Digital transformation has become a deciding factor in the long-term success of many companies and organizations. In the corporate sector, this transformation has only been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has cast online formats into the spotlight this year. Telecommuting has become the new normal, and training departments across many industries have opted for different e-learning methodologies to overcome specific challenges and encourage their workforce to upskill and reskill. But, given the data, is online training here to stay or will it be just another fleeting trend?
The Sustained Growth of Online Training
E-learning in the corporate sector has been on the rise for several years now, with 90 percent of organizations making use of the methodology in 2020 compared to just 4 percent in 1995.
Considering the benefits that switching from face-to-face to digital training can offer, many companies are placing their bets on the latter moving forward. In a 2017 poll, 98 percent of US companies said they were planning on including online courses in their training plan by 2020. With the arrival of the pandemic, the online training boom has become even more pronounced.
Gamelearn’s survey of 1,500 HR professionals and employees from various sectors shows that online training is here to stay. In 2020, 70 percent of organizations had prioritized their rollout of online training, and the same percentage of employees had already taken online courses.
5 Mistakes to Avoid in Online Corporate Training
Digital training is a necessity for companies that want to boost the performance of their workforce, especially in times of crisis and uncertainty. However, if the digital training boom has taught us anything, it’s that not all learning tools or formats are equal in their effectiveness.
If companies want their online training to be successful, they should avoid:
- Offering counterintuitive tools. The training platform you choose will be where your students’ learning takes place. So, if the interface isn’t user-centric, they aren’t likely to spend a lot of time there.
- Presenting information exclusively as text and video. Employees are easily bored when training consists of dense blocks of text or recorded monologues on video. The key is to embrace innovative e-learning methodologies.
- Using one, universal earning pathway for all teams. Not everyone in your company does the same tasks or has the same skillset, so it’s best to offer a wide array of learning pathways to complement all types of professional profiles. You’ll see the difference it makes.
- Presenting training as something external. It’s important for employees to see training as a part of the company's culture, as a continuous learning process that helps them grow and more efficiently perform tasks.
- Limiting training options. Time is one of our scarcest resources. Offering training that employees can do anywhere, at any time, and on any device will allow them to properly organize themselves and stay productive.
The Secret Formula for Providing Training That Engages Students
It’s important to know which e-learning options and features are more effective. Even though training is beneficial and helps employees do their job better, professionals often aren’t enthusiastic about having to do it. So what's the solution?
1. Attract them. Making the training attractive to them from the get-go will make them more likely to stick with it. If you deliver useful, quality content that catches their eye (such as game-based learning), employees will be drawn to it from day one.
2. Engage them. You know the feeling of having fun with something and wanting to keep going with it? You can get that with training too. The key is for employees to see it as an exciting, beneficial, and refreshing activity. Gamified elements like rewards, rankings, and medals work well.
3. Teach them. It’s important to offer valuable information that will actually help staff in their day-to-day. Also, if employees are able to test what they learn in realistic simulators, instant feedback can be highly motivating.
4. Measure results. HR departments often focus their efforts on simply establishing a training plan and getting employees to complete it. However, using the comprehensive data offered on some platforms makes it easier to analyze the results and quantify the true impact the training has had on the company.
Ultimately, the present and future of training are online. Many disruptive companies have already embraced an innovative methodology like game-based learning, as it combines the best parts of face-to-face and digital training. It manages this with an interactive, flexible, and fun format, which also includes quality content that’s applicable to our jobs. With this training solution, companies can really improve their results. Want to make an impact on yours?