Ongoing Training Industry research shows that strategic alignment is the most important process capability of great training organizations. Despite its importance, fewer than 30% of training organizations are great at strategic alignment processes. Fortunately, many learning providers are committed to rolling out solutions that can help.

Through its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered performance learning management system (PLMS) platform, Acorn is gaining traction in the market. The company secured $13.1 million in Series A funding, led by Level Equity, this June.

A Strategic Move to Scale, Faster

Keith Metcalfe, Acorn’s president, says the company thought strategically about whether pursuing investment was the right move. Through those conversations, they realized that Acorn’s solutions are something that they “really believe could have a huge impact on a lot of companies and employees,” Metcalfe shares. “And in order for us to get the word out there more, build our brand and actually invest in our product, we wanted some more resources to do it quicker.”

This led Acorn to go to the investment community, where they told their story and were “very positively received” and gained the support needed to help “fulfill that mission of having a bigger impact, faster,” Metcalfe says.

Addressing the Disconnect Between Learning and Performance

By connecting with learning and human resources (HR) leaders at industry events and hearing their challenges firsthand, Metcalfe consistently heard that traditional learning management systems (LMSs) and learning experience platforms (LXPs) often fall short of the adoption rates organizations expect. “Ultimately [users] have put a lot of time and effort with good intentions into creating content for employees,” Metcalfe says. “But that content is not getting adopted.”

Recent Acorn research found additional challenges highlighting the gap between learning and performance:

• One-third of respondents describe their most recent performance review as “merely a checkbox exercise.”
• Two-thirds of executives (66%) believe their competency metrics are fair, while less than one-fifth (19%) of individual contributors agree.
• 78% of leadership acknowledges employees frequently must leave to advance their careers.

Acorn is focused on solving these challenges by “trying to connect performance and learning,” so that when employees ask, “What do I need to learn to be better at my job?”, organizations have an answer. Thus, calling their platform a “performance learning management system,” or PLMS, “largely made sense for us,” Metcalfe says.

AI-Powered Personalization

Another way Acorn is committed to bridging the gap between learning and performance is through Acorn Capabilities AI. Although many LMSs try to guide learners through better search functions or learning pathways, they can still leave employees sifting through thousands of courses or following learning paths that aren’t personalized.

Using Acorn’s competency library, Acorn Capabilities AI generates a skills framework for a given role based on materials like job descriptions, LinkedIn profiles or job postings. Leaders can review and adjust the AI-generated recommendations in real time, after which the platform aligns relevant courses to those competencies.

For example, now, when a new salesperson joins a team, they have a ready-made development plan, along with the rest of the sales team members, Metcalfe shares. “That’s really where Capabilities AI is leading in a big way.”

Future Goals

Employees want to be “inspired” to do their jobs better and advance their careers, Metcalfe says. However, “employees do not think performance and development conversations are going well, [and] the data is extremely explicit on that.”  Acorn aims to use technology to drive clearer, more consistent development conversations.

Acorn is also striving to better support learning and development (L&D) and HR professionals, many of whom entered the field wanting to make a difference but have been held back by ineffective technology, Metcalfe says. Many practitioners “don’t think it’s possible” to leverage technology for learning that truly drives performance and empowers learners to advance their careers. “We don’t think that’s true. We actually think it’s very possible,” Metcalfe says. “And some of the latest advents in technology are making it much more possible than it ever was before.”