The business world is competitive, and people face a constant battle to stay one or two steps ahead. However, digital credentialing—or digital certificates to prove a person's qualifications—creates opportunities for individuals to validate their skills in a verified way and secure employment. Digital badges are also a way for organizations to develop a culture of learning.

Credly by Pearson—a digital credential network—and NovoEd, a social and collaborative learning platform for capability learning, recently partnered to make those advantages a reality for companies. The partnership streamlines the digital credentialing process for organizations and enables NovoEd clients to use digital credentialing to make talent decisions based on verified skills.

"This integration … allows for organizations to clearly emphasize and communicate the impact and value of their learning and development programs," says Todd Moran, NovoEd's chief learning strategist.

NovoEd clients can issue the badges to learners who complete NovoEd courses or learning journeys, broadening both learners' digital certificates and job prospects. Employers and L&D professionals can implement digital credentialing into their specific programs by acknowledging the acquisition of soft, job-specific, and technical skills or by issuing badges to celebrate achievements learners make throughout their learning journey as well as when they complete it. They can also issue credentials for diversity, equity, and inclusion or product certification.

"A future-forward workforce is based on talent management practices that not only recognize employees' hard-earned skills but help make it clear how those skills can be deployed in the near and long term," says Jarin Schmidt, vice president of platform at Credly by Pearson.

He adds that this partnership "drives forward the ability for learning to more seamlessly lead to professional opportunities."