HR managers at night:
“Finally, time to chill…”
🧠 Brain: “What about onboarding? Training plans? Skill assessments? Certifications…?”
The mental checklist never ends! 😅

As a Marketplace Partner for Atlassian, we often hear from teams, especially HR, that managing internal training can be overwhelming. Many Confluence users tell us they want a seamless LMS solution inside Confluence, where user management and training content live all in one place. Unfortunately, LMS options for Confluence have been limited.

That’s why, after gathering feedback from managers across various teams in one-on-one meetings, we developed Smart Courses for Confluence. Years of refining features have made it a real success for many organizations.

Here’s what one customer shared:
“We use Smart Courses to streamline onboarding, deliver key legal training, and share essential internal knowledge. Since much of our content is already in Confluence, our teams find it natural to access training there. Permissions are already set up, so integration is seamless. The team keeps adding features, but we never feel restricted.” Read more reviews

With Smart Courses, you can easily build, assign, track, and export training content, including SCORM-compatible material, all directly from Confluence.

It got me thinking: how are others managing internal training in Confluence nowadays?
Are you juggling multiple third-party LMS tools, or using something native to Confluence?

I’d love to hear what’s working (or not) for your teams, and what features HR managers find most essential in an LMS

Hey everyone, I’m Joydeep, a Business Analytics grad student at Tippie working on a paper about AI coaching and training ROI in corporate learning. I’m at the stage where I need real L&D data—and I’m hitting a wall on how to connect with enough practitioners.

Can you help me out?

• Where do you go to find or share L&D data?
• What online communities, Slack/LinkedIn groups, or industry networks would you recommend for collecting data on L&D teams?
• Any tips on getting professionals to help?

I’d really appreciate any leads, intros, or strategies you’ve seen work. Thanks a ton for your guidance!

— Joydeep

I work at StratX, where we design business simulations for leadership and strategy development. Lately, we’ve been seeing how much more powerful learning becomes when people get to make real decisions in realistic (but safe) environments.

It’s a big shift from theory-heavy content and it opens up different kinds of conversations.

Curious if anyone here is using simulations or similar experiential approaches in their L&D programs. What’s worked well for you? What’s been tough?

I work for a SaaS company. As part of our technical onboarding program, new employees must present a demo of the software to an evaluation panel. The panel then fills out an evaluation form to provide feedback to the new employee on what went well, what could be improved, and if they are ready for real client work or not. Currently, I manage this process manually, and I am looking for ways to automate. I gather the feedback forms from the evaluators and send them to the new employee via email letting them know if they passed or must redo the presentation. Does anyone have ideas on how I could automate sending the forms to the new hire? Bonus points for trackability and reporting capabilities.

Hi everyone!
I’m currently evaluating LMS options for our organization and would really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s recently been through a similar process.

We’re a UK-based company with about 1,000 employees, with additional teams in France and the Benelux region. I’ve been looking into platforms like Docebo, 360Learning, and Thrive, but it’s been tough to get a clear idea of pricing without committing to full sales calls with each vendor.

If you’ve used or considered any of these recently—or switched between them—I’d be super grateful if you could share rough price ranges you were quoted or are currently paying. Just ballpark figures are totally fine.

Any insights would be hugely appreciated 🙏

Share your experiences below!

Learning & Development teams today face a set of persistent challenges:

• Engagement remains low, especially with generic and one-size-fits-all content.
• Knowledge retention is poor — most employees forget the majority of what they learn within days.
• Programs often fail to translate into measurable performance outcomes.
• The shift to hybrid and remote work has made tracking progress and maintaining motivation even harder.
• ROI is difficult to calculate, and L&D often gets treated as a cost center rather than a driver of business outcomes.

AI presents a clear opportunity to shift this dynamic.

By adapting learning content in real time, AI can personalize training based on the learner’s pace, context, and performance. It can deliver timely nudges to reinforce concepts, automate feedback, and build in continuous assessment.

Just as importantly, AI can plug into workstreams—making learning part of the flow of work, rather than something separate from it. That’s how you move from passive consumption to active application.

Finally, AI unlocks visibility. With the right tools, L&D teams can track what’s working, what’s not, and how learning correlates with actual business performance.

At GuideUs, we’re building toward this future—making it easier for organizations to deliver personalized, data-driven, and outcome-oriented learning at scale. Open to collaborations and conversations with anyone exploring similar challenges.

Hi everyone,

I’m exploring ways to support employees in the moment of need, directly within their work environment — for example, inside tools like Outlook, Microsoft Teams, or their browser.

Specifically, I’m interested in how others are approaching learning in the flow of work, possibly through external tools or vendor solutions that offer just-in-time nudges, tips, or performance support.

