How innovative companies train their employees (Google, Amazon, Uber & more)
Author:
Gary
PUBLISHED ON:
September 11, 2020
June 26, 2023
PUBLISHED IN:
Employee Onboarding
Have you ever wondered how Google share knowledge and create their own learning culture? Where the likes of Amazon and Microsoft are investing their training budgets to upskill and develop people? Or what the ethos is at companies that keep their training strategies under cloak and dagger?
Whether you’re planning a wedding, holiday or your dream home, a little inspiration can go a long way. Looking at what others have done is the window shopping that helps you understand what might work for you. And the same should apply to your training and development strategy, whether you’re the one leading it or hoping to share some tips with those higher up. So, where better to glance enviably through the glass than with a look at some of the most innovative companies?
You’re going to see some interesting themes across our eight examples. Marrying the skills you need tomorrow with the talents people want to develop today being one, while the sharing of knowledge between colleagues is something else you’ll notice as you read through. For others, it’s about shaping a culture where people can thrive whether they’re learning or just trying to be productive on the job. And you’ll also see that tackling potential skill shortages is something the big guns seem to have nailed.
The thing to remember as you read through is to think about what can be applied on a smaller scale. We’re not going to upskill thousands and thousands as they might at Amazon, but the same principles can help our businesses move forward at similar speeds.
Google
Whispering sweet nudges into Googler’s ears
Proving that you don’t need to shout to get people to buy into your development ethos, Google began using Whisper Courses to drive microlearning in 2017. Recognising that the majority of information learnt in courses was lost within days, their idea was to provide managers with a series of weekly nudges in the right direction. In their soothing wisdom, Google opted for the term Whisper.
“A whisper course is a series of emails, each with a simple suggestion, or ‘whisper’ for a manager to try in their one-on-ones or team meetings.”
Their trial run – which you can discover in greater detail here – was the concept of managers creating a psychologically safe team culture, by being given a 10-week Whisper Course.
Source: Google – A sample nudge email
Googler-to-Googler learning leads the training way
This is just one half of the tale, but we bet you’re wondering what Google does to encourage peer learning and train employees socially? The answer is another simple one: give them the platform to become both student and teacher.
“A strong learning culture can better position your organization for future needed skill shifts and primes employees to think and act more like owners when it comes to their own development needs.”
80% of Google’s tracked learnings happen through their employee-to-employee (Googler-to-Googler) network, where over 6,000 employees across the business have become volunteer teachers. They share their knowledge and skills in workshops, one-to-one sessions, job aids and beyond. Notice the word volunteers, there is no obligation to get involved.
Instead, Google encourages passionate teaches who are experts in that content to deliver training to employees, they’re interviewed for the position and given feedback/recognition throughout. Not only does this engage people, it cuts the costs associated with training and ensures the budget is only used for specialised training programs or sessions and niche content that’s needed.
Google is not only a training innovator, they’re completely transparent about their learning and development strategy! That means you can learn from the best in the business via re:Work. It also made our job a little easier in writing this. Thanks, Google, for sharing how you’re training and developing your employees so openly!
Apple
From Google’s transparency to a training enigma. Have you ever Googled ‘How Apple train their employees’? Being honest, we hadn’t either until it came to writing this. But what’s interesting is that little is known for certain, and the search results paint an interesting picture of how Apple has evolved over time…
A short history of Apple training, according to Google search results
Google search results for ‘How Apple train their employees’
In 2012, Gizmodo published ‘How To Be a Genius: This Is Apple’s Secret Employee Training Manual’, a pretty negative take on how they were training employees to get inside your head through language. Gizmodo claimed that Geniuses were trained to “become strong while appearing compassionate; persuade while seeming passive, and empathize your way to a sale.”.
Fast forward four years and Shopify’s 2016 article on the tech giants indicated that the culture was instead about finding people already passionate about the brand and products. They also pipped us to the pun of ‘picking the right apples’. Although it referenced Gizmodo’s take, Shopify gave the impression that the focus had shifted (or was possibly all along) to creating value over prioritising sales. By 2018, A Guardian article focussing on the physical stores and Ron Johnson (who developed the concept) revealed that Apple had been able to “foster a sense of commitment to a higher calling while flattering employees that they were the chosen few to represent it.”.
What’s the training reality at Apple’s core?
When it comes to ways to train employees outside their organisation, their ethos is that “designing world-class technology is only part of our job. Teaching you how to master it is the other.” But trying to discover their approach to employee development is like the iPhone X files! The truth is out there, kind of..
According to the New York Times, employees are discouraged from sharing their experiences. However, they were able to interview three former Apple employees that remained anonymous in 2014.
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that Apple’s employee training programs take place in-house and year-round. They have full-time academic staff that design and deliver their courses, with employees able to sign up for courses tailored to their position and background on an exclusive internal website. They’re also assigned courses related to the product or part of the business they work in. All pretty standard so far, right?
