2 bridgelearning management. the lms and talent management software market over time looking back...

B R I D G E : A N E W B R E E D O F E M P L O Y E E E X P E R I E N C E P L A T F O R M2

Bridge: A New Breed of Employee Experience Platform

One of the most complex parts of HR software is learning.

Learning management systems and related tools make up

the $240 billion corporate training and education market. In

today’s world of skills-focused strategies, this market is more

important than ever.

This paper will discuss Bridge, a platform developed by

Instructure, a company that leads the market in educational

software for educational institutions. Through a series of

strategic decisions, Bridge has become one of the most modern

employee-focused HR platforms, built from a foundation in

learning management.

The LMS and Talent Management Software Market over Time

Looking back only a few decades, learning management

software companies like Cornerstone, Saba, SumTotal, and

Plateau were the darlings of investors and HR departments.

These systems were originally purchased to store and

manage a company’s entire catalog of training and online

learning. Over time, these systems grew into integrated talent

management systems.

During the early 2000s, when the internet was new and

companies were focused on growth, these platforms became

what we call “prehire to retire” systems, designed with the

intent to manage all the various HR practices of recruiting,

learning, performance management, succession, and

compensation. Growing from their roots in the LMS market,

they became highly complex systems that managed the end-to-

end talent practices for companies.

As companies started to buy these integrated systems, they

consolidated their prior generations of systems. At the same

time, vendors like SAP and Oracle got into the market through

the acquisitions of SuccessFactors (which had acquired

Plateau) and Taleo (which had acquired Learn.com). Today

most big companies have one of these systems, which now play

the role of “talent system of record.”

Since then, however, the world has radically changed. Today

companies operate more as networks than hierarchies. People

change jobs much more frequently so there is a constant need

for onboarding, employee transition, and career development.

And workers are so busy with other work-related digital tools

they don’t have time to use clunky HR software that doesn’t

make their work lives better.

In fact, almost everything in the talent software market

has changed. Now we need tools that manage continuous

development, coaching and performance; we need platforms

that are so useful managers and employees use them every

day; and we need HR software that is integrated and data

driven so AI can help recommend how to better develop

ourselves, how to better coach our teams, and how to better

improve team performance.

These management and organizational changes have come

Human Capital Trends research, and we found that only 6% of

company leaders believed their organizations operated as a

“network.” Today that number is over 35%, as more and more

leaders realize that collaboration, mobility, and continuous goal

alignment and development is the way they get things done.

Today’s Talent Software Market

As the economy has grown since the 2008 recession, a veritable

army of startups has been building tools to make this world

better. Hundreds of vendors now sell continuous performance

management tools, learning experience platforms, survey and

employee voice platforms, wellbeing tools, and new tools for

coaching, manager development, and diversity and inclusion.

so they are viewed as useful systems that people want to use. Of

course, they are mobile enabled, highly interactive, and designed

in a new way -- with graphical interfaces, recommendations,

chat bots, and social networking built in.

What happened to the older talent management systems?

These vendors have struggled to keep up. Most of the

traditional LMS and talent management players have added

themselves with systems that are functionally rich but hard to

use and less relevant than ever before. It’s time for a new breed

of integrated talent management platforms to arrive.


And, by the way, while all this has been happening, companies

picked up on the idea of reinventing the employee experience.

After all, these various talent practices (like performance

reviews, succession plans, career models) are important,

but what people really want at work is a great onboarding

experience, an easy way to transition from project to project,

and a talent experience at work that feels engaging, growth-

oriented, and tailored to their individual desires.

Enter Bridge

Bridge, through a relentless focus on understanding what

its customers need, has built a next-generation learning and

performance platform based on a robust and complete learning

management system that integrates most of what companies

need. While companies like Workday, Oracle, SAP, and ADP have

continued to advance their platforms, none has really integrated

all the new management approaches into one easy-to-use

system at a price that mid-sized growth companies can afford.

How did Bridge get here? It’s an interesting evolution, and

dominate the enormous market for school and university

training and education, the company realized that the

corporate LMS market was ripe for disruption. So in 2015, the

company launched Bridge, a next-generation LMS.

Bridge (I am calling the company Bridge because it is a

separate business within Instructure) then aggressively sold

the product and gained recognition as one of the hottest new

learning platforms in the market. After reaching more than 800

customers around the world, the company did a massive study

to understand what their customers really needed. They found

something odd.

