee results to industry benchmarks or internal success profiles, companies can better predict who is likely to succeed in leadership roles.

Why Smaller Organisations Can’t Afford to Get Talent Decisions Wrong

The Case for Assessment-Driven Talent Identification

In large organisations, a poor leadership decision can often be absorbed. In smaller businesses, the ripple effects are far more immediate, impacting culture, revenue, productivity, morale, and attrition. That’s why incorporating assessments into your HR and talent strategies isn’t just beneficial – it’s vital.

Here’s how assessments deliver outsized value in smaller teams:

1. Objective Decision-Making

In leaner teams, subjectivity in hiring or promotion decisions can lead to costly misalignment. Assessments provide a consistent, bias-resistant framework that ensures talent decisions are based on skills, potential, and fit, not assumptions.

2. Stronger Succession Planning

Leadership gaps in smaller organisations can cause serious disruption. Assessments help identify who’s ready to step up and who’s aligned with the company’s values and strategic direction, allowing you to plan ahead, not react in crisis.

3. Smarter Development Investments

Smaller organisations often have limited L&D budgets. Assessments ensure those resources are used strategically by tailoring development plans to each employee’s real needs, maximising ROI, and avoiding wasted time or spend.

4. Improved Retention of Key Talent

Top performers want clarity, challenge, and growth. Assessment-backed development pathways show your best people they’re seen, valued, and invested in, boosting engagement and lowering the risk of costly turnover.

Utilising Assessments Effectively in Your Organisation

For these assessments to truly be effective, organisations should treat them as a critical component of an integrated talent strategy. Here are the best practices to guide your use of assessments:

1. Ensure That Assessments Align With Organisational Goals

What does leadership look like for your organisation? Do your future leaders need to be great at wearing different hats? Critical thinkers? Thrive under pressurised decision-making?

Think also of the culture you have today, and how you want it to develop over time. Workplace personality assessments will help you identify the non-competency based traits that are desirable in those caretaking your organisation’s identity.

Once clear, select assessment tools that measure those exact qualities.

2. Combine With Other Performance Data

Assessment insights should complement – not replace – existing performance metrics such as manager feedback and employee self-evaluations. A holistic view leads to stronger, more defensible talent decisions.

3. Incorporate into a Leadership Development Program

Assessment results are most effective when they lead to action. Use these insights to shape a Leadership Development Program by providing personalised feedback, assigning targeted courses to address skill gaps, and offering mentoring or leadership opportunities. Notably, 86% of companies with structured soft-skills development programs can respond rapidly to unpredictable business environments

4. Evaluate and Iterate

The organisational landscape is ever changing – and so should your assessment approach. You should review the effectiveness of your tools to ensure that they still meet your organisation’s needs. Are they helping your team reach development milestones? Do your assessments still align with leadership success within the organisation?

How Top Companies Use Assessments

Organisations across various industries are seeing real ROI from assessment-driven strategies:

  • PepsiCo implemented psychometric testing to identify future general managers and reduced external leadership hires by 40%.
  • Nestlé uses a combination of 360-degree feedback, cognitive assessments, and leadership simulations to empower future leaders.
  • Unilever overhauled its graduate program with AI-driven assessments, increasing diversity and hiring quality simultaneously.

How Alison Can Support Your Leadership Development Strategy

Alison’s LMS+ includes a Psychometrics Assessment Suite, which includes:

Aptitude Tests

These cover three major areas: numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning and abstract reasoning. These focus areas were designed to ensure that a person’s skills are fully evaluated: problem solving, comprehension and analytical skills.

Workplace Personality Assessments

Personality assessments make it easier to understand their behavioural traits, communication styles, and what motivates them to ensure your teams are always on top of their game.

English Language Test

For companies wanting to hire remote staff from around the world, infiltrating new markets, or managing multicultural teams, English proficiency may be a key competency to look for.

Once you’ve gathered this data, we offer a wide range of free online courses that assist leadership development at every stage – from foundational soft skills to advanced management skills. Organisations can use Alison’s LMS+ to:

  • Upskill high-potential employees based on their assessment outcomes
  • Offer ongoing learning pathways for emerging leaders
  • Measure the team’s progress with group management tools

Our learning ecosystem works in unison with assessment frameworks, making it easy to provide personalised development at scale. Once a team member’s results are in, all you need to do is select from the course recommendations provided to create a customised learning plan for their specific needs.

Some of our most popular leadership-focused courses include:

With Alison in your corner, you can empower your workforce with the skills and knowledge they need to turn potential into performance – even without a hefty training budget.

It is imperative that you recognise and develop future leaders. Having the right assessment tools in place is one sure way that organisations can cut through the guesswork and bias, identify hidden talent, and make calculated decisions that build long-term value.

Assessments that are paired with an accessible, skills-based learning platform like Alison become a launchpad for leadership success.

Ready to build and upskill your future leadership? Explore Alison’s LMS+ with over 5,500+ courses today and start investing in your high-potential employees.

 

How Professor Kendall Farnham Brings Hardware to Life in Dartmouth’s Online MEng in Computer Engineering

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How Professor Kendall Farnham Brings Hardware to Life in Dartmouth’s Online MEng in Computer Engineering

When Professor Kendall Farnham agreed to teach in the online Master of Engineering in Computer Engineering at Dartmouth, she knew it wouldn’t be easy.

“How do we facilitate learning with desktop hardware when I can’t look over your shoulder and tell you that you plugged something in backwards and that’s why it’s smoking?” she laughs.

But for Farnham, the challenge wasn’t a deterrent, it was an opportunity. Her mission: Make the online experience for hardware as compelling and hands-on as the in-person version. It’s the kind of creative, determined energy that defines both the program and her philosophy of engineering education.

From Software to Hardware, and Back Again

Farnham’s path back to Dartmouth (where she earned her undergraduate engineering degree) was anything but conventional. She started in software sales at SAP but quickly realized she was on the wrong track. “Sales was not for me,” she says. So she pivoted to software engineering despite not having a formal software background. “I think like a computer,” she says, simply.

After three and a half years as a software engineer, a fateful recruitment trip to Dartmouth pivoted her path entirely. A conversation with engineering professor Petra Bonfert-Taylor sparked the idea of graduate school. “She told me, ‘You’re getting kind of old,’” Farnham jokes. “I didn’t realize I was an ancient fossil at 26, but it was honestly life-changing.”

She returned for a PhD, earned a NASA fellowship, and built a medical system on an FPGA (field-programmable gate array). And when she realized Dartmouth didn’t offer graduate-level FPGA courses? She built one. “I told my advisor that this type of course was missing, and they said, ‘Great, go teach it.’” 

That mindset and personal motto, “Learn it, teach it, break it, fix it,” has come to define her teaching style.

Teaching Hardware Online: Breaking and Building, Together

Having just defended her PhD in February 2024, Farnham was eager to jump into the new challenge of academia, a path she never thought she’d take. However, when told that the course would be taught online, she had an initial moment of panic. She thought: “That’s impossible. Hardware is so hard! How are we going to do this online?”

She was determined to figure out how to bring the hands-on aspects of in-person learning to an online setting. Her approach to online teaching became deeply rooted in trial, error, and collaboration. “My teaching style is: teach 20 to 30 minutes, then do it. And if you do it and fail, you’ll learn.” So, bringing that through in an online setting was her mission.

Farnham understands that not everyone learns the same way and is passionate about making sure her teaching methods are engaging and clear. She records videos showing not just the what, but the why and how: 

“I say to myself, this is how I think about the problem, this is the logical flow. Your flow might look different, but here’s my methodology.” 

Collaboration in an Online Setting

So, how do you bring that iterative, hands-on energy to an online setting?

“I used Slack to pretend we’re in a computer lab,” she explains. “Screenshots, threads, and questions all worked really well. Nothing is a stupid question, and the students help each other out a lot.”

Despite being officially asynchronous, each online Dartmouth course also makes a point of having two optional synchronous sessions each week. For Farnham’s FPGA course, these were widely popular.

