Training has always been valuable for boosting productivity, engagement and retention in business, but for many it may now be the key to survival as skills shortages cast long shadows over British and Irish firms. MHR’s survey of midsize enterprises found that the availability of the skills needed to remain competitive was a top challenge for almost eight out of ten businesses. UK vacancies, meanwhile, remain well over a million.
While it may be essential, it can also be tricky. With budgets tight, more individuals working remotely and teams pressed for time as they try to plug gaps, arranging the time for training isn’t always easy.
Fortunately, online learning addresses many of these challenges. It is always available and can be accessed anywhere, so individuals can learn at their own pace and convenience, whether onsite, remotely, travelling or at home. It can also ease the burdens of managing learning and development – a crucial factor given skills shortages can also impact HR. Smart systems can automatically identify learning requirements and roll out appropriate courses for employees, who may have specific development needs.
Yet, to get the most out of online training for both employees and employers, it is vital to get the basics right. As with any learning, a few fundamental principles must be kept in mind.
Learning to have fun
Perhaps the most important of these is to know your audience. Training needs to be tailored to both the requirements of the company and the employees – there is no one size fits all. Any course design must start with understanding learners’ specific needs. Only then it is possible to develop relevant learning materials with clear objectives. If you don’t know where you’re aiming to get to, it’s unlikely you’ll succeed.
An understanding of the needs of employees – as well as their interests and preferences – will also help with another imperative: keeping content engaging.
Engagement is critical to support motivation (essential for self-directed learning) and persistence. We want learners to both absorb the material and stick with the training so they progress. Engagement is critical to both. As one study puts it, “Student engagement increases student satisfaction, enhances student motivation to learn, reduces the sense of isolation, and improves student performance in online courses.”
But there are a range of tools and techniques that can help, from storytelling or scenario-driven training to using interactions to encourage active learning so that students grow by doing instead of just reading. Some even apply lessons from entertainment to “gamify” learning, for example by segmenting learning into levels, and encouraging employees to ‘level up’ as they successfully complete each stage.
Whatever techniques are employed, as learners progress, knowledge “checkpoints” can encourage and support them. These enable individuals to assess their knowledge along the way rather than burdening them with a single final assessment. Similarly, breaking down long e-learning courses into bite-sized “micro-learning” chunks can help maintain employee engagement.
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The human touch
Finally, online shouldn’t mean ‘out of touch’. One of the benefits of online training is its ability to draw on a wide range of media to keep the course interesting. There’s a place for written information but also videos, sound and other effects that make a course feel less one-dimensional and create a more varied experience. Nevertheless, even with this range on offer, e-learning should be considered part of a broader, blended experience.
Results show online learning is an effective and efficient way to upskill the workforce, but, to retain skills, people need practice. Learners who walk away from the course and aren’t given an opportunity to reinforce the knowledge they’ve gained may find it fades fast. Likewise, relying solely on online methods is to forego the benefits of on-the-job learning through practice, collaboration, observation and knowledge sharing.
Engaging with not just training materials but with practical tasks and sharing lessons learnt with co-workers helps reinforce learning. It can also identify any remaining gaps, which can be valuable in ascertaining further training needs or refining course content. As with so many things in life, practice makes perfect, and it is only when those skills that are learnt in theory are put to the test in a real-world scenario that somebody’s understanding of something can be assessed.
As businesses look to the future, with plenty of new technologies to master, new challenges to overcome, and new innovations to pursue, training is one of the biggest keys to addressing all these. But not only can ongoing learning prepare your organisation for the future, but it can also build employee loyalty, and propel your company into a desirable place to work, with development at the centre of its culture.
By Iain Moffat, Chief Delivery Officer , MHRGlobal
