Cornerstone Launches ‘Holistic’ Talent Development Tool

Cornerstone OnDemand released Cornerstone Xplor, which it calls “a holistic people growth experience.” The module delivers an integrated, personalized approach to learning, skill development, growth and career mobility, the company said.

Xplor is powered by Cornerstone’s deep learning and talent capabilities, along with the Cornerstone Skills Graph, fresh and auto-curated content delivery and self-learning AI. The result is a “highly individualized and fully connected growth experience, at scale.”

Cornerstone said HR leaders are on “a relentless treadmill” to cut costs, optimize processes and incorporate new technologies into their existing HR efforts. “Companies are in a mad scramble to train, reskill and redeploy workers around the world, yet they have to integrate dozens of systems to do this well,” said industry analyst Josh Berson in a statement provided by the company. Much of Xplor’s impact, Bersin said, comes from combining the features of learning experience platforms, talent marketplaces, career pathways and advanced skills technology into a single integrated system.

‘Every Element of Growth’

Cornerstone positions Xplor as the first solution to bring “every element of people growth” into a single destination with talent management capabilities, workflows, AI data and intelligence. The result allows companies to offer a strong experience to users while leveraging on investments already made.

Xplor’s capabilities include:

• End-to-End Skills Alignment: Users can select which skills they have, which they’d like to work on and which ones they’d like to ignore. That information is used to analyze and suggest new learning opportunities and the most relevant content. It also helps connect individuals with mentors and experts, engage them in communities of practice and auto-generate potential career paths within the organization. Also, HR can build and visualize skill pools, identify their experts and offer them new opportunities.
• Scalable Self-Driven Development: Xplor offers individualized and “self-driving” experiences because it’s essentially powered by a person’s interests, preferences, behaviors, skills, work experiences and goals. It leverages data to generate personalized learning and skill paths, and delivers relevant content in the moment of need. Cornerstone says this enables users direct their own development and helps talent leaders to deliver personalized and engaging learning experiences at scale.
• Talent Marketplace: Because internal mobility lives at the intersection of experiences and skills, Cornerstone sees Xplor as being in a unique position to “deliver on the promise of a modern talent marketplace.” Xplor creates a skills-forward development experience, and also enables employees to match and connect those skills to new career paths and an auto-matched “marketplace” of mentors, jobs, gigs and projects. Long-term plans for Xplor include allowing people to promote their skills and aspirations, and enabling HR leaders to manage the search, hiring, onboarding and movement of people from role to role.

Ongoing Development

Cornerstone launched an early adopter program for Xplor during the summer of 2021 and says it’s been working closely with customers and analysts to expand the product’s features and functionality. Feedback from this program, as well as ongoing customer insights, will inform the long-term innovation strategy for the product. Early comments include:

“Employee experience has been a big focus for most organizations for some time, but the pandemic and its resulting social, cultural and economic consequences have made it business critical,” said David Wilson, CEO, Fosway Group. “In a hybrid workplace, organizations need to find new strategies to engage and connect employees to the work they are doing, as well as how they can grow and develop. A solution like Cornerstone Xplor can help organizations create a more connected experience for every employee, as well as accelerating their opportunities to grow and develop with a shared view of success.”

Image: CSOD