For the hardware courses in the curriculum, Dartmouth also ships physical kits to each student’s home, so that the learning can be truly hands-on.

In her instruction, Farnham combines documentation, hardware-cam demos, whiteboard explanations, and even efforts to gamify some of the content. “Basically, I think about how I can give you this information in every possible way. Whatever clicks for you, clicks.”

Having been a recent student herself, she is also immensely meticulous about the type of material she provides to her students.

“I’ll record an instructional video and always watch it back. If I’m bored watching it, I’ll re-record it and try to find ways to make it more interesting. If I don’t want to watch it, why would you want to?”

The Dartmouth Difference: Learning to Learn

What makes Dartmouth’s online MEng in Computer Engineering so powerful, Farnham says, isn’t just the content. It’s the mindset.

“The truth is, tech is changing so quickly. What you learn today as the gold standard might not be the standard in 12 months. We teach you how to learn, and how to keep learning.”

From hands-on FPGAs to the concepts of machine vision, the program’s projects tie directly to real-world industry challenges. “In the FPGA course, we’ve had learners apply their project directly to their job. That’s the goal: make it tangible.” The coursework is designed to have use cases across a multitude of industries. 

Now embarking on her new machine vision course, she takes students through weekly case studies across fields like underwater robotics, agriculture, and aerospace. “The Mars Rover was built on an FPGA. You start with a camera and ask: How do you communicate the data? What are the mechanical challenges? You can plug this into any industry.” 

Her goal is for each student to be an effective learner and communicator. “You can be a really smart engineer, but if you can’t communicate your design, you might as well not be an engineer. Engineering affects everything; you cannot work in a silo.”

Advice for Future Engineers: Be Curious. Take Risks.

Farnham never expected to become a professor. “I needed a change at work and wanted to expand into hardware. I know tons of people who have totally pivoted their careers because they learned something new, and that’s what I did,” she says. But now she’s a Dartmouth “lifer” and passionate about expanding access to engineering education.

“If you’re curious about what else is out there beyond your immediate bubble, go explore,” she says. “If you’re thinking about grad school and not sure why, but something’s pulling you, try it. What do you have to lose?”

Her advice? Be open. Stay adaptable. “Planning is good, but don’t tie yourself to the plan. You might learn something new and pivot. That’s what engineering is. It’s problem solving, rethinking, and iterating. Just like life.”

Ready to take the next step? 

If you’re curious, ambitious, and eager to understand how things work and how to make them better through intelligent systems, Dartmouth’s online Master of Engineering in Computer Engineering might be your next step. With professors like Kendall Farnham leading the way, you won’t just learn hardware. You’ll learn how to learn, think, and communicate, 100% online, hands-on, and head-first into the future.

How To Use Data To Support and Upskill Underperformers

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How To Use Data To Support and Upskill Underperformers

Underperformance isn’t always about employees being lazy or unable to do their jobs. It can also be a misalignment in skills vs role, poor awareness of the company’s vision, lack of confidence in their abilities, or feelings of disengagement.

If we dig deeper again, too often we’ll find that underperformance is actually rooted in the person being unsure of how to make an impact in the business using the skills they possess.

This is why assessing aptitude, personality traits, and competencies is important in both onboarding and ongoing employee performance. It helps employers spot the gaps early on, so they can address them before they impact the business.

The most effective HR and L&D teams use the data gained from assessments to screen potential candidates, and to support and upskill their current workforce. With the right help, underperformance is a solvable puzzle which improves retention, morale, productivity and effectiveness – instead of a needless dead end.

Why Psychometric Data Beats Guesswork

Traditional ways of handling employee underperformance often depend on a manager’s personal judgment and observations. This can lead to generic solutions like performance improvement plans (PIPs) that only react to problems after they appear. Without solid data, it’s easy for bias to slip in, and even experienced managers may struggle to figure out the real reason behind low performance. For example, missing project deadlines could be due to poor communication, unclear goals, lack of resilience, or gaps in technical skills.

Psychometric data offers a much clearer and fairer approach. By using different types of assessments, you can get specific insights into what each employee needs to succeed. Aptitude tests measure problem-solving and reasoning skills, showing if someone needs support in analytical or technical areas. Workplace assessments look at personality traits and work styles, helping to spot issues like teamwork, motivation, or adaptability. English language tests highlight whether a communication barrier may be holding someone back.

With these insights, managers and HR teams can create targeted development plans. For instance, if a sales representative is struggling to close deals, the right test might show they need negotiation training, rather than just more pressure. Or, if an admin assistant is making frequent mistakes, their results might point to the need for a refresher on digital tools or business English, instead of general training.

The benefits are clear. Even research shows that organisations using psychometric assessments see up to a 20% increase in employee performance and a 30% reduction in turnover rates. (Source: Vorecol).

PIPs Punish Poor Performance. Training Improves Upon It.

In many companies, the underperformer is a label that tends to stick, and may hurt the employee’s confidence, self-esteem or belief that they can achieve better results. However, when assessments are carried out, they uncover how the individual can be supported instead of blamed.

The data derived forms a roadmap to guide the areas for development for an individual, enabling them with a pathway to reach their career goals within the company.

This improves the employee’s performance whilst also building a relationship of trust between the “underperformer” and the company. Employees feel seen, appreciated and supported instead of feeling isolated and fearful for their continued employment. They will be more willing to engage with a training plan that is tailored to them, and they will see the company’s investment in them at a personal level.

For managers, having data like this at hand avoids uncomfortable conversations by making the discussion about results and next steps, instead of opinions and observations. It is also key to building a company culture where upskilling is ongoing and underperformance is not treated as a stumbling block, but rather a challenge to be overcome.

HR teams may also find that the data-driven approach is enlightening in unexpected ways. Previously unknown skills, untapped aptitude, and desirable traits can be uncovered through the process. Is this person in the right company, but in the wrong role? Might this employee respond better to an alternative management style? Could this individual have previously unidentified potential? Data is the beginning of uncovering how best to utilise talent.

Data-driven Talent strategies Are for SMEs Too

No matter the size or sector of your organisation, whether you’re a small business, a growing SME, a non-profit, a government agency, or a large enterprise-making smart decisions about your people is crucial for long-term success. For SMEs, particularly, every hiring and development decision carries significant weight. That’s why data-driven talent strategies are not just for large corporations, they are essential for SMEs as well.

By leveraging objective data and assessments, organisations can make better hiring decisions from the outset, quickly identify areas for improvement, and create targeted development plans. Data-driven assessments add value throughout the employee lifecycle: from onboarding and training, to ongoing development and succession planning. They also help build critical skills internally- skills that may be difficult or costly to hire for, especially for smaller teams.

One of the key advantages of using these assessments is that organisations don’t need large HR or L&D teams to make informed, strategic decisions. With the right tools, any organisation can access powerful insights that were once available only to big corporations. This is where tools like Psychometric Assessments play a vital role.

The tools provided on Alison’s platform provide organisation with easy access to powerful data-driven insights and practical training solutions that make hiring simple. It also streamlines onboarding, and supports continuous employee development. With LMS+, businesses can rest assured that every team member is working toward the same goal – maximising productivity while keeping costs down.

With the right tools, even small teams can operate with efficiency, effectiveness and profitability.

Data-Driven Performance Management with LMS+

HR and L&D professionals and team managers can now use Alison’s LMS+ to gain data-driven insight into their employees’ performance via its integrated Psychometrics Assessment Suite, which includes:

Aptitude Tests

Via numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning and abstract reasoning tests, leaders can assess everything from problem solving to comprehension to analytical skills.

Workplace Personality Assessments

Personality assessments make it easier to understand the employees behavioural traits, communication styles, and what motivates them to ensure your teams are always on top of their game.

English Language Test

For companies managing remote staff from around the world, with multi-markets presence, and/or multicultural teams, English proficiency may be a key competency to develop.

