The workforce today is going through a period of rapid transformation. It’s now more digital and diverse with multiple generations including millennials. The latter has grown up with multiple technology resources and this has significantly transformed workplace dynamics.
According to research, millennials (who now make up the 30% of the American workforce) are more collaborative than previous generations and have a strong affinity for remote work options. What’s more, they are also better connected and prefer to use technology as their primary mode of interaction and as a tool to get work done.
As a result, your corporate training methods might also desperately need an update to ensure that it’s efficient and effective. But how do you know if you need to change your current approach to corporate training? Here are five signs to look out for!
If your corporate training classroom hasn’t changed in years, you have to ask yourself, why? If you’re still following a traditional training model of employees sitting at desks listening to an expert impart knowledge, you have first ask yourself if this method is actually effective in the digital age.
This old-school approach to corporate training can be ineffective if it’s not designed to encourage learning, critical thinking, and enhanced interaction. Taking advantage of technology also presents a unique opportunity to drive corporate training with data analytics. This approach can help consistently improve or adapt training methodology based on the audience.
Microsoft’s PowerPoint presentation software was great for decades, but it’s potential can be limited when it comes effective learning today. Instead, a corporate trainer can make a better impact by asking participants to act out real-life scenarios.
With the proliferation of mobile devices and apps, it will also better serve a corporation to invest in training applications. This is because something as simple as a drag and drop interaction can boost knowledge retention.
This approach to corporate training can create new opportunities for staff to learn on their own time on smartphones and tablets. Furthermore, there is also an opportunity here for participants to engage in social learning.
This can be critical going forward as more than 6 million Americans are now actively choosing part-time options to deliberately secure work-life balance. At the same time, 60% of teleworkers from around the world preferred full-time employment, so we can expect dramatic changes going forward.
With a changing workforce that is also becoming highly mobile, not taking advantage eLearning will probably render your corporate training program useless. This is because people have become more tech-savvy and grown accustomed to learning through interactions and touchpoints.
eLearning is also an effective tool to support participants that learn at a different pace. Let’s face it, some people are quicker learners than others, so taking advantage of technology can help ensure that bits of important information isn’t missed.
Employees will have a variety of different responsibilities and deadlines that have to be taken into consideration. This can quickly turn into logistics a nightmare that will require significant planning months ahead.
So if you find yourself spending too much time trying to figure out the logistics, then it might be time to digitize your corporate training approach. Furthermore, with technologies like video conferencing, there’s also an opportunity here to take a blended approach to corporate training.
Facilitating training logistics can quickly become expensive. If you’re bringing in corporate trainers from outside, you will also have to absorb the costs associated travel, accommodation, transportation, and meals.
You might also have to pay for an external training facility. But if you take the ed-tech approach to corporate training, it can quickly become a highly cost-effective solution.
Whether you choose to completely digitize your whole approach to training or blend together different delivering modes in your corporate training program, technology will significantly improve the effectiveness of your corporate training initiative and the program’s ROI.
