What makes learning stick at Sun Life

Learning and development teams can build strong training programs, but getting employees to engage with them is often a communications challenge. That’s where internal comms pros come into play.

At Ragan’s Employee Communications and Culture Conference in Boston next month, Rachel Spates, director of communications and employee engagement at Sun Life, will discuss how teams can help employees build new skills by applying internal comms principles to learning programs. In practice, that means promoting learning opportunities through multiple channels and helping employees understand how new skills apply to their roles.

“Sun Life’s L&D team takes a multi-tiered approach to communicating training opportunities,” Spates told Ragan. “Sometimes that still includes an all-employee email, but they also promoting them through tools like Engage and Teams where employees are already collaborating.”

Peer-to-peer cross-training as a building block

Spates said that comms pros should model behavior that supports learning and development. She added that the communications team puts this mindset into practice by hosting peer-led lunch-and-learns in which employees share expertise from their respective disciplines. These sessions help communicators understand how other parts of the team operate and provide a baseline for unfamiliar areas.

“We’re really trying to make sure people on the larger communications team have some cross-functional knowledge about what their peers are doing,” Spates said. “It helps everyone collaborate better and feel confident answering questions from leadership.”

For example, members of the social media team plan to host a lunch-and-learn session on paid media strategy. “They’re going to present their thought process when they build targeting for a paid campaign to the rest of the communications team so they can understand it,” Spates said.

These internal cross-training sessions can help internal communicators better understand the skill sets that they need to promote across the company. It also makes it easier to parse learning offerings into messaging that employees understand.

Work hand-in-hand with L&D

Spates emphasized that Sun Life’s learning and development team is a strong, strategic partner with a clear philosophy around employee‑driven learning. “They’ve built really effective, DIY‑style programs that encourage employees to take ownership of their growth, and they’re proactive about promoting those opportunities,” she said. “When we partner closely, there’s a real opportunity to amplify that work even further.”

Prior to launching any learning initiative, communicators should work closely with the learning and development department to figure out what success looks like. Spates said  that it’s important to identify the goals of the training, the skills employees should gain and what the course rollouts should look like.

Programs often include a mix of video modules, workshops and instructor-led sessions designed to build skills progressively. The comms team and L&D then work in lockstep to determine how to position those opportunities for employees.

Depending on the topic, a training module might be led by an internal subject matter expert or an outside instructor who specializes in a given skill. Spates said that by understanding the goals behind a training program, communicators can better translate those objectives into messaging that resonates with employees. They can also explain why the course instructor is the most suited person for their role.

“Sometimes L&D can’t go as deep on certain topics, such emerging technologies like AI, because they’re not the subject matter experts,” Spates said. “But when  you bring in people who are working with the tools every day, such as IT and early adopters, they can answer the harder questions and really help employees apply what they’re learning.”

Communicate about upskilling like an internal comms campaign

Even the best L&D programs won’t get any uptake if nobody knows they exist. L&D training initiatives should be launched in the same way you would any internal comms campaign, with multi-channel tactics and by reinforcing course learnings on platforms employees already use every day.

“For instance, when I signed up for our Microsoft Copilot  training cohort, I was placed into a Teams chat where there’s an ongoing conversation with my  peers,” she said. “People share questions, talk about best practices and work together on projects.”

Spates said that these conversations drive home what employees absorbed in the training sessions, while giving them space to apply their new knowledge with their colleagues. That deeper understanding of how different roles are tied to one another strengthens the team’s ability to work together.

“When people understand what their peers are doing, they’re much better equipped to collaborate and support the broader goals of the team,” she told Ragan.

To register for our Employee Communications and Culture Conference, click here.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications.