In HEC Paris’s latest Executive Horizons survey, they discovered that 67.5% of respondents rated the impact of lifelong learning on employee performance as 5 out of 5. It’s clear organizations and their employees value continuous learning and investing in it can bring many benefits, including:
- Adapting our current skills to anticipate future ones.
- Promoting knowledge ecosystems that attract innovative talent.
- Reinforcing total employee compensation through development.
- Expressing commitment to each employee’s future.
This reference to lifelong learning and how highly employees regard it is becoming more frequent. We can find another example in LinkedIn’s 2021 Workplace Learning Report, which emphasizes the fact that upskilling and reskilling is the top priority for L&D professionals globally.
Optimize the investment in training within your company
Considering that most professionals place a high value on the training they receive from their employers, it’s evident that HR departments should take advantage of this to promote it and gain relevance within their respective companies. But how do we make the most out of that investment? Here are five steps that will help:
1. Committing to online training
Virtual training has become the only available option given the strict health restrictions brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic. But it also brings numerous advantages for organizations. It saves the expenses associated with the physical presence of the trainers, in addition to the costs of moving the students, if necessary, or the conditioning and resources of the classroom.
At the same time, e-learning allows you to reach more students, since online training platforms don’t usually have limited capacity and it’s possible to access them from anywhere with an internet connection, hopefully, using all kinds of devices (PC, tablet, or mobile).
2. Consult with digital training professionals, if necessary
If you’re clear about your corporate training strategy and the objectives you want to meet with it, but you still don’t have the necessary digital infrastructure, why not get some external help? Given the benefits of the virtual environment, look for e-learning providers who have a catalog of courses appropriate to your needs. They may also provide you with access to an online platform if your organization doesn’t currently have one.
3. Dare to create your own virtual courses
The next step, if the off-the-shelf online training you find is scarce and doesn’t respond to all your needs, is to assess the possibility of using one of the authoring tools on the market. With an authoring tool, you can create your own online courses and adapt them to your training goals, personalizing elements to make students feel more identified with what they learn.
4. Look for innovative elements
Moving one step further towards the creation of an ideal corporate training, the time will come to increase its ability to engage students. The next level is to achieve the maximum possible engagement. For this, innovation, either in the technology used or in the approach to the content, is vital.
In this sense, e-learning platforms that favor interaction and usability are certain to generate greater satisfaction in their users and, therefore, more hours of study. On the other hand, when talking about educational content, there are several ingredients that can make it more attractive. The main one? Storytelling. By turning your training content into a story, you make it irresistible for any person. Take advantage of that!
5. Start playing!
This is your ace in the hole—if you want to take engagement to the next level, give students the opportunity to play. Gamification has been making its way into many areas, including education, at all levels and for all ages. And of course, that’s also the case with training in corporate environments.
Games have numerous characteristics (points, rankings, levels, etc.) that can turn a simple online course into something much more attractive. Video games have all these characteristics while also integrating other components that ensure engagement, such as storytelling. Game-based learning, presented as a training video game, has become a tool increasingly implemented in more and more companies to develop their talent, and its effectiveness has already been demonstrated.
Following these five steps, HR departments can guarantee more productive, attractive, and effective training. This will achieve their internal development objectives at the same time as the business objectives and ensure the return on investment. Making the right choice for the company’s digital training will undoubtedly result in a strengthened image for the HR department within its organization.
