Reimagining learning and development

In the future of work, organizations need to build a culture of continuous learning to enable employees to grow, stay current and adapt to rapidly evolving technology that is quickly altering the work environment and business processes. In this scenario, reskilling and upskilling are critical to unlocking the true potential of the workforce, leading to employee growth and organizational success. It is also a key value proposition in Cognizant’s goal to be the employer of choice in its industry and attract and retain top talent.

Cognizant has a comprehensive learning and development program and wanted to make sure that the requirements of the modern workforce were being fulfilled. So, it undertook a study focused on learning and development needs across the organization. The study gleaned some interesting results, revealing that employees wanted to forge their own learning paths, preferred greater autonomy in the selection of skilling programs, and wanted to be able to decide when and where to learn.

Delivering an enhanced learning experience with Azure Machine Learning

Taking a cue from its own employees, Cognizant decided to create a learning platform that would personalize learning and serve as a marketplace for skilling and reskilling content for all employees. The team realized that Azure Machine Learning’s ability to accelerate time to value would make it the ideal service to build the AI-driven search and recommendation engine of the learning platform.

Once Cognizant conceptualized its new learning experience and platform, naming it My Learning Studio (MLS), the Learning and Development team worked with Microsoft to design and deliver MLS using Azure Machine Learning. MLS, which offers AI-driven search and a recommendation tool, took about six months to be completed.

“With the potential information and content overload that we have today, it is critical that the Learning and Development team is able to help our associates identify the most relevant learning aligned to their roles, skill levels, interests, and other personal attributes,” says Saransh Agrawal, VP – Learning and Development, Cognizant. He adds, “AI-powered search and recommendations provide a rewarding experience for our associates and add more value to our self-guided learning ecosystem.“

MLS has been used by more than 170,000 unique users since its relaunch. The following enhancements have helped them enjoy a more productive and satisfying learning experience:

Hyper-personalized search results: MLS considers employee attributes such as role, grade, business unit, skill-proficiency level, and factors like course rating and consumption when producing search results. It delivers flexible content that is categorized by type (formal training courses, videos, articles, quizzes, etc.) to enable learners to discover the right content required to upskill themselves and learn according to their preferred style. The Azure-based search component has helped reduce throughput search time by 30-40 percent. It also delivers the most relevant results that match the search string, helping employees find courses quickly and achieve their L&D goals more effectively. Across more than 700,000 searches that include about 175,000 novel search strings, MLS has achieved an impressive 93 percent accuracy in presenting search results.

More intelligent recommendations: To support continuous learning, MLS delivers the most relevant content with recommendations based on how popular the courses are among peers and the employee’s learning history. It also suggests prompts on search text for better search results. Since its launch in April 2022, the proactive recommendation system has seen approximately 83,000 unique users with a clickthrough rate of about 8 percent. Cognizant expects the clickthrough rate to rise to over 15 percent in two months.

Easily searchable content across multiple sources: Employees can search for learning content across MLS, SharePoint sites, content developed within MLS, and other internal and external sources.

Peer learning and knowledge sharing: The intuitive platform allows employees to develop and share formal and informal content. It enhances learning collaboration and greater knowledge sharing, resulting in more accumulated knowledge and expertise within the organization, which leads to better performance and productivity.

“Providing associates with an opportunity to grow is a big part of retaining top talent. Our Learning and Development program also is critical to building an empowered workforce capable of keeping up with the latest technologies,” says Neal Ramasamy, Chief Information Officer, Cognizant. He further remarks, “The addition of Azure’s AI-powered search and matching capabilities to the platform has improved the associate experience and results.”

Enriching the learning experience with more AI use cases

The innovative learning solution won the gold medal at the 2022 Brandon Hall Group Human Capital Management (HCM) awards, the largest and longest-running awards program in Human Capital Management.

Cognizant is looking forward to getting more value from MLS by implementing more AI use cases. These include leveraging data points such as employees’ skills, current learning trends in the organization, and peer learning behaviors to deliver more-customized search results and recommendations.

Additionally, Cognizant plans to introduce a feature that charts a customized learning path for employees based on their interactions with the tool. It also intends to leverage the tool to upskill employees faster and at scale based on the company’s business requirements.

By adding more layers of intelligence to MLS, Cognizant aims to redefine and enrich the employee experience, empowering the workforce to thrive and be more productive at lower costs.