Revolutionising Learning with Yarno

An Interview with Mark and Lachy from Yarno

In a candid conversation with Sprouta, Mark and Lachy, co-founders of Yarno, shed light on their innovative, team-based microlearning platform. They discuss the challenges they encountered, the evolution of their platform, and how they have managed to create a highly engaging and effective learning solution.

Leonie: Why Yarno?

Yarno is a play on the word Yarn, to tell a story. Storytelling is a traditional way of sharing knowledge, and as a nod to a very Aussie habit, we added an ‘o’ to the end to make it sound even more Aussie, e.g. reno, arvo.    

Leonie: We know that Yarno was built off the back of client problems. How has that evolved, what problems are you solving for today?

We focus on business outcomes rather than just learning outcomes. In workplace learning, learner completion is the default metric. Instead, we focus on changing the learning outcome from completion to capability uplift. We want to understand the behaviour change that occurs off the back of the learning, what success looks like and how ROI will be measured by the business. Too often, there’s a disconnect between the business strategy, what the business cares about, and the training and learning available to employees.         

The challenge we all face is that there's no time for learning. In fact, we only have 24 minutes a week (Bersin). Yarno is all about quick, engaging and accessible content delivery to upskill and build capability, with a team-based approach.

Our clients need speed, simplicity, scale and metrics.  We know it's hard to engage people at work, it’s difficult to develop capability in distributed workforces, especially if they're all-around the country or the world.

Yarno is a team-based learning tool with a quiz platform, and short and sharp videos that can be tailored to organisations to fit into their people’s daily jobs. We focus on business results, listen to our clients feedback and innovate with them. Plus, with learning tech, clients want to know their investment will be well received by their learners and will deliver value to the business.      

Leonie: What are some of the key design elements within Yarno to meet the client challenges you were hearing about?

We pride ourselves on our unique approach to learning. Our platform is the only one on the market that offers a team-based learning experience. Research has shown that this type of learning, where you progress alongside your peers in a friendly competitive environment, leads to high engagement. At Yarno, learners don’t do their modules solo, instead the learning is focused on a team vs team competition. It’s department against department, store vs store and so forth. Team-based learning builds relationships and strengthens company culture, and promotes development as a team, rather than prioritising the individual member. Gallup has found that employees who are engaged with their team and workplace are more involved and work harder, resulting in 21% higher productivity, and lower rates of burnout and fatigue. Our clients often share stories of the lively discussions and healthy competition that the Yarno platform has sparked within their teams.         

Learner engagement is critical, and in our experience, it's high engagement that gives the best chance of changing behaviour and contributes to our client outcome being achieved from the learning. With engagement at the core, the Yarno solution is broadly focused on two areas - the platform and client success.                      

On the platform side we leverage a micro-learning component. This feature allows for the creation, delivery, digestion, and updating of small but impactful units of learning.  In most workplaces, learning is self-led, with access to a platform and a wealth of quality content. The Yarno platform takes this a step further, offering a curated learning path that is both engaging and efficient.          

Yarno delivers learning in a quiz-based format that focuses on active learning. The question-and-answer format encourages us to think about the answer; this is called active recall. Recalling what you know rather than simply reviewing it strengthens memory, increasing the chances you'll remember it again. Once you answer the question in Yarno, you see an explanation. And that's the why and the context behind that correct answer.          

Lastly, we make the learning stick by presenting it again over time, using a concept called spaced repetition. This approach embeds knowledge in memory, making it more likely that we'll remember what we've learned and use it in our day-to-day roles.  

On the client success side, we've created a process that supports our clients every step of the way. We tailor our client success to their unique situation. Some clients want to be fully autonomous in the platform, while others leverage our client success and content creation teams to guide them. From start to end, our client success team works with clients to create more effective, engaging learning. They help with learning strategies, writing effective questions, video content, learner communication and reporting.

Leonie: Could be just my learning style, but I love the short Tik-Tok style videos of the leaders and employees in the organisation, how are these elements being received by learners?

TikTok-style videos aren’t for everyone, but many of our clients love them! Again, we are focused on what works in their context. We have an enjoyable and simple process to co-design creative ways to learn to increase engagement. It helps contextualise the learning—if a learner sees a peer or a manager in one of these videos, it helps humanise the training. Humour (when appropriate) can lower barriers to learning.                

We know that if someone logs in and does at least one question in the quiz, they will finish it 85% of the time.  This shows the content is engaging.

Leonie: Let’s get to the metrics. What are your completion rates and engagement rates?

Well, an 85% completion rate is our benchmark. Many clients will go even higher than this – a great example recently from one of our clients, one of Australia's leading retailers, is 94% completion. Another of our clients who have been with us for six years achieved 98% with 5,000 staff. We know that if a learner logs in and answers at least one question in their learning campaign, they will finish it 85% of the time. These results tell us and the client that the content and the team-based delivery method is engaging.      