Well, there is something interesting in the article, at least in terms of how Apple encourages people to think and develop. A course on ‘Communicating at Apple’ used Picasso’s drawings of ‘The Bull’—which demonstrate how something complex can be broken down into its essential, core components. If you look at how Apple’s products have become increasingly more slick with a decreasing number of buttons, you get the impression that this ethos goes from training employees through to product launch.
While a Steve-Jobs-inspired course named ‘The Best Things’ encourages “employees to surround themselves with the best things, like talented peers and high-quality materials.” Despite their cards being kept close to their chests, this gives the impression that social learning is happening behind the scenes.
Amazon
What’s Amazon’s current training strategy and rationale?
When you stop to think about it, Amazon’s current employee training program and approach seem so obvious. And yet, it’s quite rare that companies apply these ideas on a large scale. Amazon analysed data on their workforce and US hiring to determine their fastest-growing highly-skilled jobs over the past five years.
These were data mapping specialist (832% growth), data scientist (505%), solutions architect (454%), security engineer (229%) and business analyst (160%). In customer fulfillment, meanwhile, highly skilled roles increased by over 400%. Next, they put their money where their mouth was in 2019 and announced they would spend $700 million to upskill 100,000 of their US employees by 2025.
This would enable people across the business to access platforms and resources that develop and move them into these higher-skilled positions. You can read the full list of new training opportunities and what they’re doing to build upon existing courses here, but here are some of the important takeaways: knowledge sharing, learning in the flow of work and microlearning.
How Amazon plans to upskill its people
Source: Amazon Upskilling 2025
Amazon Technical Academy equips people with the skill to transition into software engineering. Another proponent of peer-to-peer training sessions, this was created by Amazon’s software engineers and uses project-based learning to ensure trainees understand how they’ll apply these skills in practice via tuition-free learning.
Associate2Tech program is a 90-day course for IT support technician roles, in which they receive on-the-job training and Amazon pays for their A+ Certification test. With no degree required, there are little barriers to entry.
The Machine Learning University, on the other hand, is open to those with a background in tech and coding. These six-week modules only require a half or full day of participation each week, during which Amazon Machine Learning scientists help them develop the skills needed to progress.
The idea that Amazon are taking control of the supply for their in-demand positions is an interesting one, but it could be what primes them for success. With the company and machine learning/tech growing at such rapid speeds, there’s no guarantee that the talent will be available to plug those gaps in the coming years. And, if better engagement, morale and retention is a by-product of upskilling their people, that $700 million could turn out to be a shrewd investment.
Isn’t there a risk that upskilled employees will seek other opportunities?
Perhaps, but looking a little further back shows that Amazon’s investment in people is selfless to an extent. Amazon Career Choice was designed to give hourly associates that had been with the company for more than a year the skills to move into four in-demand industries and occupations: Healthcare, IT and computer science, transportation, and mechanical and skilled trades.
Jeff Bezos stated that “we pre-pay 95 percent of tuition, fees, and textbooks (up to $12,000) for certificates and associate degrees in high-demand occupations”. Inc. summed it up excellently in their coverage of the announcement: “Amazon has a lot of lower-wage, warehouse-type jobs that have higher turnover rates than much higher paying tech roles. Amazon effectively embraces this reality and figures: Why not make these important laborers as happy as they can be in the time they are going to give to Amazon?”
Becoming a superhost and driving employee staycations
Airbnb might have been founded in 2008, but by 2015 they’d already had an epiphany: it wasn’t just their customers that deserved a good host, their employees deserved a five-star experience too. Mark Levy, Global Head of Employee Experience, had only joined the company a couple years earlier, but he realised that:
“If Airbnb had a Customer Experience Group, why not create an Employee Experience Group?”
That’s exactly what he did, putting employee experience at the core of what they do. If the headlines are anything to go by, it was a move that paid off. ‘Airbnb, spearheading the employee experience’, ‘How Airbnb Became The World’s Best Place To Work’, ‘How Airbnb is building its culture through belonging” – these are just some of the articles you’ll find if you search for their approach to the employee training program.
Glowing reviews from Airbnb employees
With such praise and glowing recommendations about their culture, it’s no wonder employees are willing to share their experience at Airbnb. Which gives excellent insights into how they develop people. It’s certainly a case of learning from each other and being encouraged to have the initiative to self-learn.
Let’s take the first point. Chip Conley wrote about his experience of joining the company aged 52 and with 20-plus years in hospitality, giving a pretty funny account of how he relied on listening to his younger colleagues to settle in. In fact, the article does an excellent job of summarising Airbnb’s philosophy at the time: Create, Learn, Play. The middle part of that sandwich involved looking “inside and outside for inspiration and learning”
Another employee, Mark Curtis, wrote about his experiences in 2014—the year between Levy’s arrival and the creation of the Employee Experience Group. It seems that the culture of learning in the flow of work already existed to an extent, and Curtis stated that: “Our culture, tools, and processes all revolve around giving individual contributors accurate and timely information that they can use to make great decisions”. He also added that “we default to information sharing” in order to provide engineers with as much information as possible so that they can find it and work autonomously.
Forget the culture trip, tell us about their training!