First, the need for continuous skilling and career development

had dramatically increased. Almost 80% of their customers

believed that skilling and development were their most

important competitive advantage. While most of these

companies had learning platforms and various learning tools,

less than a third of those surveyed believed they really had

a learning-driven culture and easy-to-use set of processes

to actually help employees develop and grow. They all felt

learning had moved from a “push” model (driven by HR) to a

“pull model” (driven by employees and managers), and their

systems and tools had fallen behind.

The Bridge product team saw an opportunity, so it went on

a two-year crusade to build the platform that would address

this need. How could Bridge rethink the entire platform

for employee development and growth, with a focus on

the company as a network, people working in teams, and a

continuous and agile model of goal setting, development,

career management, and learning? And how could they build it

as a journey-oriented system that was easy to use, data driven,

and highly useful for employees, managers, and leaders?

The result was the Bridge’s integrated and personalized learning

and performance platform. Today, Bridge is perhaps the most

truly integrated, visually compelling, easy-to-use talent system

on the market. Bridge includes tools for social networking and

team management, goal setting and continuous performance

management, engagement surveys and analytics of team and

company feedback, self-assessment and career development

-- and of course, an extensive set of features for learning,

knowledge sharing, practice, and compliance.

In a way, Bridge is a world-class LMS, coupled with a next-

generation platform for employee communications and

collaboration, team management, employee engagement,

performance management, and all aspects of career

development and job mobility. What do we call it? I think it is a

learning-based talent experience platform – a new category in

the learning market.

Where Does Bridge Fit?

The HR software market is complex and very crowded. No

company has only one platform, and organizations buy and

build new tools over time.

As Figure 1 illustrates, companies buy and adopt different HR

practices and tools as they grow. Since all companies have a

payroll and core HR system, they often try to buy these talent

experience tools from their core vendor. While most core HR

vendors have many of these tools, they are often lacking in

functionality and not central to the vendor’s mission (running

payroll and managing the core employee systems, taxes, and

compliance are quite demanding). So companies buy more and

more tools over time.

Unfortunately, since vendors tend to focus on one domain, this

means companies end up with a Frankenstein tapestry


of systems. By the time a company has grown to thousands

of employees, it likely has a core HR system, a learning

management system and series of learning tools, a tool set

for employee goals and reviews, a platform for surveys and

employee voice, and a variety of tools for career planning,

management development, knowledge and skills sharing, and

collaboration and team management. If you include tools for

average company winds up with more than 10 systems of record.

Bridge, as the chart above shows, covers almost all of these

areas (with the exception of recruitment, which is a highly

complex set of technologies) in an integrated platform focused

on manager and employee development, engagement, and

collaboration.

The Benefits of a Bridge-Type Solution

Every HR software buyer struggles with two big issues: First,

functional depth for a system that comes from one of my core

vendors? And second, how do I stitch together the variety of

tools I buy so they deliver an integrated employee experience

and people really see value out of using them?

Unfortunately, as HR departments buy more and more tools,

there is a continuous need to roll out each newly acquired

system and encourage employees to use it. In today’s world,

where employees are overworked and already overwhelmed

with emails and messages, an excellent new system may not

get adopted simply out of user fatigue.

Bridge solves these problems. While the platform is still

relatively new (although the learning functionality is very

mature), it is designed to create a completely integrated

experience for employees, managers, and HR. Going well

Bridge is graphically elegant and gives employees and

managers a timeline-based view of all their talent, coaching,

performance, and career activities (see Figure 2).

Bridge includes a compelling and integrated social platform

project teams (see Figure 3).

Bridge is best suited for fast-growing companies which

have a focus on growth, development, and a data-driven

approach to career development, employee engagement, and

organizational growth. While it includes a world-class LMS, it

goes much further by delivering a complete talent experience

for both employees and managers, complete with analytics and

a myriad of reporting and content management tools for HR

(see Figure 4).

next-generation talent management system. It is employee

focused, integrated, and designed for the organizations of today

(see Figure 5). I believe the company will continue to grow

rapidly and has the potential to help organizations of almost

Figure 1: Talent Systems Evolution

STAGE 1 STAGE 2 STAGE 3 STAGE 4 STAGE 5

Startup Growth Expand Scale

• Payroll• HRMS• Recruitment• Finance• CRM

• ATS• Learning• • Employee Portal

• Performance Management

• Leadership development

• Employee Survey and Voice

• Self-directed learning

• Recognition• Coaching• Succession

Management• Manager Dashboards• Talent mobility• Skills sharing• Internal job board• International scale

