In conversation with Katelijn Simons (Talent coach at BRIGHTN) and Roel Bijvelds (co-founder of BRIGHTN).
BRIGHTN recruits, selects, trains and coaches marketing and communication professionals and facilitates a community for these professionals. BRIGHTN’s guiding principle is that they want their members to be able to (continue to) develop in the field of marketing and communication, both in terms of professional marketing skills and soft skills.
The challenges
When Roel Bijvelds started BRIGHTN in 2020, he was looking for a tool in which he could secure the development of their members. In his previous company, Roel had already been introduced to Learned. In addition, he had experienced that it is important to record the development of hard skills in the field of marcom and the possibility to reflect on this during the development meetings. From this experience, Roel knew that Learned could be the tool for BRIGHTN to record the development of their members.
“Ensuring that reviews take place, they can be properly secured and that follow-up can easily take place so that we can better secure the development of the members. That is why we started working at BRIGHTN right away with Learned,” says Roel.
In addition, Roel was also looking for a tool that, in addition to being able to create review conversations, also had the ability to secure all of BRIGHTN’s learning resources for their members so that they could also work with them independently. BRIGHTN’s members are spread throughout the Netherlands and, as a result, everything is done remotely.
“An online tool was therefore crucial,” says Roel.
The solutions
To ensure that new members are up and running quickly, BRIGHTN uses the onboarding paths in the Learning add-on. In these learning paths, they can put everything the professional needs to know about the onboarding process at BRIGHTN. Through the onboarding paths, BRIGHTN can take their members by the hand and show what members can turn to BRIGHTN for. In the onboarding path, for example, you not only learn how to register for BRIGHTN training courses, but you also find activities to work on your personal development plan. This way, a marketing professional knows exactly what he or she can work on to immerse themselves in the world of marketing and communication.
The results
In the case of BRIGHTN, their members start with an employer. They like to have a handhold in the first week.
“In that, we find that such an onboarding path provides a lot of guidance. We can take them by the hand in what to expect from BRIGHTN, and then they can go through that independently and fall back on it during their onboarding. This is how we do find that the onboarding paths definitely add value,” Katelijn says.
Currently, 18 members are linked to the onboarding paths. The onboarding path guides the member during the first month. A personal development plan is then drawn up via Learned’s Performance module. During these interviews, it emerges, among other things, what someone wants to develop. Because BRIGHTN not only uses onboarding paths but also development paths, Katelijn can easily assign another development path to the member.
To conclude
Do you have any tips for (future) clients who also want to get started with onboarding paths?
What is important before getting started with onboarding or development paths is to think carefully about how you are going to ensure that what new employees are going to learn will stick.
“Make it fun, make it attractive for an employee to go through a learning path. Make sure they have to involve other people. This makes it stick and makes them feel like they are doing something with it. That way, you realise not only do they consume it, but also integrate it into themselves,” Katelijn tips.