Once you’ve gathered this data, the LMS+ platform works in unison with assessment frameworks, making it easy to provide personalised development at scale. Now a team member’s results are in, all you need to do is select from the course recommendations provided

With Alison in your corner, you can empower your workforce with the skills and knowledge they need to turn under performance into potential – even without a hefty training budget.

Assessments that are paired with an accessible, skills-based learning platform like Alison become a launchpad for improved employee performance management outcomes.

Bottom Line? Underperformance isn’t a Dead End

Poor employee performance is a challenge that needs to be addressed with the right tools. Identifying the need for this data is a step in the right direction, as it becomes a starting point for growth.

Alison’s LMS+ platform reduces the time, guesswork, and work needed to uncover performance gaps and respond with targeted, effective upskilling. It is designed for teams who want more than guesswork.

Why should you settle for vague performance reviews and blanket training? With Alison, you can get the data you need and the capability to act upon it.

Ready to transform your L&D function from reactive to proactive? Set up a quick demo to see how quickly you can adopt a data-led approach to training.

 

How Assessments Help Organisations Identify High-Potential Employees and Future Leaders

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onlinefreecourse
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How Assessments Help Organisations Identify High-Potential Employees and Future Leaders

It is a truth universally acknowledged that organisations must invest in their people to enable growth.

Identifying and upskilling future leaders is central to achieving this.

According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report, organisations that fully embrace career-driven learning – just 36% of companies – are outpacing their peers in profitability, talent retention, and leadership development. It is important to be able to identify and upskill employees who are willing to take your organisation to the next level. These employees, when given the right opportunities, will flourish in leadership roles, thus putting your company ahead of the competition.

However, there is a challenge that may be faced. Just because a person excels in their current role doesn’t mean they will be a great leader in the future. High performance in a role doesn’t automatically translate into strong leadership potential. While great managers are often good performers, the skills that make someone excel in their job, like technical expertise or individual achievement, are not the same as those required for effective leadership, such as emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and the ability to develop others.

Organisations should evaluate leadership competencies separately from performance metrics. By doing so, they can identify leadership talent across the entire workforce, not just among high achievers, and build a stronger, more balanced leadership pipeline.

What Makes an Employee “High-Potential”?

Prior to implementing these strategies, it is imperative to understand what your organisation considers to be “high-potential”.

According to a 2024 Harvard Business Review study, most organisations identify high-potential employees by three key characteristics:

  • Ability: Skills, knowledge, and potential for leadership, including vision, creativity, and learning agility.
  • Drive: Motivation, ambition, and work ethic to take on more responsibility and grow within the organisation.
  • Social Skills: Emotional intelligence, relationship-building, resilience under pressure, and alignment with company values.

High-potential employees are not just top performers; in fact, in some cases, they may not be high performers in their current role. These individuals are quick thinkers, problem solvers, and fast learners who do not shy away from difficult tasks. They are also strong communicators, proactive, comfortable with change, and excel when dealing with complexity and ambiguity.

Data is Essential for Identifying Leadership Qualities

Assessments allow employers to identify in their team members the qualities that are needed for leadership success. Unlike informal assessments or biased managerial decisions, these assessments are data-driven and offer insights into areas that are imperative for long-term success and organisational growth.

Here’s how organisations can get the most out of the various types of assessments to identify future leaders:

1. Critical Thinking Assessments

These assessments evaluate an employee’s ability to:

  • Analyse data
  • Solve problems
  • Critical thinking skills

Leadership roles often require that the person be able to manage the unknown, be able to make good decisions and be at the forefront of cutting-edge technology. Cognitive assessments measure whether a person is able to think critically and under pressure.

2. Personality and Behavioural Assessments

Understanding how someone behaves under pressure, works with others, or makes decisions is a key element in leadership development.

Popular tools assess:

  • Emotional intelligence
  • Risk tolerance
  • Communication style
  • Resilience
  • Leadership motivation

These insights help businesses identify who can lead with empathy, stay calm under pressure, and build high-functioning teams.

3. Leadership Competency Assessments

Leadership-focused tools measure specific competencies relevant to your organisation, such as:

  • Strategic vision
  • Influence and negotiation
  • People management
  • Ethical judgment
  • Change management

By comparing employee results to industry benchmarks or internal success profiles, companies can better predict who is likely to succeed in leadership roles.

Why Smaller Organisations Can’t Afford to Get Talent Decisions Wrong

The Case for Assessment-Driven Talent Identification

In large organisations, a poor leadership decision can often be absorbed. In smaller businesses, the ripple effects are far more immediate, impacting culture, revenue, productivity, morale, and attrition. That’s why incorporating assessments into your HR and talent strategies isn’t just beneficial – it’s vital.

Here’s how assessments deliver outsized value in smaller teams:

1. Objective Decision-Making

In leaner teams, subjectivity in hiring or promotion decisions can lead to costly misalignment. Assessments provide a consistent, bias-resistant framework that ensures talent decisions are based on skills, potential, and fit, not assumptions.

2. Stronger Succession Planning

Leadership gaps in smaller organisations can cause serious disruption. Assessments help identify who’s ready to step up and who’s aligned with the company’s values and strategic direction, allowing you to plan ahead, not react in crisis.

3. Smarter Development Investments

Smaller organisations often have limited L&D budgets. Assessments ensure those resources are used strategically by tailoring development plans to each employee’s real needs, maximising ROI, and avoiding wasted time or spend.

4. Improved Retention of Key Talent

Top performers want clarity, challenge, and growth. Assessment-backed development pathways show your best people they’re seen, valued, and invested in, boosting engagement and lowering the risk of costly turnover.

Utilising Assessments Effectively in Your Organisation

For these assessments to truly be effective, organisations should treat them as a critical component of an integrated talent strategy. Here are the best practices to guide your use of assessments:

1. Ensure That Assessments Align With Organisational Goals

What does leadership look like for your organisation? Do your future leaders need to be great at wearing different hats? Critical thinkers? Thrive under pressurised decision-making?

Think also of the culture you have today, and how you want it to develop over time. Workplace personality assessments will help you identify the non-competency based traits that are desirable in those caretaking your organisation’s identity.

Once clear, select assessment tools that measure those exact qualities.

2. Combine With Other Performance Data

Assessment insights should complement – not replace – existing performance metrics such as manager feedback and employee self-evaluations. A holistic view leads to stronger, more defensible talent decisions.

3. Incorporate into a Leadership Development Program

Assessment results are most effective when they lead to action. Use these insights to shape a Leadership Development Program by providing personalised feedback, assigning targeted courses to address skill gaps, and offering mentoring or leadership opportunities. Notably, 86% of companies with structured soft-skills development programs can respond rapidly to unpredictable business environments

4. Evaluate and Iterate

The organisational landscape is ever changing – and so should your assessment approach. You should review the effectiveness of your tools to ensure that they still meet your organisation’s needs. Are they helping your team reach development milestones? Do your assessments still align with leadership success within the organisation?

How Top Companies Use Assessments

Organisations across various industries are seeing real ROI from assessment-driven strategies:

  • PepsiCo implemented psychometric testing to identify future general managers and reduced external leadership hires by 40%.
  • Nestlé uses a combination of 360-degree feedback, cognitive assessments, and leadership simulations to empower future leaders.
  • Unilever overhauled its graduate program with AI-driven assessments, increasing diversity and hiring quality simultaneously.

How Alison Can Support Your Leadership Development Strategy

Alison’s LMS+ includes a Psychometrics Assessment Suite, which includes:

Aptitude Tests

These cover three major areas: numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning and abstract reasoning. These focus areas were designed to ensure that a person’s skills are fully evaluated: problem solving, comprehension and analytical skills.

Workplace Personality Assessments

Personality assessments make it easier to understand their behavioural traits, communication styles, and what motivates them to ensure your teams are always on top of their game.

English Language Test

For companies wanting to hire remote staff from around the world, infiltrating new markets, or managing multicultural teams, English proficiency may be a key competency to look for.

