Professional Development Solutions for Businesses: Bookboon vs LinkedIn Learning vs Blinkist 

In this article, we will review and compare three of the most popular professional development solutions for businesses: Bookboon, LinkedIn Learning, and Blinkist. Specifically, in this article we aim to provide a fair and objective evaluation of the solutions including: 

Self-guided professional development training - sometimes known as self-directed learning - is the process of taking responsibility for one's own learning and development, where learners actively seek out information, resources, and experiences to acquire new knowledge and skills.  

This type of learning is important for companies because it promotes: 

• continuous learning 
• engagement and retention 
• improved performance 
• cost-effectiveness 

By empowering employees to take control of their own development, companies can reduce the costs associated with traditional training programs and provide a learning culture that promotes continuous growth and development. 

LinkedIn Learning is an online learning platform that provides a vast library of courses taught by industry experts in various fields. The platform is designed to help users develop and enhance their skills and advance their careers. It is a popular solution for professional development for individuals as well as for companies looking to provide training and development opportunities for their employees. 

The main advantage of LinkedIn Learning is its extremely large selection of courses. The platform provides over 18,000 courses that cover a wide range of topics, including: 

• Business 
• Technology 
• Creative 
• Personal development 

The courses are designed and taught by industry experts, and the content is regularly updated to keep up with the latest trends and developments.  

A second key advantage of LinkedIn Learning is its integration with LinkedIn's professional network. This feature enables employees to add completed courses and certifications directly to their LinkedIn profiles, making it easier for them to showcase their skills and knowledge to colleagues, and employers. 

However, the greatest disadvantage of LinkedIn Learning is its high pricing. While some courses are available for free, others require a paid subscription, which can be very expensive for many companies.  

Secondly, while LinkedIn Learning offers a wide selection of courses, the quality of its courses vary, and not all courses are equally engaging or informative. Some users also find the user interface of LinkedIn Learning to be complex and difficult to navigate. 

Finally, depending on the needs of your company, the level of customer and end-user support offered by LinkedIn Learning can be a disadvantage. While LinkedIn Learning does offer customer support, users have reported long response times and difficulty getting their issues resolved. Some companies may require more personalised support or help customizing their learning plans to fit specific learning objectives. For these companies, LinkedIn Learning's support may not be sufficient, and additional resources may be needed to meet these needs. 

Let’s now explore some LinkedIn Learning alternatives. 

Bookboon is a digital learning solution that aims to provide the industry’s best user experience for employees. Because of its ongoing efforts to make learning as easy and engaging as entertainment streaming services, Bookboon has become a popular solution for personal and professional development training. According to Bookboon reviews online the solution delivers one of the highest employee utilization rates in the industry. 

The main advantage of Bookboon is its simple, engaging, and personalised user experience that increases staff engagement in self-guided learning. Because of this, Bookboon has made a name for itself as the “the Netflix of digital learning”. 

Looking at Bookboon reviews, a second key advantage of Bookboon appears to be its reputation for outstanding customer service. Every customer is dedicated a Customer Success Team that is charged with the task of ensuring they get the highest possible user satisfaction levels and results from the solution. 

Finally, Bookboon is one of the most innovative players in the field. Beyond only offering eBooks, Bookboon also offers what is perhaps the industry’s best functioning audio learning module and is one of the only providers right now to offer users daily, live interactive virtual classrooms with industry experts.  

However, the main disadvantage of Bookboon is its limited content numbers and selection of topic areas. Bookboon only offers 3,000 bite sized eBooks and 4,000 audio learning titles. The company focuses primarily on human skills, soft skills, and mental health content to support employee personal development; however, several Bookboon reviews have pointed out that its content catalogue is limited when it comes to business related topics such as marketing, finance, and sales. 

Several Bookboon reviews have pointed out that another disadvantage of Bookboon can be the length of its content. It’s eBooks typically take 1-2 hours to complete, which can be difficult to accommodate for those who are on a time crunch and need knowledge on a topic right now. However, by focusing on the higher end of the bite sized learning spectrum, Bookboon offers employees a more in-depth learning experience than that provided by many other digital learning providers.   

When looking at Bookboon reviews online, the company generally receives positive reviews. Here are a few extracts: 

“Bookboon Professional Development Training offers a large variety of eBooks and audio learning with an optimal user experience. It has been great partnering with Bookboon to support our employee learning journey” 

“The quality of content is excellent with a wide variety of industry experts and languages. The length is ideal. Not too long. Not too short.” 

Blinkist is a digital learning platform that offers busy professionals a quick and efficient way to consume knowledge from over 4500 best-selling books, in the form of bite-sized summaries. 

The key advantage of Blinkist is its convenience. With time being a precious commodity, Blinkist allows users to absorb key insights from a book in just 15 minutes, enabling them to learn on the go and maximize their productivity. Moreover, with access to a vast library of titles spanning a wide range of topic areas, Blinkist for business use can help busy professionals stay up to date with industry trends and expand their knowledge base despite having very limited time during the day for learning. 

The main disadvantage of using Blinkist for business learning though is the loss in depth of knowledge when relying entirely on bite-sized book summaries. Can people really learn new skills or understand the complexity of a sophisticated topic after reading just a few pages? The condensed nature of Blinkist summaries can result in a less comprehensive understanding of the content, when looking at Blinkist reviews, this seems to be a concern for professionals seeking in-depth knowledge in particular areas. Furthermore, Blinkist's summaries may not offer the same level of engagement as reading a full book or course, which could impact retention and application of knowledge. 

If you want to read a range of Blinkist reviews from end users, try looking at Trustpilot. As of September 2024 Blinkist reviews were an average of 2.5 out of 5 stars.  

So, for business investment, is Blinkist worth it? As with all three options, we advise you take a good look at the relevance of the offering to your needs. Our specific guidelines later in the article will help you answer the question is Blinkist worth it for your company. 

Unique benefits of Bookboon:

• User experience
• Customer support
• Focus on soft skills 

Unique benefits of LinkedIn Learning:

• Wide selection of content
• Integration with LinkedIn professional network 

Unique benefits of Blinkist:

• Convenient bite-sized summaries for learning on-the-go 

Even if you have a good understanding of the pros and cons of each of the solutions you are considering, it can still be difficult to identify which solution is the best match for your company. Here the rule of thumb is always to prioritize the learning needs of your company and your employees when making this decision. Although LinkedIn Learning may be the name that first comes to mind for a self directed learning solution for businesses, it is certainly worth investing a little time to compare LinkedIn Learning alternatives. 

The checklist below will help you cross off the most important criteria when determining which solutions to move forward with in your decision process. Ultimately, you should rank these criteria from most important to least important for your company to arrive at the solution that has the highest potential of matching your company’s requirements.  

1. Do they offer the right subject areas for my company?
2. Do they offer enough content to satisfy my company’s learning needs?
3. Do they offer enough learning formats to tailor to different user preferences?
4. Is the solution user-friendly enough for my staff?
5. Is the solution within our budget range?
6. Is the solution available only on desktop or on additional devices as well?
7. Will the solution be easy to integrate with my company’s LMS or learning environment?

In this article, we examined and compared three of the industry’s most popular professional development solutions: LinkedIn Learning, Bookboon, and Blinkist. Each solution offers unique features and benefits for employees seeking to take control of their own learning and personal development. In the end, your choice of self-guided learning solution should depend on your company’s budget and the specific needs and goals of your organisation and its employees.