Investing In Your Employees: Jason Lavender Of Electives On The Benefits of Offering Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Initiatives For Employees
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Happier employees: People who are growing are more engaged. Continuous professional development encourages employees to stay at organizations longer.
Investing in team development has become increasingly crucial for forward-thinking companies, who understand that their greatest assets are their people. From implementing innovative training programs and wellness initiatives to cultivating a supportive work environment, these strategic investments play a vital role in enhancing employee satisfaction and retention. As the business landscape evolves, mastering effective methods to support and retain employees is pivotal for achieving long-term success. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jason Lavender / Electives.
Jason Lavender is the co-founder and CEO of Electives. He spent 12+ years in HR consulting and health tech before graduating with his MBA from MIT Sloan and starting Electives with Krikor Dzeronian. Jason is passionate about continuous professional development and changing who we get to learn from at work.
Thank you for joining us. To start, could you share a little about yourself, and how you got started?
Sure thing. I started my career as an actuary at a global consulting firm. After a decade in consulting, I moved to a healthcare startup while I was in business school at MIT Sloan. Following graduation, a classmate and I started Electives together with the goal of redefining corporate training by building training that people love.
What was your biggest challenge in those early days?
In the early days of starting Electives, the biggest challenge was simply not having enough time in the day! There were only two of us, so we wanted to talk to as many potential customers as possible, but we also had to build the product, recruit instructors, set up bank accounts, talk with investors, and everything in between.
Was there anything specific that inspired you to prioritize CPD initiatives in your company?
We were inspired to start Electives and focus the business on Continuous Professional Development for a few reasons:
- First, we were not feeling inspired with the training experiences we had access to throughout our respective careers. We didn’t feel like we were learning anything valuable, and the learning experiences didn’t give us an opportunity to connect with our peers or the instructors.
- Conversely, we were inspired by the learning experiences we had access to at MIT. We wanted everyone (at any level and at any size company) to have access to great learning experiences in the workplace.
- As we began to build Electives, it felt like everyone we spoke to had favorite learning memories from school, but no favorite learning experiences from their work years. We started Electives to help people create new learning memories every month and every year — even once their official school years were complete.
Can you explain why this is important for the success of a business?
The entire Electives team truly believes that you can’t grow your business without growing your people.
Businesses are changing at a faster pace than ever. As a result, employees have more professional development needs than ever as new skill gaps emerge across the business in droves. Internal People teams cannot keep up with the demand, so they often partner with a continuous development platform like Electives.
Beyond the business impact, nothing feels better to employees than growth. One of our investors said in the early days of Electives, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” Growing is not just for businesses. It’s clear that employees (particularly Gen Z employees) are hungry to grow both personally and professionally.
Can you please share with us, and briefly explain the first major initiative you started that directly benefited your employees?
At Electives, we believe in the power of live learning and interactive, human-centric conversations. As a small team, we began hosting monthly learning sessions where we would teach topics like system dynamics or startup investing fundamentals. We then launched a book club where we could review important business topics together. Now, every employee has their own Electives Membership license to take advantage of live classes every week. Within Electives Membership, employees can earn professional certificates like Manager Essentials, Leadership Foundations and Innovative Thinking. The certificate programs allow employees to formally demonstrate their growth, with badges to share publicly.
Do you have an example of a situation where you didn’t get the result you were looking for, and tell us what happened as a result?
When Electives launched, we offered only private learning programs, with classes delivered live to employees of one company at a time. Electives Membership broadened our offerings, with live classes for employees of any company, giving learners the opportunity to earn certificates.
When we first started experimenting with the certificate program model, we thought we would organize office hours (casual review sessions of prior classes) after every third class. However, we quickly learned that attendance in these review sessions was light and engagement from folks who did show was minimal. It felt forced, and we scrapped the idea. People are busy and they will make time to take a class but they do not have time to review a past class. The best opportunity to reinforce learnings was asynchronously, over email and SMS. That way, employees can learn together in a virtual classroom, but tap into reference materials whenever the time is right for them.
What has been the most impactful CPD initiative you’ve seen other companies offer, and how did it inspire or influence your own approach?
I believe every learning opportunity is impactful, but I am a big fan of cohort-based live learning programs — the type that lets employees take multiple classes from different instructors and learn together over an extended period of time. Cohort-based live learning programs provide the benefit of learning from various perspectives while also allowing the comfort of being in the same cohort of learners. It’s centered around a common goal, and there is a prideful feeling of accomplishment when learners complete the program together.