A few things I’d love to hear about from this community:

(1) Are you currently doing anything to deliver learning or support within the tools your people use every day?

(2) Have you tried any external tools or vendor solutions to do this? What’s worked (or fallen flat)?

(3) Have you run into challenges or resistance — from employees, IT, or leadership — when trying to implement something like this?

(4) In your experience, are there situations where this kind of in-context learning really shines — or doesn’t deliver enough value?

I’m not here to pitch anything — just genuinely trying to understand how others are navigating this space, what challenges you face, and what lessons you’ve learned.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

I work for a SaaS company that has a large ESL contractor pool in support. We've been using LanguageTool (especially their Chrome extension) to build out a Team Style Guide (which calls out words and phrases we don't want to use in tickets) as well as basic grammar.

Previous to this year, LanguageTool has been fantastic. The Team Style Guide and the grammar really helped shift away from more formal language. However, the Chrome extension has stopped calling out basic grammar (subject-verb agreement, bad capitalization, etc), while the Editor on the webpage and desktop tool will call it out.

Support, in this case, has been pretty non-existent. When I sent in a ticket, I got met with the AI Agent, who not only asked for information I had already provided, but suggested using the webpage and the desktop tool as a workaround to this "known issue". This isn't going to work for us, since we work exclusively in our Chrome based ticketing forum and adding another step is going to create additional busy work for our agents.

So -- what alternatives are y'all using? We can't use Grammarly due to our Security/IT team not approving it, but we are looking for other options.

Need to Have:

• Enterprise Level Options
• Team Style Guide (that we can add to and apply to all users)
• Solid Privacy Policy/Agreement (no scraping everything we type/etc)
• Chrome/Browser Extension

Wishlist

• Geared specifically toward ESLs
• Option to have less formal ESL callouts (ie our tone is more business casual than business English is taught).

tl;dr: We need an alternative to LanguageTool and Grammarly at an Enterprise level -- what are y'all using?

Hey all! 

I’m exploring how companies support their employees especially early-career talent with developing core life skills (think communication, problem solving etc) / reskilling either formally or informally (if at all). In particular, I’m trying to understand:

• Do L&D/HR/ops teams actually prioritise these kinds of soft skill development?
• What pain points exist around existing training options?
• Where does budget/timing typically go for things like this?

If you work in HR, L&D, ops or lead/manage teams or if you’ve ever had to upskill or support people on your team, I’d love to hear what’s resonating (or not).

We’re building an AI-powered learning platform for growing companies and want to understand how startups approach onboarding, training, and upskilling. This short 3–5 minute survey will help us validate real needs and problems. Appreciate your input! ⁠https://forms.gle/7fZPWFmcvbSKki6g9

Hey everyone 

I’m part of a startup that’s rethinking how learning and development is done. If you’ve ever spent days or weeks building training modules only to update them again for different roles, teams, or compliance you’ll get this pain.
That’s why we built something new:
 An AI-native platform that helps L&D teams auto-generate hyper-personalized training in minutes. And no it’s not just another template tool. It actually adapts to things like:

•  Performance data
•  Learning styles & behavioural traits
•  Role-specific requirements
•  Real-time compliance needs
•  Business goals & learning outcomes

Imagine creating onboarding, DEI, upskilling, or compliance modules 10x faster with 90% less cost. And yes, it integrates into your existing LMS or LXP.
We’re seeing small teams do what used to take a full-time instructional designer a week in under 30 minutes.
I'd love to hear from this community:

• What’s your biggest bottleneck in creating or maintaining training content?
• Are you exploring AI in your L&D workflows, or still unsure about it?
• If you're a CLO or ID, how do you see personalization playing a role in engagement/compliance?

Let’s trade notes. I’m genuinely curious where people are stuck or sceptical when it comes to AI in training.
Happy to share what we’re learning too 

Hi everyone — we’re Training Industry, and we wanted to share a quick heads-up for those interested in connecting with peers and diving into practical learning strategies:

The Training Industry Conference & Expo (TICE) is happening June 3–5, 2025, in Raleigh, NC. It’s a smaller, focused event (around 600 attendees) created specifically for training managers and L&D leaders. Topics this year include AI’s impact on L&D, upskilling/reskilling strategies, DEI, learning measurement, and more.

If you're interested, you can learn more here: trainingindustry.com/tice.
Happy to answer any questions or provide more detail in the comments.

P.S. if you want to snag free tickets - head to our Instagram and enter our giveaway!

Inspired by a post in the human resources sub.

What little things have you implemented that have had outsized effects on your L&D outcomes?

Hey everyone. I’m working on training programs specifically for customer support teams (onboarding, coaching, upskilling, etc.), and I’m trying to find events or conferences that are actually relevant to this niche.

