From Beige to Brilliant: Making HR & Learning More Human | L&D Disrupt | Episode 109

What happens when we stop making HR and learning feel beige?Michelle Hartley, founder of People Sorted and Find Your Awesome, joins L&D Disrupt to explore how HR and L&D can become more human, engaging and memorable, from the way we design training to how we measure its impact.Michelle shares why she believes learning should be something people participate in, remember and apply, rather than simply complete. She talks us through her 10-minute approach to training, how she turned a compliance session into an experience employees still talk about, and why L&D needs to look beyond completion rates towards application, behaviour change and business impact. We also get into Michelle's own experience of burnout and the small “1%” changes that helped her reconnect with her energy and authenticity, as well as her vision for a more personalised future of workplace learning, one that feels less like mandatory training and more like the personalised experiences we get as consumers. Plus, Michelle shares what L&D can learn from the HR Geek Squad about psychological safety, belonging, participation and giving people genuine ownership within a community.00:00 Human HR Matters01:28 Meet Michelle Hartley02:13 Pizza Hut to HR03:42 Launching People Sorted05:10 Burnout and Two Selves07:52 One Percent Changes10:05 Why Burnout Happens13:17 Spotting the Ripples16:37 Managers Who Notice19:21 Beige to Brilliant HR21:35 Humor as Engagement24:17 Training That Works25:37 Making Compliance Memorable27:53 Why Compliance Fails28:20 Netflix Style Learning30:34 Beyond Completion Metrics32:54 Measuring Stickability35:08 Learning Data Confidence38:30 Data Gatekeeping at Work39:26 Inside HR Geek Squad44:31 Building Safe Communities46:27 Ownership and Participation48:51 Bin Friday Wrap Up53:28 Final Thanks and Links