Learning that Works for Everyone:

When companies invest in education for their employees, they unlock potential—tapping a source that’s been there all along. The engineer who masters data visualization reveals insights that optimize product strategy; the customer service rep who learns conflict resolution keeps complaints from escalating; the warehouse team trained in supply chain analytics spots inefficiencies invisible to management. Education enables employees to transform ordinary operations into extraordinary outcomes.

The importance of workplace learning extends beyond balance sheets and productivity metrics. When people have the opportunity to grow, it comes naturally. So when organizations become active participants in employees’ development, engagement increases on both sides. Companies that champion learning see the benefit in their own culture, and in business results.

Guild is a talent development company that connects employees to education and skilling programs—so when a business wants to invest in learning and development for its people, Guild makes sure that those outcomes are connected to overall organizational success. And Guild uses Lightcast skills data to make that possible.

Historically, tuition reimbursement has been one of the main ways companies have prioritized learning and development for their employees. It's a nice-to-have perk for the employee, and it can contribute to a positive feeling that their employer is invested in them—but then what? The best-case scenario would be that a worker learns skills that help them in their career specifically—whether improving their performance in their current role or preparing them for the next one—while also benefiting the company overall. By contrast, the worst-case scenario would be one where neither the employee nor the employer benefits from the education, because it simply wasn't relevant or useful for the modern labor market or it was financially inaccessible. 

Guild set out to revolutionize traditional tuition reimbursement programs to make them more accessible to employees across all levels, while helping businesses strategically leverage the programs to build talent.  By using Guild to match learning opportunities with overall business objectives, companies can work toward ensuring the first outcome above and avoiding the second. Guild’s product suite offers versatile education and skilling experiences aligned to a company’s talent needs to ensure that their employees have access to develop the skills and credentials needed now and into the future. These learning experiences are powered by Guild’s Learning Marketplace, which consists of 2,000+ high-quality, flexible programs that have been vetted and curated to meet specific skilling needs and to maintain a high standard of outcomes. 

To ensure employers have consistent and clear visibility into the skills taught in their employees’ Guild programs, Guild partnered with Lightcast.

The Lightcast product Skillabi has been an invaluable part of this process. Educators can “Skillabi” their academic programs by using the tool to understand how the skills taught align with employer needs. This allows curriculum designers to make strategic updates, in order to stay competitive and empower learners to succeed in a rapidly changing economy.

A common challenge for workplaces is that they fail to understand the full capacity of their workforce, because they don't know—or can't keep track of—all the skills that their employees possess. This is why a skills-focused approach is so important: it allows companies to make the most of their current resources, and identify any gaps in order to fill them efficiently.

Employees come from different backgrounds, and they're hired onto different teams, so it takes a unified and disciplined approach to get everybody on the same page. Just knowing employees' skills is one step, but defining those skills based on the external labor market is what brings them meaning and purpose. This is the key benefit of the Lightcast Skills Taxonomy: it provides a shared language for the entire labor market to communicate clearly about skills, while validating internal information through its reflection of real-world labor market demands.

And that's why Guild decided to integrate the Lightcast Skills Taxonomy into its Learning Marketplace. It might be understandable for a company to not know what skills its employees come in with, but it would be foolish for a company to not know the skills that the company itself enabled. Skills taught in Guild programs are not only mapped to the Lightcast Skills Taxonomy, but also verified for accuracy. Guild’s learning partners play a crucial role in this process, reviewing and confirming Skillabi’s tags to ensure that skills are appropriately categorized based on program content. 

This ensures that employers have access to trusted, structured skills data—whether an employee is actively enrolled or has completed a program—allowing them to better activate newly skilled talent and facilitate internal mobility. This connected and continuous alignment with up to date labor market definitions ensures that internal skill development remains relevant to talent development opportunities and challenges.

If a company is already using a skills-focused workforce strategy, that makes for a seamless transition to use Guild for its talent development solutions. But even if you know you should be thinking about skills, but aren't sure how to begin, Guild provides the first step. Start with the skills you know your employees have learned through their Guild programs, and build from there.

Both Lightcast and Guild want to create a way of working that works for everyone. It starts with data; in this case, using real-world job postings and profiles to build the world's leading skills taxonomy, but it doesn't end there. Guild's purpose-built solutions for maximizing potential take the necessary next step to providing real, tangible benefit by teaching skills that matter. That way, the business succeeds—and so does the person.