Ready for the training-heavy, juicy part of the Airbnb rundown? If they think a course or platform isn’t up to delivering what they need, they’ll simply create their own. Which makes sense, given that it has to work in the culture as well achieve the goals. In 2016, they created Data University to improve data literacy among their staff, because existing courses just weren’t tailored to their data and tools. This comprised of multiple courses tailored to different roles, technical literacy and departments across the business. For example, “more intensive courses on Python and machine learning have helped engineers brush up on necessary skills for projects.”
In the months that followed, a total of 500 employees took one class and use of Airbnb data science tools rose from 30 to 45 percent. Interestingly, it wasn’t their first attempt at a project like this but it seemed to be their most successful. Product Manager, Jeff Feng, gave three reasons why he believed it worked this time around: Designing an accessible curriculum for everyone, working with leadership across the company to set data literacy expectations and finding ways to measure success.
Uber
When you start to unpick what training must look like at Uber, there are no pangs of jealousy, we’ll be honest. First, there’s the issue of training their 22,000 core staff but there’s also the slight issue of 3.9 million drivers across 60-plus countries.
Those drivers are all over the world, speaking different languages and they’re often without access to a computer. When was the last time you hailed a ride and hopped into a car with a laptop on the passenger seat? Exactly. Bring all those drivers together physically and you’re probably looking at more air miles than most cover over the ground in a month!
The answer? Using a platform that enables mobile learning, in bite-sized chunks that drivers can find between fares. In South Africa, Uber used the Workforce Success platform EduMe to provide short and interactive sessions using an app. This resulted in time to first trip being 13% faster than face-to-face training sessions, and it also reduced pressure, time spent and costs for the support centre.
In Mexico, Uber turned to Mindflash in order to deliver web-based courses to drivers. The content from live sessions was converted into PDFs, which were uploaded as courses alongside quizzes to improve and measure knowledge retention. As was the case in South Africa, mobile learning was also made available—giving the option to study between fares. Since, they’ve managed to deliver up to 30,000 courses in a single week, and record 13,000 mobile course completions in three months.
Microsoft
Some of the companies on this list really took some digging, Microsoft is an open book! In fact, there’s probably too much information out there, that’s how open they are. Below is a screenshot from Microsoft’s Empowering Our Employees page. And it certainly implies a culture of continuous learning, knowledge sharing and upskilling towards career development.
Tapping into AI for a better learning outlook
Let’s tackle the top point, that learning should be personalised and relevant. When discussing the topic of cybersecurity at the company, Ken Sexsmith, Director of Security Training and Awareness at Microsoft, revealed how they had tapped into the power of AI to empower knowledge retention and create a personalised experience.
Using a tool from Elephants Don’t Forget, users began to receive emails with questions about training sessions they’d taken and were given explanations for any incorrect answers. As Sexsmith put it, “On a given day, following a training you take, we will send you an email that says, ‘Hey, you came to training and we want you to answer a couple questions about the content.”
Sharing skills and creating a learning culture through Hackathon
Have you heard of Hackathon? Launched in 2014 to help drive a culture change where employees would take risks to improve the world for better, by participating in projects.
“One place for everyone to come together, experience creative and fast-paced collaboration, make a difference, and drive the culture forward.”
Don’t let the name fool you, this is not just for techies or coders, it’s a platform for everyone and their skill set. The projects range from assessing broadband availability, to helping the visually impaired get around more easily and even something as weird as ‘Designing for the Zombie Apocalypse’. These act as platforms for sharing knowledge and ideas, while giving people a different scenario to practice their skills in. 2017 welcomed 18,000 people across 400 cities and 75 countries.
Using gamification to engage employees and collect their feedback
Microsoft were using gamification before it was cool! Although you’ll find plenty of mentions and examples that they use it, the most common example is Communicate Hope. Created by Ross Smith to gather feedback on Microsoft Lync in 2010, “thousands of employees got on board and ‘gamers’ contributed at 16 times the rate of non-gamers.” – this was part of Smith’s ethos that you need to get people excited about participation.
Just a few years later, they used the Language Quality Game to tap into 4,500 users who assessed the quality of translations. They even included some poor translations on purpose. You might not think of these as training exercises, but their employees would become more familiar with the products, learn their faults and be given a platform to share their feedback, which would make them more engaged.
What’s next? Upskilling for the future
Microsoft recently announced that they will partner with education provider General Assembly “to close skills gaps in the rapidly growing fields of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and data engineering, machine learning, data science, and more.”
They’re aiming to upskill and reskill 15,000 employees for AI-based roles by 2022. Microsoft will therefore be a founding member of the GA’s Standards Board and help “define skills standards, develop assessments, design a career framework, and build an industry-recognized credential for AI skills”. The pair will also work together to create an AI Talent Network that sources candidates for project-based work and for hire.
Netflix
You’ll hardly find anything about Netflix’s training strategy or culture from the last decade, and yet they’ve been credited with reinventing and revolutionising HR. So, while we can’t tell you exactly how they train their employees, we’re sure you’ll agree that this deserves further investigation.