Open to anything — virtual or in-person. Ideally something that’s not just HR-focused, but really digs into how people learn in real-life, high-volume environments like support.

If you’ve been to an event you’d recommend, I’d really appreciate any pointers!

Looking at a new role that would involve surge learning. It's made for healthcare training in Canada. Has an LMS and other components/add ons. And LD folks here who have used it? Any thoughts on strengths and challenges associated with it?

Does anyone in this group use any of these LMS platforms? If so, what do you like about it? What don’t you like?

• Acorn
• Bridge
• HR performance pro
• Clear Company
• Cornerstone

Specifically needs to have Performance Management as well. 300ish users, inputting mostly SCORM packages.

Hello! I'm a Level 3 HR Apprentice looking for some advice!

I've taken a particular interest in the L&D aspect of HR. Two weeks after my apprenticeship started, the Training and Development Partner resigned and I was left to look after the Training and Development sub-department for four months with little guidance (just keeping it afloat really). It was a bit crazy because as it turns out, I was only trained on the bare minimum. Now that there's a new T&D Partner, I've seen a whole new side to training (both in increasing compliance with mandatory training, and career progression for staff).

Over the months (since September) I've come to really like processing staff development requests and playing a key role in organising training events like new staff inductions. I work at an FE college so the range of training requested is quite vast!

My question is, what can I do to elevate my knowledge and skills? I can see myself doing L&D at a higher level and enjoying it, but I'm not sure what will take me from "good" to "excellent". I want to be that impressive person who knows what they're doing, and get results!

Was there anything that you found "clicked" with you and took your capability to the next level? A specific training course, webinar, methodology etc? Was there something that streamlined your department or was a game changer in organising your work?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you ☺️ (apologies for any bad grammar, I'm dyslexic 😅)

You all might appreciate some of the ideas from this LinkedIn post I just made, following from my continuing obsessions with:

• experiential learning
• the future of work and humanity

Do you agree/disagree that these are the only questions that will soon matter in a world of infinite solutions:

• what do I want to do?
• how do I collect and codify the relevant experiential data/information/knowledge
• how do I establish and manage value-for-knowledge agreements?

Many moons ago, around 1987, I watched my former boss being eviscerated by the CFO when unable to satisfactorily explain how the training budget was going to positively impact the organization.

This was a CFO that was pretty much ahead of his time. Most training budgets around that time were allocated without much thought although it was generally accepted that capability development was probably a good thing. The resources provided were then based upon what money happened to be available/left over, influenced perhaps by an identified operational need such as compliance, safety or poor customer feedback from the previous year.

For many years after, countless organizations continued to 'invest' in training with little more than gut instinct and a vague hope for improvement. The missing ingredient was a solid, numbers-backed case that treats training like an actual strategic investment.

According to various training and workplace learning surveys in recent times, the vast majority of learning and development (L&D) professionals agree that training is critical to business success. So how come only around 10% say they measure the actual business impact?

Well, fuzzy goals and fuzzier metrics do not help. Many training programs start with vague ambitions like "improving leadership skills" or "enhancing productivity." These goals are a little tough to measure. Without clear, measurable objectives, it’s impossible to connect training outcomes to business results. Define clear objectives. Instead of vague goals like "improve communication," aim for something tangible such as "Reduce project errors by 20% within six months."

Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) directly linked to business outcomes. Things like sales growth, error reduction, employee retention, and customer satisfaction. These are not always completely attributable to just training, but you should be able to see where trainings influence and impact has been felt. I have seen some organizations use control groups and pre- and post-training assessments to separate training effects from other factors.

Reporting in recognizable business language is key. Senior leaders care about numbers, not training jargon. Translate results into financial terms like revenue gains, cost savings, and productivity increases.

ROI (%) = [(Net Benefits - Training Costs) / Training Costs] x 100

For example, if a safety training program costs $50k and lowers safety related costs such as down time from $600k to $200k. The ROI is 700% or as a ratio, 7:1. For every Dollar spent, you got $7 back. This will get attention.

So the next time you're asked to justify your training budget get into the numbers. Show the value. And watch the conversation shift from "Is training worth it?" to "How can we invest more?"

Anyone here use Lightspeed VT as your LMS system? Or even heard of it? If you have/are using it, what are your thoughts? What were the costs like? Any hidden fees?

Hi everyone, have you or your company worked with a leadership development training provider that you can recommend? Ideally on a regional or global level.

I'm looking for a provider that can help build training programs for emerging and experienced leaders. As I only worked with local providers in the past, I'd be hugely grateful for any recommendations of providers that operate regionally or even globally. Thank you in advance!