• Advanced Analytics

• Organized charting and ONA

• Gig work management

• Advanced compensation analysis

• D&I analytics and reporting

• Globalization

1-500 Employees 100-1,000 Employees 500-5,000 Employees 1,000-10,000 Employees 5,000+ Employees

Bridge Target Market


Figure 3: Skill Communities

Figure 2: Employee Timeline

Figure 4: Insights Dashboard


Figure 5: Employee Home


Building Culture through Learning at Chemical Bank

C A S E S T U D Y

Chemical Bank, a division of TCF National Bank and soon

to be merged with TCF Bank in 2020, began using Bridge at

the beginning of 2018. The bank’s 3,500 employees consist

of about 2,000 tellers, and millennials make up more than

half the employee population. Compliance and information

security training is essential in the banking industry, and the

company wanted a holistic, easy-to-use learning system that

would automate its routine tasks while socializing learning and

treating it as a cultural component.

president and manager of organizational development, along

with two talent development partners, a graphic designer

and an LMS analyst are responsible for running the training

programs through Bridge at Chemical Bank. Some of the

accomplishments through Bridge have been:

Manager training.

with checkpoints for competencies, and Bridge offers visibility

into progress, creating more discussion points for feedback

between managers and trainees. This accountability reduced

turnover in Chemical Bank’s leadership development training

program by over 20%.

Mentor training. To address the increased interest in

mentoring, Alex Morgan, vice president of talent development,

created a mentor development program in Bridge. Mentors

receive training on how to create a productive relationship

with their mentees before getting assigned a mentor.

Social learning. The talent development team creates learning

programs around e-learning resources that include Harvard

Business Review content and TED talks. To ensure that

learning is implemented, the team creates checkpoints and

post questions to the groups. This promotes collaboration

around learning where employees can share their perspective,

pitfalls and cautionary tales.

Checkpoint functionality extends beyond learning. Bridge

also functions as a communications tool for other programs

like tuition assistance and employee incentives. The

checkpoint functionality with signature capture helps reduce

the administrative burden for previously cumbersome tasks.

Figure 5: Learning Management System


every size deliver a compelling and growth-driven experience to

all their employees.

The analytics behind Bridge help the team determine where

people engage the most or where they drop off, resulting in the

creation of better learning content. Reports are exported into

.csv format for the business analytics team to use in Tableau,

where they can create employee development dashboards.

Additionally, insights from Bridge help with workforce

planning. When a managerial position opens up, the recruiting

team can look at progress through a leadership development

program to see how close current employees are to promotion.

With the exception of compliance and information security

training, all learning programs within Bridge at Chemical Bank

are optional. Yet, in 2019, employees completed over 11,000

training modules. “It’s exceeded expectations on all levels,” said

Olsen. “I don't know of any other system where I've seen so

many people want to get on so quick.”


Bridge Brings the Employee Experience to Life at Mountain America

C A S E S T U D Y

Mountain America Credit Union manages over $9 billion

headquarters in Sandy, Utah, Aaron Brown, vice president of

talent development, oversees training and talent development

for Mountain America’s 2,600 employees.

In the year since Brown joined Mountain America, the human

resources function has reorganized to focus on the employee

experience by developing a new talent philosophy and strategy

to meet needs of the current employment lifecycle. To support

this, Mountain America centralized all its HR technology tools

under one group, which includes HR, talent development, and

internal communications. Workday, ServiceNow, and Bridge

are the primary systems that provide the functionality for

these areas.

Bridge serves a key role in operationalizing performance and

level, Mountain America has developed functional training

programs in Bridge for its employees in sales, branches, and

service centers. For leadership development, the company

uses a combination of off-the-shelf Franklin Covey programs

and customized skills-based development. The adoption of a

70-20-10 model of learning has been a mindset shift for long-

time Mountain America employees, and Bridge helps both

managers and trainees keep track of progress with on-the-job

learning projects.

For instance, one custom project involved identifying the traits

and skills for assistant VPs and creating a training program

around them. The rigor involved in identifying best practices,

with learning cohort groups helped current VPs build their

own skills as facilitators and coaches while Brown’s talent

development team served in a consultative role.