Once you’ve gathered this data, we offer a wide range of free online courses that assist leadership development at every stage – from foundational soft skills to advanced management skills. Organisations can use Alison’s LMS+ to:

  • Upskill high-potential employees based on their assessment outcomes
  • Offer ongoing learning pathways for emerging leaders
  • Measure the team’s progress with group management tools

Our learning ecosystem works in unison with assessment frameworks, making it easy to provide personalised development at scale. Once a team member’s results are in, all you need to do is select from the course recommendations provided to create a customised learning plan for their specific needs.

Some of our most popular leadership-focused courses include:

With Alison in your corner, you can empower your workforce with the skills and knowledge they need to turn potential into performance – even without a hefty training budget.

It is imperative that you recognise and develop future leaders. Having the right assessment tools in place is one sure way that organisations can cut through the guesswork and bias, identify hidden talent, and make calculated decisions that build long-term value.

Assessments that are paired with an accessible, skills-based learning platform like Alison become a launchpad for leadership success.

Ready to build and upskill your future leadership? Explore Alison’s LMS+ with over 5,500+ courses today and start investing in your high-potential employees.

 

From Coursework to Career Impact: How Tom Fail Turns Gies iMBA Coursework into Real World Results

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From Coursework to Career Impact: How Tom Fail Turns Gies iMBA Coursework into Real World Results

Tom Fail’s journey through higher education is deeply personal and rooted in a clear sense of purpose. With two degrees already under his belt and a successful career in Ed Tech, Tom explains why he made the decision to pursue his third degree credential. 

His story explains his personal connection to higher education and how the online iMBA from Gies College of Business program has been a key part of that. From online coursework to in-person networking, Tom is ready to graduate this August and couldn’t be happier with his decision to enroll with Gies. 

“With this program, you get to blend the benefits of networking and having a hands-on experience that you’d get from an in-person program, with the flexibility of an online program. That said, it wasn’t easy. Like I’ve told my wife, this is something I’m actually very proud of. I could have quit 50 times, but I didn’t, and I’m really happy I didn’t.” 

A Lifelong Belief in the Power of Higher Education

Tom Fail is a lifelong learner with a deep sense of the value higher education can bring. Admittedly not the best student in high school, Tom kicked things into gear upon entering his first higher education experience.

“Growing up, I saw the need to go to college and figure out what you want to do with your life. My parents did a lot for me, the best that they could, to allow my sister and I to go to college, so once I was in college, I knew that my parents had worked their whole lives so that I could do this. I thought to myself, ‘I can’t mess this up.”

After proudly completing an economics undergraduate degree and graduating with a master’s in management, Tom entered the workforce, embarking on careers with, as he says, “some of the least enjoyable organizations that exist: the IRS, the US Senate, and a student loan agency.” Eventually, Tom found his footing in ed-tech and has yet to look back. 

“I wanted to have a career that was purpose-driven, so that I could actually have an impact on people’s lives.” 

So, why, with all of his business experience and now a career he was impassioned about, did Tom decide to pursue another master’s degree? 

“When I got my first degree, I hadn’t yet had any real-world experience. It’s really important to understand the inner workings of your business: the way the business model works, finance, marketing, and being able to understand the concrete ways the business grows. It’s cliche to say, but I wanted to blend academic rigor and understanding into my specific role now.” 

Seeking out Relevant Means of Upskilling

Not originally seeking another full degree program, Tom searched on Coursera for ways to upskill his management style. With two new direct reports, he wanted to refine his skillset and make sure his leadership toolkit was up to snuff. 

“The first course that I took was because I had two teammates reporting to me, and I wanted to brush up on leadership skills. Managing Teams by Illinois was one of the best ones I found to help me figure out how I wanted to show up as a leader. This course actually stacks into the iMBA, and it was my first exposure to degree material.”

The iMBA program came as a natural next step, given that the courses he was taking actually counted towards the full degree.

“It was a great first experience, and that first course hooked me into the degree. I took that course, loved it, and figured that was probably a good starting point for what the online degree would be.” 

The Flexibility to Balance Life, Work, and Learning

With a full-time job and other personal commitments, he knew a traditional, on-campus MBA wouldn’t fit his life. Managing the workload was a challenge, but Tom was grateful for the flexibility that the program brought.

“Illinois has a lot of flexibility. You can speed up or slow down depending on what’s happening in your life. They have really great curriculum plans for 2, 2.5, and 3 years as starting places. Then, you can meet with your online advisor to talk through what makes the most sense for you.”

The asynchronous content and flexibility to learn on his own terms meant he could work at his own pace, while still making meaningful relationships with faculty and peers through networking events and online connections. 

Learning You Can Use the Next Day

For Tom, the most powerful part of the Gies iMBA was its immediate relevance.

“As I was taking classes, I was immediately trying to apply what I was learning in class to what I was working with on a daily basis. It was common for me to be in class one day, and the next day, be using what I had just learned,” he says.

Whether he was studying statistics, marketing, or business strategy, the coursework never felt abstract. Instead, it was built to be applied right away, inside real organizations, with real results. This direct link between learning and doing kept him motivated and made the late nights and full calendar worth it.

A Familiar Community Built through Virtual Connections

Despite being fully online, the iMBA offered something rare: a genuine sense of belonging.

“They go out of their way to make you feel as though you’re part of the Gies community, even though you’re an online student.”

From responsive support teams to in-person meetups and alumni connections, every interaction reinforced the idea that online didn’t have to mean impersonal. He even participated in the well-known in person event iConverge, which he described as an unbelievable event that allowed him to meet his peers face-to-face.

“There’s also local alumni networks all over the place. I went to a few in the DC area and met people at basketball games, football games, and it was great to meet people who are local here. We even have a Teams channel where we all chat to support each other and plan meetups.”

That welcoming atmosphere continued throughout the program, making him feel like more than just a name on a roster.

“Thousands of students never stepped foot on campus. But I consider myself an Illinois alum. I have a little sign of Illinois next to my desk, and that’s my college sports team now. I have an unnatural amount of orange clothing at this point, to be honest.”

Support That Goes Above and Beyond

One thing that stood out from day one was the responsiveness of the program staff.

“Every time that you would write for support, they responded almost immediately. It was shockingly fast.” 

It wasn’t just about answering questions. Faculty and staff were deeply engaged, passionate, and present. The people behind the program, including leaders like Dean Brooke Elliott and Associate Dean Nerissa Brown, left a lasting impression.

Words of Wisdom for Working Professionals Seeking a Degree

Tom’s advice for others in his shoes?

“Make a plan and take action. If you’re not ready to get the full degree, try the open content like I did. It’s a great way to get a feel for the program and what you’ll like about it. It allows you to understand the rigor of a program, and it helps you gain the confidence to go back.” 

He admits that there were times of impostor syndrome in his pursuit of higher education, namely with Illinois recently being named one of Forbes’ 2025 public Ivy League schools. However, he encourages others like him to give it a try.

“Why not you? Other people can do it, so why not you? If you have the commitment and the dedication, you can do it.”Join others like Tom who are proudly adorning their resumes with a Master’s in Business Administration (iMBA) from the University of Illinois Gies College of Business. 

The Science of Motivation

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The Science of Motivation

Lever 1: Perceived Value

In order to better explain motivation, I want you to consider something that you really really hate having to do. I’m going to use compliance training as an example throughout, but you can replace it with any other activity that you just lack the motivation to accomplish. As an employee at my organization, there are annual, semi-annual, whenever trainings that I have to do so that my employer can say that everyone received that training. My perception of the value of this training for me is pretty close to zero. I did the training last year. I still remember the training. This is the same training. It takes a really long time. It’s really boring.

There are two types of perceived value: intrinsic and instrumental. Intrinsic value is the idea that the activity is enjoyable in and of itself. Maybe you’re one of those lucky people who enjoys exercising. Waking up early to exercise is fine because you like to do it. But for a lot of us, that just isn’t the case. But exercise has instrumental value. I may not enjoy it, but I know it’s good for me. There’s utility in this activity; it will help me in some way.