In 2009, Netflix shared a 126-slide presentation titled Netflix Culture: Freedom & Responsibility, sharing some ideas that were pretty revolutionary at the time. Ideas like employees deciding the vacation time they thought was appropriate are still seen as madcap by some. The argument in those 126 slides has convinced many more people their approach is the right one.
Source: Netflix Culture: Freedom & Responsibility
The learning takeaways from Netflix’s iconic presentation
“You demonstrate consistently strong performance so colleagues can rely upon you.”
“You learn rapidly and eagerly.”
“Avoid top-down decision making.”
“We support self-improvement.”
Scepticism of independent silos because “work that requires coordination suffers.”
What do we actually know about training at Netflix?
Well, the fact that a Quora reply has become such a commonly-used resource highlights that Netflix’s approach to outward transparency has evolved over the past 10 years. Today, finding information on exactly how Netflix train their people is a well-kept secret. But, let’s look at what we can learn from that infamous Quora question.
Netflix weren’t kidding when they said people get their opportunity and a big challenge to sink their teeth into! The engineer who shared his onboarding experience revealed that his first product was Netflix on Apple TV. Also, the idea of collaborative learning seems to carry through the company, with new starters meeting senior management, CEO Reed Hastings and a dedicated mentor as they settle in.
Booking.com
The first lesson you can learn from Booking.com is that knowing your internal audience is crucial. It’s easy to forget sometimes, but you should consider your employees with the same attentiveness that you’d give to your customers. Recognising the number of millennials in their workforce, Booking.com turned to Udemy for Business as they searched for an “online learning platform that could help its younger employees develop their technical and leadership skills to grow individually and push the company forward.”
The goal was to encourage them to develop new skills and use those to seek out new opportunities in the company, as opposed to new opportunities somewhere else. They were steered in the direction of management and leadership development, public speaking, data science and web development. Having access to the variety of courses and flexibility to learn on the move through the app appealed to the younger generation at Booking.com.
As you can learn from Udemy’s case study, this signalled a move away from just providing a learning budget to employees and the low adoption rate associated with this. Instead, the average learner spent five-plus hours on the platform, and a particularly enthused employee summed up why:
“Using Udemy’s iPhone app, I managed to download an amazing course just moments before boarding London Underground and ended my 45 minute train journey (quite boring usually) feeling so empowered.”
Sometimes, upskilling is the only option. Adapt like Booking.com!
Upskilling seems to be a theme here, and it was an approach they also employed when finding developers who could operate with Practical Extraction and Report Language (PERL), Booking.com’s coding language. The issue was finding the finished pearl, and they realised they’d need to crack a few training oysters in order to build their collection. Plus, they’d need to do it on a large scale.
The solution, find developers familiar with other coding languages and use Geekuni to train them during their onboarding process, something they’ve done for over 350 employees. Because their existing teams don’t need to provide this training, it ensures their productivity isn’t affected and enables them to onboard developers on a greater scale. Using the same company for this process ensures consistency. Communication between Geekuni and the onboarding team leads at Booking.com means the company are up-to-date with progress and how ready that person is to move into their role.
How to train employees: What did we learn from these training innovators?
You probably noticed, but we mentioned the word upskill(ing) a lot in this piece, 11 times in fact! But as our Amazon and Microsoft examples showed, it’s important to understand which skills are in-demand before you develop them. Otherwise, how do you know if you’re closing the right skill gap?
Social learning, knowledge sharing, peer-to-peer, however, we dressed it up in this piece, popped up time and time again. That’s because the best resources are sometimes your employees, especially for providing contextual and business-relevant learning. Besides, if Google are happy enough to shout about it on their blog, it’s probably worth a go.
Our last two lessons go hand-in-hand, use microlearning to make the experience manageable and deliver it on mobile to allow learning flexibility. The Uber example was the perfect one, because if drivers had time to kill, they could learn through short lessons, videos and quizzes. But how is that any different to commuting time for your employees? It’s not, and that Booking.com employee was so enthused by the experience that he felt empowered leaving the London underground. If that doesn’t tell you about the power of mobile learning, nothing will.
One last thing, learning this way isn’t some sort of exclusive VIP club for the biggest, global companies, it’s something you can experience for yourself. There’s no waiting line to trial HowNow, you’ve just got to fill in a short form and your journey to learning innovation begins.
Overview: Based on reviews from learning platform users, Sana Learn is praised for its intuitive interface, easy adoption, engaging interactive content, and AI-powered tools that can speed up content creation and discovery. Customers consistently highlight smooth onboarding, responsive support, and useful integrations with email, calendar, and collaboration tools. However, recurring limitations emerge around content flexibility, AI accuracy, occasional technical glitches, UI quirks, and gaps in admin training, which can create friction as teams scale their learning programs. While Sana Learn works well for organisations seeking fast rollout and straightforward learner engagement, teams needing more customization, reliable AI, and robust integrations may want to explore alternative platforms and see how they compare in practice.
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When you're evaluating learning platforms, everyone has an opinion. Vendors have feature pages. Review sites have listicles. And everyone claims to be the best AI-powered LMS on the market.
What nobody tells you is what it's actually like six months in.