Currently all development goals and one-to-one meetings

with managers are captured in Bridge. In 2020, the company

hopes to move all performance goals into Bridge, as well as

based career paths, thereby moving the company away from a

more traditional ladder framework to a lattice framework. In

addition, the company has been piloting Engage and Practice.

Mountain America’s 2019 goal was to increase utilization

of Bridge by 50%, and halfway through the year, it reached

100%. “Our users really like it,” said Brown. “It's very easy.”

Clearly Mountain America has tapped a previously unmet

need: employees really like learning. Bridge gives them such a

positive experience that they keep coming back.

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Athletic Wear Provider

C A S E S T U D Y

A Canadian-based athletic wear provider* adopted Bridge as

According to the individuals involved in the selection process,

the decision was based on a variety of factors, including:

• A very intuitive interface for both administrators and

learners. “Our employees have to deal with a variety of

systems. We didn’t want to add one more system that

would be frustrating and hard to learn.”

•

gives people an incentive to use, as opposed to being a

detractor.”

• Flexibility. The fact that the Bridge LMS could be used to

track and assess key checkpoints, described as moments

in a new hire’s job at which the employee practices

interacting with customers. “No other system we looked

at could do this.”

• Ease of authoring the company’s own training, along with

But, in addition to the features above, the selection team said

that “Bridge speaks our language. It’s clear the company is

open to innovation and wants to work with us to continually

make things better.”

Currently, Bridge is used by two groups within the company.

The company’s digital engagement group, which has about 30

digital engagement coordinators, interacts socially through

various social channels with customers and prospects. The

largest part of the coordinator role is promoting and engaging

with customers and prospects on behalf of the company,

although employees do handle some questions and problems

that arise during interactions.

Also using Bridge is the company’s guest education center.

Employees in this group handle the lion’s share of customer

interactions by phone or email. This group varies in size

according to the time of the year – ranging from around 200

employees mid-year to up to 700 employees in the peak

months of November, December, and January. Consequently,

the company has to conduct a very aggressive onboarding and

training process each fall.

Employees in both groups tend to be young (in their 20s and

The two groups are using Bridge for all types of product-

related training, as well as cultural training. Online learning

complements the in-classroom training provided at the

beginning of the seasonal hiring push. Bridge is also used to

keep employees up to date on various products and processes.

With the Bridge LMS, supervisors and managers have the

ability to monitor quiz scores to identify potential problem

areas new hires might have and if needed, to provide extra

coaching and supervision.

Recently, these groups have started to pilot Bridge’s

Performance Management product, as the full Bridge offering

combines Learning + Performance, all in one. To date, the

experience has been positive. Those involved in the pilot have

found having tools to collaborate real-time on performance-

related conversations to be very helpful. Employees and

managers alike also like the ability to record the conversations

taking place, as well as the ability to quickly access notes from

past conversations – all in one place.

More than a year into the investment, the company is very

for training are even more appreciative of the Bridge’s

partnership approach and its openness to ongoing feedback.

*This company has requested anonymity.

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About Josh Bersin

Josh Bersin is an internationally recognized analyst, educator, and thought leader focusing on the global talent market and the challenges impacting business workforces around the world. He studies the world of work, HR and leadership practices, and the broad talent technology market.

He founded Bersin & Associates in 2001 to provide research and advisory services focused on corporate learning. Over the next ten years, he expanded the company’s coverage to encompass HR, talent management, talent acquisition, and leadership. He sold the company to Deloitte in 2012, when it became known as Bersin™ by Deloitte. Bersin left Deloitte in June 2018.

In 2019, Bersin founded the Josh Bersin Academy, the world's first global development academy for HR and talent professionals and a transformation agent for HR organizations. The Academy offers content-rich online programs, a carefully curated library of tools and resources, and a global community that helps HR and talent professionals stay current on the trends and practices needed to drive organizational success in the modern world of work.

Bersin is frequently featured in talent and business publications such as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, HR Executive, FastCompany, The Wall Street Journal, and CLO Magazine. He is a regular keynote speaker at industry events around the world and a popular blogger with more than 800,000 followers on LinkedIn.

His education includes a BS in engineering from Cornell University, an MS in engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

2 bridgelearning management. the lms and talent management software market over time looking back...

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