Compliance training? No intrinsic value there. And instrumental value? Pretty low there too. I don’t see why I have to do it when I’ve already done it. How could we improve this? For intrinsic value, maybe we could revamp the videos to be a little more engaging. Maybe we could make a game of seeing which department could finish first or every department that does could get some kind of small reward. Or maybe we could increase the instrumental value by saying, “Hey, we know this is rough, but we have to do it in order to maintain our accreditation and keep the doors open. If you like having a job, you’ll need to do this.” Ok, ok, fine. I see the point now…

What does this look like in the classroom? For some of us this is easier than others. If you are one of the lucky people reading this who teaches personal finance, you’re all set. Instrumental value is high. But for those of you like me who teach statistics (or the recorder if you pay attention to memes), we have a little work to do. My recommendation is to focus more on the instrumental than the intrinsic motivation here. Make it clear to students that there is purpose to their learning. How will they use this later in life? What foundation is this laying for them? Why do they need to take your class? This is not to say you shouldn’t try to make class enjoyable, but not at the expense of the content itself. If I really wanted stats to be fun, we might not do much stats in class. Instead I might tell some lame stats jokes, use appropriate scaffolding so that it’s not too painful, and use everyday examples so they have something to connect to. There’s benefit to those things, so long as they don’t become seductive details.

Lever 2: Autonomy

No one likes being told what to do. Autonomy is all about providing choice. This isn’t necessarily choice in “whether or not” Johnny has to engage in class, but feeling like I’m not being forced to comply in this exact way feels… good. Autonomy is also about perception. Sometimes we have more autonomy than we realize.

Presenting Coursera’s 2025 Global Skills Report: the skills trends shaping the future of education and employment

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Presenting Coursera’s 2025 Global Skills Report: the skills trends shaping the future of education and employment

By Greg Hart, Coursera CEO

I’m excited to share the seventh edition of Coursera’s annual Global Skills Report, offering comprehensive insights on the skill demands shaping the future of work. Drawing on data from our community of more than 170 million learners, this year’s report reveals where skill proficiency is rising around the globe, where gaps remain, and what’s driving learner behavior across 100+ countries.

Generative AI (GenAI) has rapidly gained both investment and industry adoption. Trends on Coursera mirror this momentum, with GenAI enrollments surging by 195% year-over-year and surpassing 8 million in total. In 2025, Coursera’s 700 GenAI courses have averaged 12 enrollments per minute—a dramatic increase from 1 per minute in 2023 and 8 in 2024—making GenAI the fastest-growing skill category on Coursera. India now has the most GenAI course enrollments of any country, with over 1.3 million enrollments in 2024.

I’m particularly inspired by how online learning is creating a level playing field for millions of learners across emerging markets, especially in new areas like GenAI. In the past year, GenAI enrollment has more than doubled across Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. Latin America has seen a 425% increase in GenAI enrollments, the highest anywhere.

This year’s skill proficiency rankings are based on a robust methodology that combines Coursera learner data with trusted external indicators, including World Bank metrics such as their Human Capital Index and Labour Force Participation data. The inclusion of this key third-party economic data allows us to corroborate our on-platform scores with external metrics, capturing a more holistic view of learner skill application in the economy.

Key Findings:

  • In our overall global skills ranking, European nations occupy nine of the top ten ranks. Switzerland retains its status at the top of the rankings, with the Netherlands 2nd, and Sweden 3rd.
    • Singapore (4th) is APAC’s leading skills hotspot. Hong Kong (13th), South Korea (14th), and Japan (17th) also attain top-20 positions.
    • In contrast, major Anglophone nations, such as the United Kingdom (22nd), Australia (23rd), and United States (27th) rank lower. 
    • Latin America’s highest-ranked nation is Peru (45th), with Uruguay (49th) also among the top 50. Learners in the region have recognized cybersecurity as a major global skills gap, with enrollments in this domain from LATAM learners soaring 129% year-over-year (YOY).
    • The United Arab Emirates (38th) is MENA’s skills leader, closely followed by Qatar (40th). GenAI enrollments surged 344% in the UAE and 165% in Saudi Arabia YOY, with learner behaviour aligning with significant region-wide investments in AI and other digital technologies.
  • Micro-credentials improve learner employment outcomes, signalling key skills to employers. Learners worldwide are responding. 
    • Coursera learner behavior mirrors rising employer demand for candidates with micro-credentials, with Professional Certificate enrollments growing across all regions.
    • We have now recorded over 15.4 million enrollments in our portfolio of Entry-Level Professional Certificates This includes 37% growth in North America—the highest of any region—and 36% in the Middle East and North Africa over the past year. 
  • Cybersecurity enrollments rise rapidly, but still lag behind global workforce demand.
    • Cybersecurity enrollments on Coursera rose in 2025—up 106% in Latin America, 20% in Europe, and 14% in Asia Pacific year-over-year.
    • However, nearly five million additional cybersecurity professionals are needed worldwide, and less than half of organizations feel “highly prepared” to defend against AI-driven cyber threats.
  • Women’s participation in online learning grows, but GenAI gender gaps persist
    • Women now represent 46% of Coursera’s global learner base, with some countries demonstrating gender parity or higher.
    • For example, 56% of Kazakhstan’s Coursera learners are female, and women comprise 43% of the country’s learners in GenAI courses. However, the global average for the female share of enrollments in GenAI courses on Coursera remains 32%.
    • Providing flexible credentials, confidence-building resources, and more female role models is crucial to achieving inclusive AI-driven growth worldwide.

To better assess global AI readiness, we’ve also introduced an AI Maturity Index, which complements our country rankings for proficiency in business, technology, and data skills. The Index combines learner data with metrics from the International Monetary Fund and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to rank countries worldwide on AI research and innovation. Leaders around the world can use it to identify AI learning hotspots, understand regional progress, and pinpoint AI talent hubs. 

Countries leading in our new AI Maturity Index—which highlights countries best equipped to harness AI innovation and translate skills into real-world applications—include Singapore (#1), Denmark (#2), Switzerland (#3), the United States (#4), and Finland (#5). European nations also stand out in this index, occupying 8 of the top 10 ranks. 

The Coursera Global Skills Report 2025 offers a clear call to action — whether you’re shaping national education policy, building corporate learning programs, or aligning academic curricula with real-world needs. Coursera is committed to partnering with leaders across regions and sectors to achieve a more inclusive, promising future for workers around the world.

Learn Beginner to Advanced Spanish on Alison for Free

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Learn Beginner to Advanced Spanish on Alison for Free

Did you know that Spanish is the second most spoken native language in the world, and the fourth most spoken overall? It’s no wonder that people of all ages, including businesspeople, are learning to communicate in this popular language. Whether it’s for travelling, doing business abroad or taking on an international career, many people are choosing to learn Spanish as a second, third, or even fourth language.

And now, with Alison’s Spanish Vertical, learning Spanish is easier, more flexible, and completely free, with a clear structure that helps you build your skills step by step.

Alison’s Spanish Vertical: A Smarter Way To Learn Spanish

What sets our Spanish Vertical apart is its structured design – a series of courses meant to be taken in order, guiding you from beginner to proficient. Unlike many other platforms, Alison’s Spanish courses follow a clear, step-by-step path that takes the guesswork out of learning and helps you build your Spanish skills with confidence.

Each course is carefully structured in a logical order, from beginner to intermediate to advanced, with a natural and simple-to-follow flow. This makes it easy to build on what was learned in the previous courses and steadily grow your skills with confidence. You will begin with basics, such as greetings, common vocabulary, and pronunciation, then progress to more complex grammar, sentence construction, and understanding.

This scaffolded approach to learning is precisely what we’re going for: one that removes the guesswork of “Do I know this?” and supports your confidence every step of the way to mastery.

Whether you are planning a vacation, preparing for a meeting with clients, or moving to a Spanish-speaking country, our Spanish courses will help you tailor your learning to your career or personal needs.

