Trend in Corporate Learning

The expectations of today’s learner have changed, and corporations must keep pace with those expectations to keep employees happy and attract new talent. But that’s not the only thing driving change in the corporate training landscape. Employers have finally recognized that an organization with a strong learning culture, one that is aligned with business strategies and goals, will outperform its competition.

Several factors have contributed to the evolution of corporate training and the increasingly central role of learning within companies.

1) The Rise of eLearning

The rising costs of instructor-led, classroom-based training is one factor in the increased use of eLearning. Also, the need for continuous, life-long learning has gradually driven its growth.

Learning and Development professionals have known for years that compliance training is particularly well suited to an eLearning platform. Then there is the increased need for awareness training (e.g., sexual harassment, inclusiveness, and diversity, etc.), topics which are also addressed quite efficiently and effectively with eLearning.

The use of eLearning doesn’t end with compliance and awareness training, however. Increasingly sophisticated platforms have made even soft skills training a practical reality for this approach. Add to that the potential for significant cost savings, and it’s not difficult to predict the continued expansion of eLearning for years to come.

2) Attracting and Retaining Employees through Learning and Development

Training is increasingly being viewed as an employee incentive, right along with health and retirement benefits. Workers understand that access to training will help them refine existing skills and develop new ones, ultimately making them more successful in their roles. Employee retention is rapidly replacing compliance as a key driver of training.

In fact, attracting and retaining top talent is a major challenge for most corporations today. In a recent Gallup poll, more than half of all currently employed adults are either actively searching for a new job or are at least passively entertaining other career opportunities. Using online training software as part of a digital learning strategy is one way to help employees develop proficiencies that will not only help the company but keep them engaged and productive in their current jobs.

3) Skills Gap Continues to Grow Among Companies

With the rapid pace of technological development, most employees have realized that they will need to become lifelong learners to remain competitive in today’s workplace. With the continuous emergence of new technologies and new business practices, the skills that were required to succeed yesterday are not the same as those required to succeed today or tomorrow.

Skills shortages are being created by digital transformation across all industries. In fact, many employers are facilitating the re-skilling and up-skilling of employees as a way to keep positions filled that might otherwise have remained vacant while Human Resources worked to recruit the necessary talent. According to a Payscale Research Report, approximately 33% of companies had open positions for six months or more, due to a lack of skilled or qualified candidates.

Companies must increasingly anticipate the benchmarks of the future, and plan proactively to meet them. If employers want to fill skills gaps with appropriately skilled workers, they need to provide employees with the development opportunities to meet the demands of their current as well as future roles.

One effective way to address the skills gap is the use of eLearning and micro-learning. Employees can learn new skills, or refine and update current skills using these highly interactive and agile technologies. Additionally, since they are online and mobile, learners can accomplish their learning objectives more quickly and conveniently.

4) Millennials View Learning Differently Than Previous Generations

By the year 2025, the Millennial generation is projected to comprise 75% of employees globally. Not only do they rank Learning and Development as a high priority, they expect their training to use the mobile devices that have become such an integral part of their lives.

Millennials grew up with mobile phones, laptops, and social media, so they have come to expect the same type of access to technology at work. Also, they don’t expect to be in a classroom to learn something. They can tap into training and information when they need it, not based on a published class schedule.

Learning is about helping people develop quantifiable and practical skills, not passing a multiple-choice quiz. Millennials expect learning to be decision-driven so that new information can be internalized and quickly translated into action. They also expect it to be offered “just in time” training, available when and where they need it.

5) Anywhere, Anytime Culture

In our “24/7” world, all learners (not just Millennials) are increasingly demanding training that is immediately accessible. They expect learning to happen whenever and wherever they happen to have the time. Since more and more people are constantly connected to a mobile device, they are always close to a point of access. This means never having to wait for training.

Instructor-led classes that are conducted in person haven’t disappeared quite yet. Mobile training options are coming on strong, however, since they are often more practical than classroom-based alternatives. Plus mobile training can merge social, video, and gamification aspects of training, making it attractive to Millennials and Generation Z employees.

6) Distributed Teams

Love it or hate it, telecommuting is here to stay. This makes the use of distance learning imperative, not only for the individual learner, but for the distributed work team as well. In this model, Human Resources provides the resources, and team members take responsibility for connecting with fellow learners in a virtual setting. Corporations are increasingly connecting and empowering their employees to take charge of their own learning.

Distance learning is particularly important for Millennials, who value work-life balance and flexibility to spend more time with family. Telecommuting, and therefore distance learning, is an excellent way to attract and retain Millennials, keeping them motivated and productive.

7) Personalized Experiences

The days of “off-the-shelf” training programs are rapidly coming to a close. Employees expect their training to be relevant to their own unique situation. This means adapting content based on several things, including:

•           Work environment

•           Company background

•           Organizational culture

•           Individual employee experience

•           Job performance

•           Country of origin

With eLearning and rapidly advancing technologies, there is cause for optimism and excitement that customized training will become the norm. And when learning improves, a company improves.

Digital solution for corporate learning

Why establish digital solution in companies?