Sana Learn (part of Sana Labs), an AI company founded in 2016 in Stockholm, will likely show up early in your research. It's well-funded, well-marketed and has built a genuine reputation in the AI learning space.
But reputation and reality don't always match. And the people best placed to tell you the difference aren't the sales team. They're the L&D leaders, admins and learners who use it every day.
To help you, you’ve analysed 50+ real customer reviews so you don't have to. Not to cherry-pick the bad bits but to find the patterns that will help you make informed decisions. The things that come up again and again once the implementation is done and the day-to-day reality sets in.
Because when you're making a buying decision that affects your entire workforce, what matters isn't which platform has the best copy or demo. It's which one that will help you build and engage your workforce to proactively build the skills your business needs to grow.
Where Sana Learn does well.
One thing becomes clear when you read through the customer reviews: Sana Learn is easy to like.
Users consistently describe the platform as intuitive, clean and simple to pick up. There's very little friction in getting started which, if you've ever tried rolling out a new learning platform to a sceptical workforce, you'll know is no small thing.
That ease extends to implementation. Several reviewers highlight how seamless the setup felt, with teams barely noticing the transition. For organisations without the time or appetite for a heavy rollout, that's a meaningful advantage.
AI is another area where Sana Learn gets genuine praise. Users point to how quickly they can generate content, surface answers and navigate learning materials with AI woven throughout the experience. When it works, it removes friction from the content creation process in a way that L&D teams with limited resources will appreciate.
The learning experience itself also lands well. Interactive modules, clickable elements and embedded content make it easier to engage with topics that would otherwise feel dry. Learners aren't just clicking through slides; they're actually interacting with material.
Put simply: Sana Learn is a platform that's genuinely easy to adopt and easy to engage with. For teams prioritising simplicity and fast time-to-value, that counts for a lot.
What are the limitations of Sana Learn?
Once you move past first impressions, the reviews become more nuanced; and more useful.
A recurring theme is that while Sana Learn is easy to use, it can feel limiting when you try to do more with it.
Several users point to a lack of flexibility in content creation. Editing options are described as restrictive, with one reviewer putting it plainly:
"Tables are a bit clunky and hard to edit… [there's not] much freedom when it comes to text & layout."
Others mention having to rely on external tools to get the output they actually need:
"Many features are unavailable and have to be done outside of the platform using third-party providers."
For L&D teams trying to scale content production or tailor learning experiences more precisely, that's where friction starts to add up.
There's also a subtle but telling critique around product direction. One reviewer notes that the platform sometimes prioritises:
"attention-grabbing features over more basic feature development."
That's the kind of comment that tends to surface when a platform is evolving quickly; but not always in the direction its users need most.
Is Sana Learn's AI reliable?
AI is one of Sana Learn's biggest selling points; but it's also one of its most inconsistent areas.
While some users are impressed by the speed and convenience, others highlight accuracy issues that slow them down rather than speed them up:
"There are times when the AI doesn't fully grasp what I'm asking for…"
"Sometimes the AI suggestions are not fully accurate, and it takes a bit of time to find the exact content I'm looking for."
That tension shows up across multiple reviews. The capability is there; but it's not always reliable enough to trust without sense-checking.
For L&D teams expecting AI to meaningfully reduce manual effort, that gap matters more than it might first appear.
What do Sana Learn users say about technical performance?
Another pattern across the reviews is the presence of ongoing, low-level technical friction. Not catastrophic failures; but enough to interrupt workflows when they matter most.
Users mention occasional platform freezing, performance lags when handling complex content and integration challenges, particularly around APIs. One reviewer sums it up plainly:
"The platform can be a bit glitchy at times…"
Others call out specific integration issues:
"Had some hiccups with [the] Bamboo integration API."
These aren't universal experiences; but they appear frequently enough to be worth factoring in, particularly for organisations running a broader HR and L&D tech stack where reliable integrations aren't optional.
What do Sana Learn users say about the interface?
Interestingly, even though usability is one of Sana Learn's most praised qualities, there are still consistent complaints about specific interface behaviours; particularly once users move beyond everyday tasks.
For example, one reviewer points out a frustrating content creation issue:
"When I'm creating a comment… and then pop over to another window, the comments I started typing disappear."
Others find the home screen experience overwhelming:
"The interface can appear a little overwhelming with all the videos visible when you enter the homescreen."
There are also mentions of difficulty navigating back to in-progress courses, and issues with live learning environments around audio and visual quality.
None of these are deal-breakers on their own. But together they create a sense of inconsistency; where the platform feels smooth in some moments and frustrating in others. For L&D teams managing large learner populations, those friction points tend to get amplified at scale.
What do Sana Learn users say about the learning experience?
Beyond the platform mechanics, some users point to limitations in how learning content is actually delivered.
Quiz functionality comes up more than once, particularly around rigid structures:
"When making a mistake… you have to click through the whole exam before being able to repeat."
Others mention repetitive questions and a lack of depth in supporting materials:
"Example videos are not very detailed enough."
There's also feedback around pacing; specifically that learners can move through content too quickly without meaningful controls in place to slow them down or check understanding along the way.
