Making Learning More Accessible

Creating a library with diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging at its core is essential to our mission at LinkedIn Learning. While we’re proud of our efforts, we also know that there’s more we can do to make all of our global learners welcome.

A crucial part of this is accessibility. Alongside the accessibility and disability inclusion efforts taking place across LinkedIn and Microsoft, at LinkedIn Learning we're working to be an industry leader in developing engaging, accessible content. With Global Accessibility Awareness Day next week, I’m excited to share some of what we’ve been focused on for the past several months.

Audio Described Courses on LinkedIn Learning

We're on a journey to not only make our LinkedIn Learning platform more accessible, but also to make our course content more accessible. As one piece of this work, we’ve begun exploring adding audio descriptions for some of our courses about accessibility and disability, like Digital Accessibility for the Modern Workplace from instructor Hector Minto. By adding these descriptions, our hope is to make more of our learning available to learners who are blind or  visually impaired.

In March, we expanded this program by releasing the first-ever audio-described version of our popular Professional Soft Skills Learning Pathway to help job seekers who are blind or visually impaired upskill for in-demand jobs. These courses help learners develop skills that hiring managers value most, from emotional intelligence and critical thinking to unconscious bias and teamwork.

Check them out to learn how to:

• Build emotional intelligence and resilience
• Become a stronger communicator, listener and team player
• Boost your critical thinking and decision-making skills

All 12 courses in this 13-hour learning path will be unlocked for all of our members–no subscription required–through December 31, 2025.

Making the Case for Accessibility in Your Organization

Many of our customers are eager to learn more about how they can implement disability inclusion best practices within their own organizations. A few of the many benefits include:

• Companies that focus on accessibility experience 28% higher revenue, double the net income, and 30% higher economic profit margins.
• They’re also better able to attract and retain top talent.
• And millennials (who will be 75% of the global workforce by 2025) say they want to work for companies that reflect their values–and diversity and inclusion are on the top of their list.

We also have two wonderful new courses we’ve created to support learning in the accessibility space: 

• To help companies achieve success in this area, we partnered with Microsoft’s inclusive design expert, Christina Mallon, to create a fantastic course that shows learners how to make the case for accessibility in their own organizations. From culture, to crafting an appealing narrative, to goals and business strategies–learners will discover how to build out an accessibility program that has real impact.
• We’ve also created an excellent course for managers to help you rework your recruiting practices, create inclusive job descriptions, and attract talent with disabilities.  Tarena Shanaberger, Microsoft inclusive hiring program manager, shows you how to be a more inclusive, supportive leader by recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and advancing top talent with disabilities.

And the following courses are free through May 26th aimed at helping you bring accessibility into your day-to-day:

• Accessibility-First Design with David Luhr
• Making a Case for Accessibility in Your Organization with Christina Mallon
• Simplifying Web Development with Accessibility Best Practices with Morten Rand-Hendriksen
• Microsoft Office Accessibility for Beginners with Jess Stratton
• React: Accessibility with Kiara Contreras
• Disability Readiness for Leaders and Managers with Tarena Shanaberger

We’re not stopping there. We have exciting new content in development on topics ranging from UX accessibility to supporting colleagues on the autism spectrum. We’re always looking to improve our learning experience and roll out new courses to help everyone grow in their careers and think about accessibility and inclusion. Stay tuned for even more updates coming on the accessibility front and thanks for all you're doing to create a more inclusive future of work. And in addition all the above, be sure to also check out Erran Berger's post today about accessibility improvements that we're making across LinkedIn!