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Trailhead, the online learning platform developed by Salesforce, can now be personalized by companies that want to use it to offer their own courses for onboarding new employees and other skills. myTrailhead offers the same features as Trailhead—online learning that includes videos, presentations and mini-certifications—with the ability for companies to use their own custom content as well as free, public Trailhead content.
Salesforce launched Trailhead four years ago to help customers and job seekers learn how to master various aspects of the customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Along the way it added “soft skills” like career development and communications.
There has also been an emphasis on making learning fun with micro-certifications for mastering specific skills. “We’ve offered resume-worthy credentials that people hire for,” Sarah Franklin, executive vice president and general manager for Trailhead, told eWEEK.
Since its launch, more than 1.2 million people have used the Trailhead platform and earned over 12 million badges (online certifications of skill).
“People are using Trailhead not just to further their career, but to work more productively. That means employees who are less stressed and happier,” said Franklin.
Companies looking to adopt the myTrailhead can offer the same gamified features as Trailhead to teach their own content with such features as a competitive leaderboard to acknowledge top learners.
In the case of onboarding, companies can use myTrailhead to offer new employees background on the company (such as a video from the CEO and overview of the company’s core values) and skills that are specific to their role. They can also add YouTube content to myTrailhead.
Sales Skills, Soft Skills & More
Salesforce itself is adding new content to the free public Trailhead library every six weeks that can be added to myTrailhead. There are over 500 modules, including tech skills like Blockchain Basic, soft skills like Cultivating Equality at Work and various selling skills such as how to talk to prospects.
A Trail Tracker app gives managers the ability to follow an employee’s progress and offer real-time feedback and recognition for learning new skills.
Early users piloting myTrailhead note its potential to improve the quantity and quality of learning at their company.
“During our trial of myTrailhead, the platform gave us the ability to select from an extensive content library to personalize a learning experience that is aligned to our processes and technology strategy,” said Nathan Bell, digital transformation executive at Telstra Enterprise, in a statement. “Our people were served relevant, bite-sized content in the workflow, creating an engaging and continual learning experience. Fully utilizing our Salesforce footprint is critical for creating an end-to-end digital experience for our customers, partners and people.”
Another early customer, Danielle Brady, managing director of Global Operations in Accenture’s Cloud First Applications group, said the learning platform has proved to be particularly useful for its Salesforce users who are often mobile. “They love that learning is broken down into small increments and the sense of accomplishment they get from earning points and badges along the way,” she said.
Analyst Josh Bersin said workers operating in the digital economy want new learning environments that are digital, smart and fun. “Learning platforms like myTrailhead, which are compelling and easy to use, are essential to employee engagement and growth, and represent an enormous new market in the HR tech landscape,” said Bersin, principal and founder of Bersin, Deloitte Consulting LLP.
Available now, myTrailhead is priced at $25 per user per month as an add-on to any Sales Cloud, Service Cloud or Platform license in the Enterprise Edition or above. It integrates with Salesforce applications like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud. Such integration enables recommendations that can surface relevant learning with automated assignments, recommendations and notifications triggered by events. If, for example, a sales rep is having trouble figuring out when to convert a lead to contact in Sales Cloud, a Trailhead “trail” (short how-to content) would appear that would help them learn the process.