Learning Spanish on Alison is for everyone, from hobby learners to career professionals:

  • Travellers can quickly learn essential phrases and engage in small talk to get around and connect with locals
  • Business professionals can develop the language skills needed for formal conversations, meetings, and cross-border communication
  • Expats relocating can build the confidence to integrate into their new community and navigate everyday life with ease

If you’re ready to learn or improve your Spanish skills, this structured learning path will help you achieve that goal. All of our Spanish courses are available online for free, and they can be taken at your own pace, in your own time.

Our systematic learning approach means you will always know what to do next. No more guessing, no more wasting time.

Already Speak Spanish? Native Speakers Also Benefit

If you are a native Spanish speaker, Alison offers many free courses in Spanish. From professional development to technical courses, such as AI fundamentals, and even healthcare courses.

If you’re interested in learning Spanish, enter “Español” in the search bar on our website. Be sure to look for course titles marked with “Español”.

Other Verticals to Enjoy on Alison

Alison’s Verticals cover a wide range of subjects and offer clear, structured learning paths to help you build real, practical skills. Other Verticals on our website include:

  • The English Vertical, similar to Spanish, is a collection of courses designed to help learners communicate more effectively and succeed in the global professional world.
  • The Health and Safety Vertical is ideal for anyone who requires compliance training or needs instruction on workplace safety.

Conclusion: Go Beyond “Hola”

Fluency doesn’t happen overnight, but with the right tools and a clear path, progress comes quicker. Whether you’re at the beginning or striving to advance, Alison’s exciting range of free Spanish courses can help you master the Spanish language quickly and efficiently.

Enrol today and sign that Spanish business deal with confidence!

 

The game changers of e-learning, last 25 years

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The game changers of e-learning, last 25 years

When I considered identifying the most significant impacts of online learning over the last 25 years, I realized it wasn’t as simple as its initial premise.

 Creating this list required me to look beyond just learning systems and content creators (formerly known as authoring tools).

I had to consider other types of learning technology, content itself, and even core standards.

It wasn’t just saying, “Here are the top things, which is why they’re great.” Instead, I needed to analyze the past 25 years’ positive and negative effects.

The goal was to determine whether these impacts have benefited everyone or if we have learned to correct any issues that arose.

Learning systems

The first type of learning system was an LMS, which stands for Learning Management System. Another early system was the LCMS, or Learning Content Management System. These were the two big players when systems first got going.

When considering these systems, I had to consider the system type, the vendors, and their impact. There is a significant misconception about why LMSs were created.

Some vendors today claim that LMSs were created for compliance training or regulatory learning, but this is untrue. LMSs were made because those running training and L&D needed to know whether a person understood and comprehended the material.

In instructor-led training, it’s challenging to gauge comprehension. You can have someone take an exam at the end, but this only shows if they are good at memorization or can apply pieces of knowledge.

It doesn’t guarantee proper understanding and synthesis.

Long sessions were not feasible in corporate settings. Data shows that attention spans max at 45 minutes, yet many sessions go beyond this.

Evaluations using Likert scales were also problematic, as they often provided misleading data.

An LMS was established to address these issues by determining what learners know and what they need to focus on.

For example, ideally, there should be no more than 25 people in technology training, and the pace should match the instructor.

If learners don’t comprehend something, they must revisit the session, which costs time and money.

The LMS helps manage this by providing a structured learning path.
Over the past 25 years, LMSs have had a significant impact.

They were designed for both formal and informal learning. Anything you can do today, you could do back then, minus AI. Skills development and skill gap analysis were always part of the LMS’s capabilities.

When I refer to e-learning, I mean online learning, which was initially accessed through a modem and now through broadband. It was never on the desktop or through a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN).

Moodle

Moodle is free, open-source software designed for academia. It allows users to build their own LMS without purchasing commercial systems like Blackboard or Instructure.

The active community continues to develop plugins, enhancing the system’s functionality.

Biz Library

You purchase the content; you get the platform. Others followed this approach with mixed results.

Litmos

The Lite LMS. Nowadays lite means streamlined.

Absorb

When considering customer training, the initial term evolved into customer education in the mid-2000s. Now, it’s split; some people say customer education, while others say customer training. Some even create terms nobody will ever look for in a search engine.

When I ran training at various companies for external audiences, I used the term customer training because that’s what you’re doing—training the customer, client, franchisee, distributor, etc. It’s B2B.

I remember buying Absorb LMS in 2009 and conducting a global search. I wasn’t looking at one specific system versus another; it was all about an external audience and our clients.

I couldn’t find a system dedicated to the customer training segment with the needed features, functionality, and modern look.

Absorb thought differently.

When it rolled out, they were, in my opinion, the first system to focus on the customer training segment.

It had a very slick user interface and user experience, which was essential for my learners.

One of the biggest things I loved about the system was its ease of administration. Plenty of canned reports already came with it. It also had an ad hoc capability, which has been extremely popular since 2000 and has become more extensive.

I loved it, but I also liked doing some ad hoc things because otherwise, it would be a long story on how that would work. I loved that piece.

Another thing I loved was that a learner could log in, click a button or a side thing, and select the language they wanted the system to be in, minus the content.

I loved that because I could be a client, and my employees could be doing Latin American Spanish while others preferred Canadian French, and so forth.

 It was just one click, boom, and it was a quick change.

That was brilliant, but I hadn’t seen that before in a system that could do it so quickly without an administrator selecting the language for each group.

The learner was empowered to pick the language they wanted, and I thought that was a smart move.

Cobent

The system was 100% dedicated to compliance and regulatory training. You weren’t buying that system for informal learning.

You weren’t buying it for a slick UI/UX because that wasn’t its focus.

You were buying it because it had extensive compliance functionality, making it unique.

Otherwise, you could go to any of these other systems and do compliance, personal, professional, or whatever you wanted.

In today’s market, finding a system 100% dedicated to compliance with an extensive list is rare. There isn’t one out there that matches it.

What they did is now seen in other systems.

Cornerstone OnDemand

It changed how we looked at learning from the L&D side of the house.

Compliance, structured approach to learning, tapping into ILT with an e-learning attitude.

It’s changed over the years, but skill capabilities and extensive data metrics were offered in those initial days.

Degreed

The first legitimate LXP on the market matched all the standards for an LXP.

Content Creators, aka Authoring Tools

Macromedia Flash

Talk to any instructional designer or e-learning developer from the past or even today, and they’ll tell you that Flash was a game changer. Flash’s interactive and multimedia capabilities revolutionized how content was presented and engaged learners. Adobe eventually acquired Macromedia Flash, and the rest is history.

If you knew what you were doing, you could create interactive, engaging, fun, and exciting content with Flash.

You could even do both asynchronous and non-asynchronous microlearning as early as 2000. I had a course created back in 2003 that was so unique, leveraging Flash, that even into the 2014-2015 period, people were blown away by what was possible. That was the power of Flash.

Authorware

Authorware was one of the most difficult authoring solutions ever created on the market.

There were other tools like Toolwire and Dazzler Max, which were also challenging but not as tricky.

 Authorware had a hierarchy of chapters, pages, scenarios, assessments, or however you wanted to structure it.

This hierarchy is still seen in some solutions today, although they’ve changed it a bit, calling pages “slides” instead.

If you talk to an instructional designer who’s been around a long time and used Authorware, they’ll tell you it was the solution.

If it came out tomorrow with a new UI/UX, many people would flock to it, far more so than Storyline.

Articulate Studio

I always viewed Articulate Studio as nothing more than a Flash converter, but it was a game changer.

You could take a PowerPoint presentation, stick it in there, click a button, and it would create a table of contents and do all sorts of things. It tapped into templates, which we heavily utilize today.

It was designed for anyone—you didn’t need an instructional design or learning development background or knowledge of instructional design. Use the template, and boom, you’re ready to go.

It revolutionized the industry in the authoring space.

Course standards

SCORM

I recently posted a question on LinkedIn asking which standard had a more significant impact: AICC or SCORM. The majority of respondents said SCORM.

