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| Image by Katie White from Pixabay |
Personalization of learning has become one of the most frequently discussed trends in L&D. Beyond the usual methods of tailoring content to specific roles and tasks, commercial, adaptive technologies claim to offer personalized learning paths meant to customize learning experiences to individual needs.
As someone who has spent over two decades designing and delivering workplace training programs, I find myself asking a critical question: How much personalization is really needed in workplace training?
I am aware of the value that personalization can bring to address diverse learning needs and requirements. But I am equally experienced in trying to solve the challenges it poses especially when scaling learning interventions.
Contrary to popular belief and savvy marketing lines, personalization doesn’t automatically transform mediocre training into something impactful.
Also, I'd add that organizations truly cannot afford to chase the "goal of personalization" for every training intervention they design.
Value of thoughtful personalization
There are clearly some opportunities where personalization of learning can add real value. For example, when we are trying to train people on highly complex, role-specific tasks in jobs that require deep technical expertise or jobs that are centered around people development. In these situations, it helps to address the diverse learner needs including individuals coming in with different prior knowledge and experiences, varying familiarity with the industry and its jargon, their range of learning preferences and accessibility needs, etc. An onboarding program, a leadership development program, or a language learning program can all benefit from some methods to tailor content to make sure that people get what they need without wasting time on redundant information. In these situations, personalization can also help learners feel more in control of their journey. This sense of autonomy and empowerment can certainly increase engagement and retention.
But, there are limits to this approach, especially in the context of workplace realities and varying learning needs and performance outcomes.
The cost and challenges of scaling personalization
Personalization is resource-intensive. Designing core and ancillary content, identifying multiple learning paths, creating adaptive content, and leveraging technologies that cater to individual preferences all require time, budget, and expertise. For organization-wide, large-scale training initiatives like compliance, regulatory, or safety training for hundreds of employees, scaling personalized approaches becomes impractical. I have seen enough cases when there are superficial attempts at personalization. For example, building multiple learning pathways without meaningful real differentiation. If there is very little or no variance in the actual content, learning assignments and assessments, and learning interactions and engagement that actually address the different deeper learning needs, then why do it?
Without thoughtful and intentional design, personalization can seem more like a check-box activity rather than a meaningful enhancement to the learning experience.
Risks of over-personalization
I've also seen how sometimes over-personalization can unintentionally isolate learners and prevent the development of a natural, organic organization-wide learning community. When the training path is too fragmented, employees tend to miss out on shared experiences that actually help in collaboration and alignment.
For one of the training interventions I designed many years ago, the client insisted on creating role-specific training for an enterprise software rollout for the organization. While it was valuable to tailor the content for individual role holders, there were over 20 unique roles to cater to, which seemed too many. The developmental timelines and budgets were quickly out of line. But more importantly, within this fragmented approach, there was no opportunity for cross-functional teams to engage with common content that reinforced some of the most critical features and functionality of the software for the organization. In this case, a challenge that repeatedly came up was that the sales team didn't quite understand how their choices within the software workflow were impacting the finance team who had to "redo" some of the choices each time. This not only caused friction among the departments but also led to slow adoption of the software. In the end, the client agreed that this over-personalization of learning was actually causing desensitization in teams and individuals.
Ethical considerations of personalization
There are also ethical considerations about personalization. I am still exploring this angle but I have a feeling that when there are algorithms that adapt content in a "black box" mode, it might inadvertently reinforce biases or limit exposure to diverse perspectives.
For example, what if an AI-driven platform customizes leadership development content based on a learner's existing profile or past choices but it ends up prioritizing content based on stereotypical gender-based assumptions (e.g., assigning women more content related to soft skills and men more technical or strategic content).
If algorithms segment learners too narrowly, the customized path might omit content deemed 'irrelevant,' potentially leaving some learners without exposure to certain content. This can create silos of knowledge and it certainly doesn't aid in consistent application of knowledge especially in areas like workplace ethics or other organization-wide, DEI-based initiatives or health and safety protocols.
The ethical concerns about personalization are not understood or are overlooked.
Personalization as a strategy; not a goal
In many ways, I see personalization as more of an instructional strategy or technique rather than a training goal.
Personalization isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, nor should it be the only or primary measure of effective workplace learning. Besides, it is not a zero or one approach. It's not about making everything personalized or doing no personalization at all. There can be hybrid models that allow for building a core training curriculum for all and optional learning interventions (not always training modules!) for groups of roles allowing us to tailor content to different audiences. Personalization can be achieved using performance support tools, coaching, mentoring, or a platform for developing a shared community that 'creates' their own customized content through discussions.
The ultimate goal of any learning initiative is impact. So, personalization should serve the learner, not the other way around. In the end, the idea is to be more intentional and thoughtful about balancing tailored approaches and practical scalability and using personalization only where it genuinely enhances outcomes and justifies the investment.
Before deciding on using a personalized approach, I'd urge instructional designers to consider:
- Will personalization improve learning outcomes or engagement?
- Is personalization worth the cost in terms of time, resources, and scalability?
- Are there simpler or other alternatives that can achieve similar results?
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"behind-the-scenes" of this blog post:
In Jan, we kicked off the year with the theme: "Learning Goals and Expectations for 2025." One of the key questions posed was: How can technology better support personalized learning goals for individuals or teams, and what tools do you use?
In response to the question, I shared how technology can enable learning goals but cannot drive the learning itself. Informal learning for me happens through Slack communities, #LearnChat, LinkedIn Groups, and similar platforms. Without clear goals, though, these tools often become nothing more than collections of bookmarks and saves.
I also shared my thoughts on the need for personalization in workplace training, noting that while it can be valuable, it doesn’t fix bad training and often comes at the cost of scalability.
The short exchange made me want to explore the topic of personalization in more detail and share my perspective on the personalization of learning within the context of workplace training.
