An Innovative Way to Advance Professional Women’s Development

Why Focus on Women?
The numbers are staggering: women are earning the majority of college degrees, women will quickly be the majority of the workforce, and women make the large majority of consumer purchasing decisions.1 As employees and as customers, women are defining the future. Study after study has shown that having more women in senior executive positions contributes to better financial performance and builds organizational excellence.2

In the 40 years since the “women’s movement,” corporations around the world have offered many initiatives to advance women in the workplace. They’ve tried quotas. They’ve offered special programs. They’ve promoted affinity groups. But one size does not fit all. Duke CE is offering a new approach: a specialized learning community designed to target the development of professional women. 

Background
The concept of learning communities is a client-inspired innovation from Duke CE. The economic downturn of the past several years caused many Learning and Development departments to re-examine their mental models about what constituted sustainable executive education. Many companies began requesting shorter, more focused learning programs. At the same time, advances in the field created many new avenues for technology-based learning.3 

While researching the potential impact that use of social media could have in the learning space, Duke CE found compelling evidence that a feeling of “connectedness” was a key factor in employee satisfaction and retention, particularly for women and younger workers.4

Duke CE wondered how technology could facilitate connected learning between diverse groups of individuals beyond the walls of a classroom, and investigated how it could build workplace connections so that learning can happen anytime, anywhere. Meanwhile, clients began asking for something that would target, accelerate and sustain the professional development of women.

The Loom
The convergence of these two forces led to the formation of “The Loom,” a learning community that joins women across decades, cultures and geographies to connect, engage, learn, and develop. The Loom is an online community where women can learn from each other, interact with thought leaders, and tap into specific educational content and opportunities relevant to the competencies they are hoping to enhance. 

Specifically, the Loom addresses these requests Duke CE heard from clients:

  • Connect women inside and outside of their organizations;
  • Meet women where they are in life, recognizing that not all women need the same thing at the same time; and
  • Combine the benefits of social networking with educational content so that each individual could target her own personal development needs.

Women can connect to other women with similar interests for conversation and problem solving. Women can elect to participate in online discussions, attend webinars with thought leaders, and even create and post their own content. The Loom allows both private space to collaborate on business challenges that affect only their own company as well as public or common space to connect with women from other industries.

Women can engage by joining groups on issues of interest. Sometimes women need to get outside their own corporate walls to feel free enough to speak. Providing a “safe” place for women to communicate with others who share similar experiences appeals to the special nature of women’s learning style. Women are known to prefer solving problems through communication and collaboration, and tend to excel in female-only learning environments.5

In addition to learning from each other, women can learn in a just-in-time fashion by searching a library of pre-screened e-content on topics of interest. The Loom offers both formal and information educational content without the requirement of a classroom. Thus, each person can choose the educational interaction that is most relevant for them. 

Finally, women can develop by creating their personal development plan and tracking their progress. Along with a professional development plan on file at the office, the Loom allows women the option to maintain a separate plan to work on issues of special interest. Members of the Loom enjoy social networking for a purpose: learning and connecting within a growing community of professional women, combined with pre-selected, constantly refreshed and searchable content. Members attend regular live events that bring the community together to hear first-hand from experts around the world on issues that matter to professional women. In addition to the numerous individual benefits, corporations benefit from a visible and sustained focus on women’s development.

Duke CE’s learning community concept is flexible enough to support a variety of interest groups, ranging from learning program alumni  to diversity and inclusion engagement efforts. Harness the power of social media to connect people and create sustainable learning for your employees by contacting Duke CE.