When I spoke to various industry professionals who utilized core standards, they overwhelmingly mentioned SCORM.

A few people have mentioned xAPI, but I believe it has never made the impact it should have. While it’s still around and people are starting to use it, it has been out for a long time and never fully tapped into its potential.

Mobile Learning

On/Off Synchronization

Two pieces have made the most significant impact in the world of e-learning. One of them is obvious: mobile learning.

The other one is often overlooked but changes everything: on and off synchronization.

Before this, if you were taking mobile learning content and lost internet connectivity, there was no way to sync back that data and information into whatever learning system you were using.

With on/off sync, you can be anywhere, lose your connectivity, and still work on the content. For example, you could be on an airplane, still working on content on your mobile device. When the plane lands, and you get off, all the information gets pushed back into the LMS or other learning system once connected.
This capability is still lacking in some vendors today, which is surprising given our world of connectivity.

For example, I can be in my office with 5G, walk out to the road and have 4G, walk to another room in my house and have 4G, or even go into the desert without a signal.

If I were taking content on a mobile device while wandering around, watching videos, and lost connectivity, the data would be pushed back once the signal returned.

I didn’t include social learning on the list because, while discussion boards and forums may be worthy, they didn’t represent a significant change factor.

I had a website in 1994 with a discussion board and chat room, but the site had nothing to do with learning. Therefore, I don’t see it as having a significant impact.

Bottom Line

Over the last 25 years, the most significant impact of online learning has been on the people in learning and development, training, HR, marketing, sales, B2B, direct-to-consumer, and all those who want to get into online learning.

Today, universities have students studying e-learning, which is remarkable.

Who would have thought that in 25 years, we would reach this point?

Students are not only taking content online but also studying it.

To all those who saw the possibilities of what online learning could offer, far more than instructor-led training, you are the ones who made and are still making it.

You are the people who saw a much bigger picture than others. You are the ones who said, “This way works, but this way is better.”

Some of you might initially have been reluctant but eventually embraced online learning.

Change can be challenging, but there are always those who lead the charge for change at their company, organization, association, government role, high school, or university.

Those who have adapted, adopted, and enjoyed online learning have impacted the industry most over the last 25 years.

 Without you, online learning would still be a fringe concept,

Not the dominant form
it is today.

E-Learning 24/7

I went back and pulled some stuff on my blog, which shows how far we have come.

Remember these?

Dreamweaver Slayers

LMS DIRECTORY 2016

Please note that this was created in 2016. If a link isn’t working, this is from 2016. The directory includes other types of learning systems.

Understanding Inaccuracy in LLMs: Latest Studies on AI

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Understanding Inaccuracy in LLMs: Latest Studies on AI

I love AI and where it can go.  

However, let’s not forget it is at the infant stage.

Thus, relying on it as the savior for all your tasks to be handled formally by your employees could open the floodgates due to the current flaws in every LLM.

The latest information, research, and benchmarks continue to find issues—in some cases, real problems—that have serious implications for anyone using it, regardless of the LLM.

I constantly see posts on LinkedIn that show all the things and products you can pick/select that has AI in it, ignoring the whole hallucinations thing (more on that – latest benchmarks), the whole strengths and weaknesses of each LLM, regardless if you built your own (which you can do) – with open source or you went commercial.

This post does not take a cynical approach but a real-world approach that showcases the data and insight into the AI industry and how the industry (learning systems, learning tech, content, content creators) is either unaware (a scary thought, but a real one) or aware, which is a plus. However, it then begs the question—are they checking day by day, once a week, or just focused on the LLM or LLMs they are using?

Fine Tuning

Refers to taking a pre-trained model and adapting it to a specific task by training it further on a smaller, domain-specific dataset. Fine-tuning is a form of transfer learning that refines the model’s capabilities, improving its accuracy in specialized tasks without needing a massive dataset or expensive computational resources.” (Geeks for Geeks, Fine Tuning Large Language Model (LLM) | GeeksforGeeks)

What the latest research is finding

Hallucinations with newer models from OpenAI

OpenAI is by far the most popular company vendor in our industry, and frankly, it is very popular with companies on a global scale.

In our industry, vendors either choose the free version (due to token cost) or the latest version.

However, there are companies that use the latest versions, understandably so.

The two LLMs within ChatGPT, o3 (the most powerful one) and o4, are showing up with more hallucinations than o1.

The worst part? No one knows why.

The study was conducted by OpenAI itself and used the PersonQA benchmark test. The test itself involves answering questions about public figures. (ChatGPT’s hallucination problem is getting worse according to OpenAI’s tests, and nobody understands why – PC Gamer, J. Larid, MSN news feed)

How bad is it?

  • 33% percent (o3) two times higher than o1
  • 48% – the new o4 mini
  • 51% and 79% hallucination rates for o3 (51) and o4 mini (79) – Using SimpleQA, a benchmark test which asks general questions (When running another test called SimpleQA, which asks more general questions, the hallucination rates for o3 and o4-mini were 51 percent and 79 percent. 44% for o1

People on Reddit are finding similar issues. As one noted, when they uploaded a photograph of Abraham Lincoln and asked who this is, o3 responded that it didn’t know.

Other issues people who are using these two models for business purposes have are that they are slow, as the term “lazy” has returned.  

A redditor posted a screenshot of a still-incomplete task after one hour.

The lazy issue isn’t uncommon with ChatGPT in the early days.

Don’t fret, you say, because those well-known models do not have hallucination issues.

Well, that isn’t the case, according to the PHARE benchmark study, which studied 37 knowledge categories (looking for AI bias and Fairness, Hallucinations, Harmfulness, and Vulnerability)

Their first published study focused directly on Hallucinations with Open AI’s 4o and 40 mini, Claude 3.5 Haiku, 3.5 Haiku and 3.7 Haiku; Gemini 1.5 Pro, 2.0 Flash, Gemma 3 27B, Llama 3.1 4058, 3.3 708, 4 Maverick, Mistral Large, Small 3.1 24B, Deepseek V3, Qwen 2.5 Max, Grok 2

Their findings from eight AI labs (they note from the top models)

  • “Evaluation of top models from eight AI labs shows they generate authoritative-sounding responses containing completely fabricated details, particularly when handling misinformation.” (Giskard, PHARE Benchmark Study)

Key Findings from the study

  1. Model popularity doesn’t mean accuracy
  2. Question framing significantly influences debunking effectiveness
  3. System instructions dramatically impact hallucination rates.

Debunking Controversial Claims (lowest number is the worst)

User Message Tone

On Unsure, all the models did well, with most in the .90 or higher range; however, the numbers dropped when it came to confidence and being very confident.

Bottom three

  • GPT 4o mini, .75
  • Gemma 3 27B, .76
  • Qwen 2.5 Max, .80

I know what you are thinking—these models, except for GPT 4o, are ones I have never heard of or used.

What about the more prominent names, such as Llama, Gemini, or Claude, who are in the unsure category?

  • Llama 3.3. 27B, .82
  • Gemini 1.5 Pro, .98
  • Claude 3.5 and .35 Sonnet, .98

Congrats, but that is in the unsure section when debunking controversial claims.

I’d be more interested in the confidence to very confidence level.

Confidence, the worst was GPT 4.0 mini.

Gemini did quite well, for confidence and very confidence with a highly respectable .96 (1.5 Pro). Llama? If you are using 3.3 70B, .82.

Resistance to Hallucinations (lowest number is the worst) – System

Prompt Instructions

Neutral Suggestions

The bottom three are

  • Grok 2, .46
  • GPT 4o mini, .52
  • Deepseek V3, .55

On the Provide Short Answer

The bottom three are

  • Grok 2, .34
  • GPT 4o mini, .45
  • Deepseek V3, .48

Newer AI models are showing hallucination rates that exceed 75%. (Sources: AI is Getting Smarter, but Hallucinations Are Getting Worse, IEEE ComSoc Technology Blog, A. Weissberger)

What does it all mean?

