Hannah A.

Learning and Development Specialist

In the summer of 2021, Toast's Learning and Organizational Development team launched our very first LinkedIn Learning challenge. We know that Toasters love learning new skills and that a little friendly competition can go a long way. Add the chance to win Toast swag prizes, and you have the perfect recipe for a company-wide challenge!

After a successful program in 2021, we were excited to kick off 2023 with a New Year's LinkedIn Learning challenge. The New Year's challenge took place in January in an effort to build off of the positive momentum that many people often feel during the new year when it comes to setting goals and building healthy habits. 

Building a habit of learning is such a crucial part of employee growth. The challenge provided an engaging experience that motivated Toasters to spend at least 30 minutes of time interacting with content on the LinkedIn Learning platform. The LinkedIn Learning library itself offers over 16,000 courses taught by industry experts so there’s something for everyone regardless of your department, interests, and goals. As an added bonus we rewarded Toasters with raffle tickets for each week that they successfully completed 30 minutes of learning, and 10 lucky employees won limited edition Toast Swag to celebrate their commitment to their growth. 

One of my favorite parts of these challenges is being able to see the wide range of courses Toasters enroll in. I am always amazed at the unique interests our employees have, and it is great to see them taking advantage of this program to develop areas that are important to them.  

To help employees get started, we provided a few recommended courses that are aligned with our Toast Development Competencies, or the key areas we focus on while thinking about growth and goal setting. Additionally, we pointed Toasters to courses that offered tips on setting goals and building productive routines, but ultimately we allowed employees to explore learnings in any topic that they desired. We saw interest in many areas- from quick Excel tips to building more inclusive, collaborative teams. 

During the challenge the 5 most popular courses were: 

1. The 6 morning habits of high performers

2. One Minute Habits for Success

3. How to speak so people want to listen

4. Moving DEI from Intention to Impact 

5. Speaking Confidently and Effectively 

The curious nature of Toasters is something we see across the entire business. During the challenge, we saw participation across all of Toast, not just one department. Our randomized challenge winners were from 10 different teams and three countries. This reinforces the notion that at Toast we are all lifelong learners, and there is always room to learn and grow in new ways regardless of your role or tenure. 

Our goal as a Learning and Development department is for Toasters to make learning a habit, and build it into their weekly objectives in order to maximize their professional and personal development and growth. We want employees to feel empowered to take ownership of their learning and approach each day with a growth mindset. 

Linkedin Learning is just one of the many tools we have at Toast to help employees develop new skills and insights, but we have several other learning libraries at Toast that offer easy, off-the-shelf learning on a variety of topics. We host a virtual library that specializes in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as well as a platform that offers graduate-level courses taught by professors and experts at top business schools.  

We also recognize that there are other learning opportunities that exist outside of what we offer at Toast, which is why we encourage Toasters to utilize their professional development stipend to explore these external options. Every full-time employee at Toast is eligible to use their professional development stipend, so we hope Toasters are taking full advantage of this benefit to attend conferences, workshops, webinars, prep for exams and certifications, read books, and more.

Lastly, we offer a variety of internal training opportunities throughout the year such as workshops (what we like to call Pop-ups) and information sessions (Specials). Some Pop-ups in the past have included Crucial Conversations and Career Development Workshops, and new Specials will be released this year around Engagement, Performance, Compensation, and more.