Meet the team that creates a culture of education and growth at Indeed
Jen Muyldermans is a Manager on the Learning Experience (LX) Facilitation team and co-creator of Indeed’s Manager Fest. She leads a team of talented facilitators #insideindeed Austin and Tokyo. She shares her career journey and how her team helps Indeedians keep their tools sharp in the toolkit.
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I joined Indeed three and a half years ago as a Facilitator. Prior to that, I spent the majority of my career managing people in the retail and real estate industries. Without ever having a formal Learning & Development or Training team to rely on in the past, I would take it upon myself to informally help with the development of others around me.
The Learning Experience team, which is a part of Employee Development, focuses on creating a safe space where Indeedians can share experiences, ask questions, and give their own perspectives. From manager development, to career pathing, to how to give and take feedback, we strive to support the holistic growth of all employees.
In previous companies that I worked for we never had conversations about things like emotional intelligence, communication preferences or unconscious bias, but now it’s language that we use on a regular basis.
Growing with Indeed
Once I started at Indeed, my eyes were opened to the L&D world that I barely knew existed. Never before had I been part of a team, much less an entire company, that truly cares about unlocking the greatness in each of its employees.
It’s fascinating to hear different perspectives when we come together as a team. We’re constantly looking for ways to iterate and innovate when it comes to our learning experiences, so we can reach more people and deliver meaningful curriculum for the needs of our learners.
My colleague, Tim, a Senior Learning Experience Facilitator, explains, “We are able to listen to peoples’ stories and struggles, and work towards giving them the tools to unlock their pathway to success.”
From teacher to tech
The LX team consists of individuals from all backgrounds and levels of experience, including people who started their careers in public education and pivoted their classroom skills towards L&D in big tech. Many people don’t realize how transferable their skills and experiences actually are.
“Making the career pivot to Indeed, having been a middle school teacher for the majority of my adult life was exciting, scary and unknown all at the same time. The biggest adjustment for me was around my mindset,” Mark, a Senior Learning Experience Facilitator in Austin says about his teaching background.
“As a teacher, I was used to being the ‘keeper of the knowledge,’ transferring my knowledge to my students and here at Indeed, I am truly a facilitator of information. My role is to support managers in their own development: provide a space where they can engage with concepts from our trainings, apply their learnings to their jobs and most importantly, learn from the experience of other managers at Indeed.”
Sarah, a Senior Learning and Development Facilitator in Dublin adds, “Coming from a teaching background, I had only recently discovered the world of Learning and Development when I was hired, since then I’ve had the privilege to work with smart, passionate, and ambitious people on the Employee Development team at Indeed who have helped me grow.”
Read about Sarah’s journey from teaching to Indeed in this Instagram post.
Learning & Development on-demand
“IndeedLearn” is our internal platform that houses content from training teams across the company. Employees can sign up for offerings in various formats in order to keep learning and developing. Our team strives to deliver meaningful learning experiences to Indeedians around the globe that keeps them engaged and creates behavioral change that will help them be more productive and perform better in their roles.
Senior Learning Experience Facilitator, Ramy in Düsseldorf, describes some of his favorite tools for both teaching and learning.
“What I love about IndeedLearn is how much content it offers for my personal and professional development. From EEDev (Employee Development) courses like Emotional Intelligence at Work or Lead the Feed, to articles and Ted talks about building trust and psychological safety, the platform offers everything we need to become the best version of ourselves!”
“You’re giving people the skills they need to do even better work, be more productive, and make a greater impact on the business. As employees, we feel like we work for a company that cares about our growth and wellbeing. And when it comes to things like soft skills in particular, I think it’s a huge part of building the culture that makes Indeed such a great place to work,” Michelle, a Learning Experience Facilitator in Austin, adds.
In addition to on-going training sessions, Indeed provides every employee an annual stipend for professional development even outside of Indeed.
LX has done a lot of really cool and innovative things over the last few years, but something I’m most proud of was seeing our team pivot when we were asked to work from home. Everyone rallied together to transform all of our in-classroom sessions into versions that could be delivered virtually so that our fellow Indeedians could continue to get the personal and professional development they needed without extensive delays. A great example would be our most recent Manager Fest in April/May, which was completely virtual this year.
Read about how leading with empathy helped our Employee Development team create a new virtual manager training. Check out our Instagram highlights from Manager Fest @ Home here.
Developing ourselves while helping others grow
While we are researching various topics and thinking of ways to best develop our fellow Indeedians, we are also learning a lot about ourselves and aiding our own development. Whether teacher or student, there’s learning happening on both sides.
“It can be so easy to ignore our own development when we are spending our time developing others, but ultimately we have to practice what we preach, and that means spending the time to not only understand the content of our courses, but also live it so we can speak from experience.” Yvette, a Learning Experience Facilitation Manager in Dublin, explains.
Zach, a Senior Learning Experience Facilitator in Tokyo, adds, “The more I work in developing others, the more I find myself being developed,”
With previous employers, I saw coaching as a negative because a lot of the time it was seen as disciplinary action. At Indeed, it’s quite the opposite. Just like teaching, coaching is an investment. It’s used to nurture and help us grow, whether that’s #insideindeed or even beyond.
Along with that, our team holds true to its motto of “be kind to yourself” so that when we are at work, we’re able to put our best foot forward. As a mother of a small child, I feel so grateful knowing that if I need to take time off to take care of my family, I don’t have to feel guilty about it.
I’ve been really proud to see my team flex their creative muscles in their roles in order to help each other out and provide additional support whenever needed. They care so much about each other personally and professionally and I’m so grateful to be a part of it.
To learn more about all the benefits offered at Indeed, click here. For more Indeedian stories, read our #insideindeed culture blog.