None of these are headline issues. But for L&D teams where learning effectiveness is the whole point, they're worth knowing about before you buy.
What do Sana Learn admins say about the platform experience?
While learners tend to find Sana Learn straightforward, the experience for admins and L&D teams is less consistently praised.
Some reviewers highlight a lack of guidance when it comes to more advanced features:
"Need more training on available features."
Others point to documentation that doesn't quite hit the mark:
"Videos are usually very short and articles can be text heavy."
This creates a meaningful disconnect. The platform feels simple on the surface; but getting the most out of it as an admin can require significantly more effort than the initial experience suggests. For L&D teams who need to move fast and can't afford a steep learning curve behind the scenes, that's worth factoring into your decision.
Should you be looking at Sana Learn alternatives?
That depends on what you need.
If your priority is fast rollout, strong initial engagement and a clean intuitive interface, Sana Learn clearly delivers. For teams that need something up and running quickly with minimal friction, it's a strong option.
But if you're thinking longer term; about scaling learning, tailoring content more precisely and integrating deeply into your wider HR and L&D tech stack, the limitations that surface across these reviews start to matter a great deal more.
The question isn't whether Sana Learn is a good platform. For many organisations, it is. The question is whether it's the right platform for where your organisation is going; not just where it is today.
Is HowNow a good Sana Learn alternative?
HowNow tends to come up for teams that want more than a clean learning interface.
Reviews give you a strong starting point but they won’t tell you how a platform fits your specific setup.
If you’re weighing up Sana Learn against alternatives, the most useful next step is to see them side by side.
HowNow built around a different idea: that learning shouldn't sit in a separate platform, disconnected from the way people actually work. It should connect everything together; the content, the skills data, the performance context and the tools your teams already use every day.
In practice, that means bringing learning from multiple sources into one centralised place, linking development directly to skills gaps and business performance, and using AI in a way that supports real workflows rather than just speeding up content generation.
But perhaps most importantly, HowNow is designed to scale with you. Not just easy to start; but built to deliver more as your organisation grows, your needs get more complex and your expectations of what good learning looks like get higher.
If the patterns in these reviews resonate with challenges you're already facing, it might be worth seeing it for yourself.
You’re comparing features, pricing, integrations, and user experience. But there’s one thing that often gets pushed down the list is security.
It shouldn’t be.
Learning platforms sit on a goldmine of sensitive data e.g. employee records, performance data, personal details. If that data is mishandled, the impact isn’t just technical. It’s reputational, legal, and operational.
So before you get dazzled by a slick demo, it’s worth asking more important questions such as:
Is this platform safe? And can I trust this vendor?
Why security matters when buying a learning platform
Security conversations are often left until the final stages of evaluation.
By then:
Data has already been shared
Internal stakeholders are invested
Walking away feels expensive
That’s how risky decisions get made.
Instead, bring security into the conversation early.
Loop in your InfoSec, IT and data protection teams from the start so they can review vendors alongside you (not play catch-up at the end which is what we often see).
It saves time, avoids friction, and builds confidence internally.
What security certifications should an LMS or LXP have?
There are plenty of badges vendors can display.
Not all of them mean the same thing.
When it comes to learning platform security, there are two certifications that actually matter:
ISO 27001:2022 — The Global Standard
ISO 27001 is a globally recognised information security standard.
It’s a risk-based framework that shows a vendor takes security seriously across their organisation (not just in isolated areas).
But this is where many buyers stop too early.
The certificate alone isn’t enough.
Ask for the Statement of Applicability (SoA).
This document shows:
which controls are implemented
how risks are managed
why specific decisions were made
When reviewing it, pay close attention to:
information classification
data leakage prevention
handling of personally identifiable information (PII)
Learning platforms process large volumes of employee data. If a vendor can’t clearly explain how that data is segmented and protected in their cloud environment, the certification doesn’t mean much.
What to double-check
Does the certification cover the whole organisation or just part of it?
Is it officially accredited?
Is it the vendor’s certification, or are they pointing to their hosting provider (AWS, Azure, etc.)?
If it’s the latter, push back. Hosting infrastructure doesn't mean application security.
Cyber Essentials Plus — Essential for UK-based organisations
If you’re a UK-based company, Cyber Essentials Plus should be your baseline.
Unlike the standard Cyber Essentials (which is self-assessed), the Plus certification includes:
independent technical verification
hands-on testing
real validation of controls
For a learning platform handling sensitive employee data, this provides confidence that the basics are properly secured.
As with ISO 27001, don’t just take it at face value.
Learning Technologies is back and we could not be more excited.
L&D is changing faster than most organisations can keep up with. AI is reshaping how people learn, skills gaps are widening and the pressure on L&D teams to prove impact has never been higher. The conversations happening at this year's event are going to matter.
HowNow is already working with companies to build the talent of tomorrow; closing skills gaps, connecting learning to performance and giving L&D teams the data to prove it's working. We want to help you do the same.
Learning Technologies is a great place to start this journey.
You'll find us at stand E30. Come and find us.
Here's what's waiting for you.