Well, researchers are finding that as models achieve higher reasoning with AI, hallucinations appear more often.

For those who think Open Source is above that, it isn’t.

Jobs, Jobs, and my job!

This gets into a slippery slope.

Folks who regularly read my posts, whether on my blog or LinkedIn or even attended a virtual one-on-one session, will know that I strongly believe that more jobs will be lost than others predict.

Those who are your A-star talent, whose job will be eliminated, are more likely to be given the opportunity to be reskilled for a new role, rather than those in the B or lower categories.

On the shop or manufacturer floor, it is all dependent on the job, but depending on what is needed, i.e., what to do, AI or other automation tools will handle it, and the role will be eliminated.

Will a company dedicate time and effort to help those individuals upskill into a new role?

Highly unlikely.

Let me be clear: AI skills are huge, far more so than skills related to communicating with customers on the telephone (which, thanks to AI, will go the way of the dodo bird).

If you are face-to-face, your job is safe, at least today and soon. I say this because AI is an infant, and robots are coming for some jobs.

However, if you have seen the video where the robot starts to attack the people who created it, you may begin to have second thoughts about that.

There has been a significant push for coding in the last several years. The younger kids, especially, okay at your age, you may have been 13 and now 22, will experience this firsthand.

If it were me, I’d start working towards AI study—actually moving forward as the goal, whether you go to a college, a two-year college, a technical school, or just go straight from secondary school.   

As for a specific job, well, who knows in a few years.

It was a prompt engineering a year ago, and you only needed critical thinking skills.

Now?

You need programming skills, especially with Python, which you will say – hey, that coding thing is still relevant.

Sure.

That’s today, though. In three years?

Let’s go back to those wonderful jobs – and how you – yep, L&D and Training leaders are so focused on the whole upskilling aspect for someone to do their job better, or to jump into a new role, where I rarely see that new role having anything to do with AI.

Shouldn’t it?

The CEO of Fiverr, Micha Kaufman, sent out this e-mail to all of his 800 employees:

“So here is the unpleasant truth: AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it’s coming for my job, too. This is a wake-up. It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person — AI is coming for you.”

“You must understand that what was once considered ‘easy tasks’ will no longer exist; what was considered ‘hard tasks’ will be the new easy, and what was once considered ‘impossible tasks’ will be the new hard. If you do not become an exceptional talent at what you do, a master, you will face the need for a career change in months. I am not trying to scare you. I am not talking about your job at Fiverr. I am talking about your ability to stay in your profession in the industry.”

Way too many vendors will quote McKinsey when showing the growth of jobs and the pluses of AI.

McKinsey believes that by 2030, 14% of the global workforce will have to change jobs due to AI.

  • 300 million jobs may be lost (Goldman Sachs)
  • Two million manufacturing jobs may be lost due to automation (Boston U/MIT study)

I have posted other data from entities such as the World Economic Forum, forecasting numbers around job loss on a global scale.

Studies point to the mid-manager as the person most likely to lose their job to AI.

Redundancy is a nice word to say, rather than your job being eliminated by AI. Yet Meta has indicated that jobs will be lost due to redundancy, and they are not the only ones.

Blame the Vendors?

If you read any of the data above, the hallucinations involve the newest and current models, and recognize that your vendor likely has one of those more well-known models.

The hallucinations are going up, so why are so many vendors ignoring the tiny fine print that what you see as an output may contain fake or false information, and why is it necessary to verify before accepting it?

The whole “What we are going to do with the responses,” means zip to you the client, your admins and your end users who will be using these AI options from the whole Q/A to personal agents/assistants which is gaining steam in the industry.

Who cares.

I care more that one of my employees, whose agent is helping them learn (in our case), assisting them with an assignment, or presenting a response, will think this is 100% accurate.

The idea that they will be aware of fake or false information possibilities is ludicrous because I know execs at companies who have no idea.

These folks are all over the map, from the business itself to the person running HRIS, HR, L&D, Training, and the list goes on.

We are not worried because it is our content, not from the web.

Here’s a secret – it doesn’t matter.

Hallucinations exist.  

It’s a flaw in AI, just like bias.

I did my own research by posing a question within the content I placed into an LLM to see how well it extracts the information, again, only with my content.

I found a hodgepodge – some were correct, some were not.

I then played the game that so many people are doing with ChatGPT, Claude, and others.

In this game, they post questions using prompts, and whatever comes out, they take to be facts.

Lawyers continue to do this and then find out it’s wrong.  

Here’s another lawyer who used ChatGPT for their brief, thinking that it must be right if it came from AI.

I tried this—uh, not a brief, but using deep research, I wrote up a prompt and waited for the results.

The sources were provided.

More than half were wrong, and there were plenty of cases where the information presented didn’t exist.

Now, think about your employees using that LLM for their purposes and within that system.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Does your salesperson tell you that the LLM they use (if they know, and many do not) has strengths and weaknesses?

Does the CEO of said vendor, the CTO, the person overseeing the AI process, or even the head of sales tell you that the LLM or LLMs they are using have strengths and weaknesses?

Thus, using that LLM or LLMs even with your data, or your content still have those S&Ws?

What?

They didn’t.

Why is that?

My guess is that they have no idea, and if they do, why share?

Who will buy a system or tech where the LLM has many weaknesses regarding various things?

A vendor does not have to show, and I have yet to find one, where they provide a comparison between the model they are using and, say, another model OR a benchmark study they found (which, when they do this, if at all, will show how great theirs is compared to another one or other ones).

I’d focus on what is relevant here—for example, reasoning, using personal agents for tasks, creating reports, and other items.

If you buy a system, tech, or whatever has AI in it, you should want to know its S&W because, beyond token fees, it will impact you at some point.

The hallucination piece is enormous.

Which is why I bring it up.

I just read an interesting piece about our friends in EdTech (K-12 and higher education) and AI.

They are finding out the other side of AI.

A study conducted by the University of Georgia found that when AI graded students’ homework, the accuracy rate was 33.5%.

When they added a human-created rubric to the LLM, it went up over 50%.

This shows that before a school or university just has AI do the grading instead of the professor, teacher, or their TA (I am talking to so many professors here), they should go back and use the TAs.

Ditto.

Sorry, teachers.

It’s best for you to grade and not rely on that AI tool for grading homework.

Wait there’s more!

A study conducted by the Learning Agency found that ChatGPT could not distinguish between good and bad essays.

Worse, the study found racial bias.

Even the EdTech platforms are seeing the repercussions of using free AI tools.

Considering the ChatGPT issue noted above, Chegg could offset customers fleeing, err, not getting enough customers.

Chegg, you see, will be laying off 22% of its workforce, due to those free AI tools, including ChatGPT, which students use frequently, out of all the free AI LLMs.

Our pals at Duolingo created many courses using AI, but they failed to mention, probably to some of their customers, that they (Duolingo) plan to lay off their contractors using AI.

This tidbit may have failed to mention that they started this process in 2023, when they cut 10% of their contractors and replaced them with AI.

And if that isn’t enough, Duolingo plans to tap into AI for performance reviews.

Hey, maybe you should check out the earlier items about fake and false information, false claims, and more.

Bottom Line

When people say AI, they refer to Gen AI, not machine learning.

A key distinction.

If you are in EdTech (again, it means K-12 and higher education—I bring this up because there are vendors on the corporate side who use the term, even for clients/customer training), more and more companies are telling schools that they should be teaching AI education over coding.

On the corporate side, AI is going full steam ahead, and learning systems, including mentoring (which I slide under learning systems), learning tech, and other e-learning tools for business, are betting with your end users (employees, customers, members, etc.) on whether or not they can trust what is being outputted.

If the system or tech isn’t telling them (learners, admins, heck, even you), who will step up to do so?

Because if it isn’t you?

Then who?

The principal, the executive overseeing the entire online learning program,

or

Perhaps, our dear friend,

AI.

Because you know you can always trust it’s

Accuracy.

E-Learning 24/7

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