Though as mentioned earlier, we aim beyond completion rates to outcomes the business cares about. For example, these metrics include an increase in like-for-like sales and net promoter score in retail, reduced safety incidents in the supply chain, and decreased claim amounts in insurance and logistics.

Leonie: So, what would you say to a CPO who are wanting to introduce technology like Yarno?

Firstly, we have a 95% client retention rate. When clients get us on board, it's for the long term. We’re proud of this! We know it's hard to trust someone you have yet to work with before, and at Yarno, we've developed a process that has encouraged clients to trust us with their learning for many years.    

At Yarno, we stand out from the crowd with our comprehensive client support. While numerous Learning Management Systems (LMS) are in the market with low per-user costs, these platforms often lack the hands-on approach and engagement that clients want from their learning investment. Our end-to-end client support is designed to help clients extract maximum value from Yarno.    

We've iterated our client success solution for over eight years and know what works. Our advice is to choose a partner with an end-to-end solution, including the learner communications and campaign plan, this helps build engagement around the learning and reduce the support as you build internal capability.

This support-style solution has been a game-changer for our clients. We know our clients may not have the internal resources to invest in creating and launching Yarno campaigns. So, our team is available to assist in any way they can. We ask the right questions and co-create communications with our clients, making learners excited to participate.      

Once our clients are up and running, they often choose to scale back on the support. They've learned how the platform works, and they're ready to take the reins. They leverage Yarno for multiple campaigns every year, a testament to the effectiveness of our end-to-end support model.        

Leonie: What can you share with our Sprouta Community about implementing new Learning Technology into organisations?

Ultimately, business is people working with people, and technology facilitates it. And us humans can be averse to change. Introducing new technology can be a significant piece of change management, though it isn't always articulated or explained in that way. The most successful learning projects include change management and consider how the organisation communicates the change to learners over a period of time.      

We discuss this with our clients from the campaign kick-off. We encourage them to involve their learners early, foster internal advocacy, communicate the benefits and get buy-in from key stakeholders in the organisation.

Also, the most successful L&D and HR projects align with the business strategy. So, before we propose a solution, we first define the problem to determine if the technology is the right fit. This is where our partnership with Sprouta is invaluable. We are all driven by the shared goal of solving needs that are impactful. By the time we engage with the client, we have a clear understanding of the need and problem we are aiming to address. client    

Leonie: Yarno is content agnostic so what kind of learning are you working with your current clients on?  

We work with clients on many kinds of content. Some of the learning we are currently working on is around sales, safety, leadership, communications, finance, compliance, warehousing, product knowledge, cyber security, hospitality, and client service, to name a few!    

Leonie: What is the future of microlearning?

Many companies are investing in their workplace cultures and embracing a new era of learning. They are exploring technologies and asking how to make the learning process faster, more efficient, and ultimately more engaging for their learners. The goal is not just to engage and motivate the learners but also to empower them. We're working towards a future where learners don't perceive Yarno as "learning" but as a natural part of their day.

We are seeing a shift from a top-down, directive approach to a collaborative, co-designed one. L&D and HR professionals are not just leaders but also active participants in the learning process. They work collaboratively with learners, who add their context to learning, each contributing their unique perspectives. This approach demonstrates the evolving role of learners in shaping their workplace learning environment.

Personalisation is a theme we often talk to clients about. Personalised learning is a solution for effectively upskilling teams with various skill sets and knowledge levels. Currently, Yarno provides data and insights to help managers identify areas of strength and weakness amongst their team members and plan future learning campaigns accordingly.

However, we are developing Yarno further – leveraging machine learning via a recommendation engine, Yarno will identify and suggest content topics to focus on based on a learner's previous campaign performance. Knowing where to target a learner's next learning campaign ensures they're presented with relevant content at the right time without needing a manager's manual input.

Of course, AI and generative AI, in particular, are transforming our industry. We're experimenting with generative AI to assist clients in creating contextual and relevant learner content directly in Yarno. This can speed up and democratise content creation, broadening contributors beyond a few Subject Matter Experts. While the technology is innovative and exciting, there’s also plenty of hype, and it's easy to get caught up in this and believe it can solve all the problems! Our instincts are to keep an open mind and experiment with it on practical day-to-day tasks. Ultimately, we want to drive the change rather than be driven by it, so we’re asking ourselves and our clients ‘how do we want AI to affect work?’ rather than ‘how will it affect work?’.

Leonie: Why are you a part of the Sprouta Ecosystem?

We value being part of a considered group of learning and HR professionals who are committed to their customers' success. It's fantastic to work collaboratively, share ideas, and innovate with a like-minded group of people. And, of course, to have Leonie and Marcus facilitating and really driving projects forward to the benefit of customers and partners alike.