3 essential governance guidelines your L&D team needs [examples + checklist] 

As a Learning & Development professional, managing employees’ creation of in-house content can be challenging. This article offers practical steps for enhancing content management within your organization. We’ve also included a free governance checklist to help you get started!

Dive in to streamline the governance of your Employee-generated Learning (EGL) initiatives.

The importance of a content governance framework

A governance framework safeguards the effectiveness of training materials. It helps ensure that your L&D goals align with the business objectives.

Here’s what happens when you put a good governance framework in place:

• You and your L&D team spend less time correcting and reviewing courses.
• You get more time to lay the groundwork for effective knowledge sharing, peer-to-peer learning, and teaching within the organization.
• Subject matter experts (SMEs) are more likely to contribute and feel supported.
• Departments become more self-sufficient and self-regulating when developing learning content.

3 essential governance takeaways

#1 Clarify roles and responsibilities

First, clearly define the roles and responsibilities of content creation and curation. Determine who does what in the EGL process, from content creation to reviews and updates.

How to implement:

Define roles

Outline the roles of the L&D team, SMEs, and other stakeholders. Reviewers, co-authors, and approvers should know their place in the creation process.

Create accountability

Learners often have questions about the content or want to contribute with their expertise. Instruct e-learning authors to list their names and contact information within the e-learning for queries or updates.

Plan for continuity

Courses should have assigned “heirs” who will take over course maintenance if the original creator leaves the company. A great way to ensure this continuity is to appoint the creator’s entire team instead of a single person.

#2 Help authors plan for success

This step involves empowering SMEs to focus their e-learning around central learning objectives. Equally important, it’s about setting up mechanisms for measuring and improving their e-learning.

How to implement:

Ensure authors set clear goals

Ask authors to outline the goals of their training program, mainly how it addresses specific organizational changes or business challenges.

Goals can be introducing new processes, ensuring closer compliance with guidelines, or helping colleagues work more efficiently. (For example, the goal of a GxP training plan could be closer adherence to SOP’s.)

Establish success metrics

Enable authors to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of their programs. Define the metrics that are relevant to the training. Is it course completion rates, number of learners, assessment results, or something else? Contact your CSM for support if you’re struggling with defining these metrics.

Schedule regular author meetings

Organize show-and-tell meetings for authors where you recognize and reward EGL projects. This promotes best practices for your EGL initiative and keeps authors engaged.

Keep authors updated on Easygenerator’s features

Set up communication channels with authors. A Teams community or your intranet will suffice. Regularly communicate any Easygenerator update sessions, new governance guidelines, or new resources.

#3 Set up didactic governance

The final piece of the puzzle focuses on the content itself. Didactic governance ensures that the e-learning content is engaging, interactive, and relevant.

How to implement:

Standardize course structure requirements

Establish clear guidelines for what an e-learning module should include. For example, all modules should have an introduction page with details about the length and intended audience of the e-learning.

Provide guidelines for language and media use

Make sure course creators know they must follow copyright laws and company rules for e-learning materials. The communication team should create guides on what media and text sources are okay to use.

Easily re-usable and updateable

Instruct authors to divide their courses into sections to simplify maintenance and repurposing. Well-structured courses can easily be broken down into microlearning modules.

How De’Longhi’s governance framework boosted training efficiency

De’Longhi, a global leader in small domestic appliances, operates in over 120 markets with more than 9,000 employees. This leads to many diverse, company-wide learning needs.

With each major product release, De’Longhi HQ provides a template for their regional offices to create custom e-learning for their market. These templates ensure that markets can draw in specific information while following the same governance guidelines.

This method streamlines the training process, making it highly efficient for everyone involved.

Governance pitfalls you should avoid

Setting unclear governance guidelines

The most common pitfall in e-learning governance is compiling an overly long and abstract list of dos and don’ts. Drawing on Geert’s expertise, we recommend capping it at ten practical guidelines for each governance topic. Use our e-learning governance checklist to guide you!

Letting e-learning exist in a content vacuum

Another pitfall is failing to inform employees about existing content and which e-learnings are most popular. Without this insight, authors miss the chance to draw inspiration from successful materials, hindering the ability to scale training.

Not involving the other experts in the business

Not involving all relevant experts in e-learning creation can result in pushback or even neglect of the e-learning within certain departments. To prevent this, ensure SMEs include all necessary contributors, making them feel heard and valued from the start.

Final thoughts from Geert

Governance guidelines should not be seen as restricting content creation. On the contrary, having strong governance helps implement and scale initiatives more quickly, as in the case of De’Longhi. It allows SMEs to share their knowledge effectively and lightens the load for L&D teams.

Most importantly, governance ensures the availability of relevant, up-to-date online learning, created through a collaborative effort where employees share knowledge for business impact.