1. Get a Free Learning Health Check
Most L&D teams we speak to already know something isn't quite working. Maybe engagement is low. Maybe learning is scattered across too many tools. Maybe the business is asking questions about impact that are hard to answer.
The Learning Health Check is a free 15-minute desk-side consultation with one of our experts at stand E30. No slides, no sales pitch; just a focused conversation about where your organisation is right now, what's getting in the way and where the biggest opportunities are.
You'll walk away with tips you can apply to your strategy straight away, whether you use HowNow or not. This is exclusive to Learning Technologies and designed to be relevant to you and your organisation.
2. Hear How to Prove Learning Is Actually Building Skills
Day one. 1:10pm. Bitesize Stage
If you've ever sat in a leadership meeting struggling to demonstrate the impact of your learning programme, this one's for you.
Harvey Stead is taking the stage for a bitesize session on one of the biggest questions in L&D right now: how do you prove that learning is genuinely building skills? Join a group of 30+ L&D leaders for a practical, focused conversation designed to give you something you can actually take back to the business.
Arrive at 1pm to secure your seat. Spaces are extremely limited and assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.
3. Learn What It Means to Be a Self-Improving Company
Day one, 11:45–12:15pm in Theatre 2.
Day two, 11:45–12:15pm in Theatre 2.
Every company wants the same thing: people continuously getting better at their jobs. But running that loop manually is nearly impossible. Who's struggling? When do you intervene? What actually helps? Did it work? By the time you've coordinated answers to those questions, months have passed and the moment is gone.
In this session, Nelson Sivalingam; CEO of HowNow, one of the fastest-growing AI learning companies and author of the acclaimed book Learning at Speed; introduces a fundamentally different model: the self-improving company.
Nelson will show how AI agents are transforming organisational performance by monitoring work systems in real time, detecting struggles the moment they emerge, intervening with the right support at the right time and measuring what actually improved in performance data; not surveys.
So popular we are running it twice. No excuses to miss it.
4. Hear Trainline’s Approach to Employee Engagement
Day two, 14:45 – 15:15 in Theatre 2.
Building a learning culture sounds great on paper. Doing it in reality? That’s where things get interesting.
In this honest fireside chat, Trainline shares how they’re approaching employee engagement from the ground up; what’s worked, what hasn’t and where they’re still experimenting. From driving early adoption to making learning feel genuinely relevant across the business, this session goes beyond theory and into the real challenges L&D teams face every day.
Expect practical insights you can take back with you, along with a clear view of what it actually takes to get people engaged in learning.
If you're trying to increase learning engagement, bring a notebook.
5. Meet HowNow Customers at Our Happy Hour
Day one, 15:00 onwards - Stand 30.
Straight after Nelson's session, we're hosting a customer meet and greet at stand E30. Prosecco, canned cocktails, beers and the kind of conversations you actually come to events like this for.
Want to know what it's really like to use HowNow? Don't ask us. Ask them.
Look out for the special 'talk to me' badges; those are the HowNow customers with the real stories. They'll be in and around the stand all afternoon and they're easy to spot. Pull them aside, ask them anything and hear first-hand what's working for organisations just like yours.
6. Get refreshed with us
And if all that wasn't enough, we’ll also have fresh coffee flowing and soft serve ice cream on hand too; because balance is important.
Whether you need a caffeine boost, something sweet, or just a reason to pause between sessions, it’s the perfect excuse to stop by and have a relaxed chat with the team. No agenda, no pressure; just good conversation (and better snacks).
The best moments at events like this aren’t always on stage. Sometimes they’re over a coffee… or an ice cream, but either way, they are together.
And so many more reasons….
So, whether you want to catch a talk, grab a drink, or just have a proper conversation about your learning strategy, we'd love to see you. Learning Technologies is one of the best opportunities of the year to connect, learn and get inspired and we're making sure our stand is worth your time.
Onboarding is one of those things everyone agrees matters and yet it’s still one of the most inconsistently done processes in most organisations. Too often it’s a chaotic first week of back-to-back meetings, a SharePoint folder nobody can find, and a laptop that arrives three days late.
Designing onboarding that actually scales is one of the biggest challenges HR and L&D teams face. Most organisations know their onboarding could be better.
Pauline Taylor, VP of People at HowNow, spoke with Ian Walker on the L&D Disrupt Podcast about what great onboarding really looks like and how to build it properly.
This blog walks you through what came out of that conversation and where to start.
Why Onboarding Matters More Than You Think
Let’s start with the business case, because it’s a strong one.
As Ian puts it:
“The value, of course, is that you are accelerating people’s sense of connection. And the statistic about that is that if people feel that they have been treated well in the onboarding process, their longevity is extended. So from a retention point of view, the evidence is pretty unequivocal.”
Connection drives retention. If a new hire spends their first few weeks feeling lost, anxious, or like an afterthought, you’re already on the back foot, regardless of how good the role is. Good onboarding accelerates that sense of belonging and gets people up to speed faster. Friction in those early weeks doesn’t just feel bad. It costs you time, productivity, and ultimately, people.