What challenges might companies face when implementing these initiatives, and how can they overcome them?
When it comes to launching any type of continuous professional development program, the biggest challenge we see is getting started. Business leaders often face decision paralysis and have a fear of messing up.
It can be hard to know what to teach and who to teach it to. Plus, for teams developing professional development programs internally, it’s really hard to develop new content or to keep existing content timely and relevant. For those who are outsourcing, it can feel impossible to know which “corporate trainer” is actually high quality.
We help businesses overcome these challenges by mapping their business objectives to skills needed to achieve the objectives and then the skills to custom learning programs designed to improve those specific skills.
The biggest thing for any business that wants to launch or scale its continuous development program is getting started. We help businesses do that by selecting one group of employees and one business goal. And then we grow from there.
Can you share a story of an employee who significantly benefited, and how it affected their performance or career trajectory?
Recently, an employee completed their Leadership Foundations certification via Electives Membership and was promoted almost immediately after. Over several months, this employee took live, online classes that were specifically focused on competencies most important to lead teams in 2024. A week after completing the certificate, she was promoted! It’s that kind of growth that feels the most rewarding.
Could you please list the “Top Five Benefits of Offering Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Initiatives For Employees”? Can you explain what you mean?
1. Compound effect of development: When you help one person develop, they become a better team and project manager. Soon, several people in the company are benefiting. Like interest in a bank account, the earlier you invest in professional development the more compound effect you see.
2. Happier employees: People who are growing are more engaged. Continuous professional development encourages employees to stay at organizations longer.
3. Remote connections: Live learning is a great way to bring employees together in a remote world. People are craving connection, and taking interactive classes together is great for development and for helping employees get to know their teams better.
4. Career advancement / new opportunities: As jobs change, new skills are needed — technical skills and human skills (which we often call power skills). By continuously learning, employees can improve and develop skills that advance them in their careers.
5. Achieving business goals: To hit ambitious goals, employees need to continuously grow and develop. Companies can’t grow if their people aren’t growing.
How do you measure the success and ROI of these CPD initiatives?
We prioritize three key metrics that we measure across all classes and learning programs:
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): Did employees enjoy the class/program?
- Attendance and engagement: Did employees complete the class/program?
- Behavior change: Will employees apply what they learned after the class/program?
Looking forward, how do you see the role of CPD evolving in the next 5–10 years?
Continuous professional development will become more personalized. AI will match individuals to the best professional development opportunities for them. Employee will be able to share their needs, goals and learning preferences, and the most aligned live classes will be available to enroll in one click.
Likewise, communities of like-minded learners will more easily find each other, offering opportunities for engaging and connecting. These connections will reinforce their learnings and support their continuous growth.
What advice would you give to business leaders who are hesitating to make these changes?
I totally understand the hesitation. For decades, corporate training has been dull and ineffective. But things are changing. It is now possible to bring exceptional live learning to employees. Not just possible — it can be easy and affordable with the right partner.
I also tell everyone, start small. Choose a business goal and a cohort of employees and develop that continuous professional development program really well. Once that program is launched, you can expand or move on to the next cohort. If you try to boil the ocean, no one will feel like they are developing and the business goals will suffer.
Can you share any upcoming initiatives or plans you have for further investing in your employees?
We are currently building new AI tools that align business goals with skills and continuous professional development opportunities. These tools will help People leaders, managers and employees define learning objectives, prioritize learning opportunities and map the ROI of continuous professional development back to the business growth.
How can our readers follow your work?
Our website is https://www.electives.io/ and on LinkedIn we’re at https://www.linkedin.com/company/electives
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein, a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience as the Founder and CEO of multiple companies. He launched Choice Recovery, Inc., a healthcare collection agency, while going to The Ohio State University, His team earned national recognition, twice being ranked as the #1 business to work for in Central Ohio. In 2018, Chad launched [re]start, a career development platform connecting thousands of individuals in collections with meaningful employment opportunities, He sold Choice Recovery on his 25th anniversary and in 2023, sold the majority interest in [re]start so he can focus his transition to Built to Lead as an Executive Leadership Coach. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com
Investing In Your Employees: Jason Lavender Of Electives On The Benefits of Offering Continuous… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.