Have you pushed learning and development initiatives onto the back burner? If so, read on to learn about our most recent episode featuring Ted Blosser of WorkRamp LMS. He reminds us that, in the modern workplace, employees need learning, skill, and career development now more than ever. Prioritize employee development by leveraging learning so your people can do more with less.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Ted Blosser, a 2006 graduate of Santa Clara University, is the CEO and Co-Founder of WorkRamp Learning Management Systems, an innovative, all-in-one learning platform for today’s workplace.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
A GROWING BUSINESS
WorkRamp, founded in 2015, is an all-in-one learning management system serving SMB and mid-market companies. Despite its growth to 150 employees, WorkRamp began by overcoming obstacles like any typical startup. According to CEO Ted Blosser, “it wasn’t until 2018 when we actually had something that people wanted, and those first three years were a grind — really, no culture, no processes, just literally that one thing.”
Once WorkRamp had a product framework, an operations framework, a vision, and a mission statement, they began to contemplate the culture they wanted to build. Ted recalled, “We actually came up with four cultural values that we really cared about, and these are values like always Be Improving, One Team, Customer Focus, and Operational Excellence.”
Today, WorkRamp has just kicked off Quarter 4, and despite massive change — rising inflation, rising interest rates, the war in Ukraine, and the Covid-19 pandemic — they continue to seek the “next level” for the company. “We need to evolve again,” Ted explained, no matter what obstacles come their way.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Learning is Key
“I had a meeting with this person one-on-one. The next day, 24 hours later, I said, ‘Look, I felt a lot of frustration in that meeting. There was some anger that came out. Talk to me. What was the feedback that you had on what was going on?’ And we got to the bottom of it, and this person said, ‘I need about 45 days when you make a major decision like this to actually get my ducks in a row to actually go make an impact for my own OKRs, and you were basically taking that away from me.’ And so is a great example of learning about how to get and receive feedback and how to give feedback in the proper way.”
Becoming the Target
“You know what’s kind of funny, and I don’t think a lot of founders would admit this, is sometimes when you start a company, you’re not your own target market. So what’s been really interesting is when we were super small, 10 to 15 people, we didn’t know or care about L & D (Learning and Development) ‘cause we were trying to get to product-market fit. Yet you’re watching your customers do it, you’re becoming a subject matter expert in your category. And at some point, you will grow to become your target market. And what’s been really interesting is we’ve finally grown to a phase and a company size where we are now our target market at around 150 employees.”
Clearing Up Misconceptions
“When I pitched investors, there’s kind of this misperception that an LMS is just a bunch of off-the-shelf stuff ‘cause they’re used to seeing LinkedIn Learning or Udemy and they think that’s your business. But if you look at a core business, even your business at Xenium, most of the learning that happens in your organization [follows] the 80/20 rule: 80% of it is custom to your organization, and 20% of it is typically ‘off the shelf.’ So it’s actually the inverse of what most investors or even the general public think about corporate training.”
Bringing Value
“The big trend we’re seeing is that right now all of our customers are looking to consolidate onto the best platforms for specific areas. And so we like to come on the market and say, ‘Hey, CFO, why do you have three or four different learning providers, a security vendor here, LinkedIn Learning over there, a sales-specific training tool over here? Let us get them all onto one platform for you. Save money, but then also drive […] that 2.0 culture through learning. And that’s our value proposition.”
Getting It Wrong
“A lot of companies […] think of learning as an afterthought. They think of it as a perk […] — that earning is this thing on the side that won’t benefit the business. And what we’re trying to change the narrative on is that the best companies that wanna come out of tough times, […] the way to do it is you enable your people to get you out of that downturn. And how do you enable your people? Just like Andy Gross said, ‘Training is the highest-leverage activity you can do in the organization. You train your people, you help them learn and develop and get better at the jobs that they’re doing at hand, even if it’s specific to the company. And that’s how you can accelerate out in these more difficult times.”
LEARN MORE
Connect with Ted Blosser and find out more about how to leverage learning with your team by clicking here.