Should Employee Onboarding be In-Person vs. Remote?
There’s no universal answer here, but there are some useful principles.
If you’re onboarding in person, you’re making a strategic investment in culture. Salesforce, for example, made in-person onboarding a priority specifically because they believed it was the best way to embed culture from day one. That’s not a logistical decision; it’s a values one.
If you’re onboarding remotely, the goal is to make the experience feel as close to in-real-life as possible. As Ian says:
“Similarly, if you’re doing it remotely, make sure that all of the experience is as far as possible close to the in real life experience.”
The principles are the same: connection, culture, and clarity. The delivery just looks different.
Nail the Employee Onboarding Fundamentals
This one sounds obvious, but it’s where so many onboarding programmes fall apart.
If you’re bringing someone in person, the infrastructure has to be invisible. Ian is direct on this:
“If you’re gonna do it in person, make sure that all of that is properly handled and does not come back onto the individual. Not only will that distract them, it’ll make them more nervous, it’ll make them feel less good about the whole experience. But it will detract from the efficiency of ramping them up quickly as well.”
That means flights and hotels booked correctly, a laptop ready on day one, security badges sorted in advance, and schedules organised. Get the admin right, and everything else has a chance to land.
What Should Actually Be In Your Onboarding Programme?
Your company culture is the most important element of any onboarding programme. Don’t just list your values on a slide and move on. Bring them to life.
Ian’s advice here is clear:
“Bring in managers, bring in people who are living the culture. So it’s not just someone listening to the same person, same voice all day. You’re getting different voices in there, but you’re getting people sharing their lived experience of why is this culture important to me?”
When people share their lived experience, it lands differently. It’s personal, it’s real, and far more memorable than a PowerPoint.
Networking opportunities
When you’ve got a cohort of new starters in a room (or on a call) that’s a real opportunity. Ian puts it well:
“Use this opportunity to build your network as well. Understand what’s happening within the company because not only will you leverage those relationships, but you’ll learn about what are potential career paths that you can also follow?”
Build in time for people to actually connect with each other. Those relationships can shape how people collaborate and grow within the organisation long after onboarding ends.
Setting real performance expectations
Be upfront about what working there actually looks like. Ian recalls:
“I remember talking to a room full of newly hired employees and saying, you’re gonna be expected to work hard. And you could see these big eyes — and it’s like, yeah, it’s just a reality. You are gonna be held to account for what you do. So expectation setting early on, I think, is really key.”
Ideally, it starts in the interview process, but reinforcing it early avoids misalignment down the line.
The big picture
Help new starters understand how the company works from top to bottom. As Ian explains:
“If you can explain from a top level down, this is a corporate objective, this is what we try and accomplish, this is how it cascades down within each team and each department — how it all fits together and what role you play in it — people get the sense of the bigger picture they’re playing within the organisation as well.”
When people understand how their work connects to something larger, they’re more motivated and more effective.
The Triangle: Getting the Handoff Right
This is one of the most important (and most overlooked) parts of onboarding at scale.
Onboarding isn’t one team’s job. It’s a shared responsibility across three groups:
The onboarding team: responsible for culture, company-wide knowledge, and the rites of passage every new starter goes through
The enablement or L&D function: responsible for the functional knowledge someone needs to actually do their job
The manager: responsible for supporting the new hire and integrating that learning into day-to-day work
Ian is emphatic about how closely these three need to work together:
“The enablement organisation and the onboarding organisation need to be in a triangle. A really close triangle. So that the handover is happening effectively. The knowledge is being built upon. It’s not being duplicated. Nothing worse than when someone’s being invited to one call for onboarding and then they’ve been invited to an enablement call. You can’t allow that to happen. It has to be sequential and it has to be managed collectively.”
When this triangle breaks down, the new hire falls through the gaps. When it works, everything flows.
Onboarding is a Two-Way Street
Onboarding isn’t something that happens to a new hire. They have a role to play too. As Ian puts it:
“The fourth person is the learner themselves. They need to invest the time in order to onboard themselves effectively. So they need to read the materials, do the out of the room learning piece, as well as relationship building out of the room as well, which is so key to onboarding effectively.”
Setting that expectation early makes a real difference. People who take ownership of their own onboarding get up to speed faster and feel more settled sooner.
How Long Should Onboarding Last?
There’s no magic timeline that works for every role, every person, or every organisation. The length of onboarding depends on the complexity of the role, the individual’s prior experience, and how transferable their skills are.
What Ian suggests is a more interesting reframe altogether:
“You should always feel that you’re onboarding because you are always in your job. And particularly now, jobs are changing so quickly that if you have that beginner’s mindset, you are always onboarding yourself in a new direction. If you are always growing yourself.”
The most effective people don’t stop onboarding when week four ends. They carry that curiosity with them.
The Summary
Great onboarding isn’t about cramming as much information as possible into someone’s first week. It’s about connection, clarity, and getting the fundamentals right so people can do their best work sooner.
Get the logistics sorted. Bring culture to life. Build the triangle. Give new starters the space to take ownership. Resist the urge to put a fixed time limit on it.
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