Digital solution is the innovative way of method & technologies that creates new paradigms for corporate training and learning in general. However, Digital solution goes way beyond just the digital “delivery” of training. It encompasses a fundamental mindset change for organization approach learning and training for the workforce of the future and delivers numerous benefits to companies:

• Diverse learning formats

Within digital learning, depending on the topic, goal, and learning type, there are a variety of options for conveying content to employees, from simple standard solutions to interactive and multimedia formats with integrated videos and playful elements. In this way, complex and dry topics can be conveyed in a clear manner, and individually adapted to the employee. At the same time, appealing formats ensure variety in the company’s daily routine and thus greater willingness to learn.

• A central hub for various contents

Digital platforms gather all learning resources in one place, regardless of the date of creation. This means that documents can be retrieved in the future and reused if necessary, for example when training new employees. 

• Learners’ flexibility in terms of location and time

Depending on the learning format, digital content can be consumed at any time. In most cases, the employee only needs a laptop and an Internet connection. This means that the team is not bound to the strict conference atmosphere with a schedule and can consume the content from anywhere at their own discretion. Here, of course, you should still keep in mind that any training is also part of working time and should therefore also be deducted from it.

• Independent learning

Every person has a different ability to grasp things. Some can remember certain topics more easily, while others need a little more time. Unlike a traditional conference, an e-learning platform allows each employee to work through the content individually. 

• Quick adaptation to internal change

Should a certain process change within the company, you can flexibly adapt your digital learning platform and thus convey all information to the employee even at relatively short notice. Knowledge transfer can take place continuously and across departments. 

• More employer branding

Generation Z in particular has grown up with digital media and takes them for granted in their everyday lives. The integration of appealing digital training opportunities, therefore, has an attractive effect on younger workers in particular.

At the same time, many older employees are now also open to digital media. This also helps bridge the skills gap between younger and older generations in the workplace.

• Lower costs

Depending on the size of the company, continuing education offerings can be an expensive proposition. From the cost of the conference room, the speaker, for travel to the replacement of absentee employees, all these factors can quickly break the budget.

Although the initial investment in an attractive e-learning platform can be higher, it can be used and updated with content over the long term. Overall and in the long term, learning via digital platforms is therefore associated with lower costs and administration effort

• Measurement of the learning progress

Since most eLearning platforms also include special tools to analyze results, you get a better overview of employees’ learning progress.

microlearning as a great solution for corporate learning

What Makes Microlearning a Great Corporate Training Solution?

As opportunities for career development continue to become a high priority for today’s top talent and as organizations work towards closing skills gaps microlearning is quickly becoming a popular learning solution. This is in part due to this strategies ability to address some of today’s most common training challenges.

Organizations need training solutions that are engaging, accessible, easy to update, improve performance and make a measurable impact on their core objectives. At first glance this may seem like a tall order, but the microlearning strategies modular design has been able to help organizations overcome some of the most challenging l&d hurdles.

Some the top reasons microlearning has become one of the best strategy’s organizations:

• Increased Knowledge Retention

Your corporate training programs are only useful if they can improve employee performance. This means that your corporate training materials will need to be memorable so employees can apply this new knowledge on the job. Unfortunately, it has been found that people forget about 50% of what they learn within an hour. This finding is called the Ebbing Haus Forgetting Curve.

The good news is that breaking down learning activities into small digestible chunks that last ten minutes or less has been proven to boost long term knowledge retention rates by as much as 90%. The microlearning format generally breaks topics down into learning modules that usually last between 3-7 minutes and focus on a single topic at a time increasing knowledge retention.

• Accelerates the Training Process

Microlearning can also help employees learn the skills they need faster. Microlearning content is broken down into short individual pieces of content. This makes it easier to deliver more personalized learning experiences to employees. Learners can access the specific pieces of content they need and learn about a particular topic in just minutes compared to longer formats that may take hours before reaching the information they need.

Employees often have different skill levels, roles and learning styles. Microlearning speeds up the training process by allowing learners to access the most relevant information right when they need it.

• Boosts Engagement Rates

Microlearning has been proven to increase learner engagement rates. In fact, in a recent study it was found that more than 50% of employees would participate in their organizations learning and development programs if they were in a shorter format. Microlearning is also often paired with a blended learning strategy utilizing multiple training methods such as video-based learning and scenario-based learning further driving engagement.

• Higher ROI

Microlearning has quickly become a popular eLearning favorite in part by its ability to reduce costs and deliver measurable results. According to L&D professional Ray Jimenez, PhD microlearning can reduce the cost of professional development programs by 50%. When organizations use a microlearning strategy they reduce costs because this format does not need an instructor, a venue or travel costs like more traditional methods such as instructor led programs.

The global growth in online learning

Following the COVID-19-induced shift to remote working, people are increasingly looking to digital learning to develop the skills to navigate today’s constantly evolving world of work.

These increases reflect growing global acceptance of online teaching, including increases in remote learners taking higher education courses and those from vulnerable or remote communities.

Regionally, Asia Pacific saw the biggest student presence on the learning platform, with 28 million new online learners enrolling for 68 million courses, followed by North America, Europe and Latin America.