Not Understanding The Online Learner
The modern day online learner is not yet fully understood by the corporate L&D world and this is why so many e-Learning initiatives are failing.
The changing times, technology and online world that we live in has fundamentally changed the way that many people seek and consume information today. Gen X were born with the internet and don’t know a life without it. Where there maybe a few in every organisation who are fearful or resistant of change, the ever increasing majority of it will expect online learning.
The modern day learner expects on-demand learning, easy to access, search and view information that is delivered practically, quickly, straight to the point and without the need for ‘fluff, team games and icebreakers’.
Thinking It’s Just for The ‘L&D’ Team To Worry About
Many studies show that career advancement and progression more more important to employees than salary.
With our workforce becoming ever more saturated by the modern day learner, online learning is as critical for training and development, as it is for recruitment and retention.
Without the appropriate skills, knowledge and competencies to confidently, safely and autonomously conduct their work, products and services cannot be fulfilled, strategic objectives will not be met and the profitability of the organisation will decline.
As our markets and customers needs’ change at an increasingly rapid rate, online learning is one of the fastest, most cost effective and efficient ways to ensure that all employees are equipped with the capability to multitask, adapt, upskill and conduct their life’s best work for the benefit of the businesses survival. Without a suitably talented workforce, there is no business.
Old School Connectivity
Old servers that only work on company connections and VPNs are a major barrier to e-Learning. This doesn’t work anymore and puts a huge barrier between your employees and their education. Move to cloud based solutions so that the training can be accessed anywhere at anytime on any device. The security of LMS systems today is very high and all login IP addresses, dates and times are logged automatically.
Lack of Computer Literacy
While the majority of our workforce today could operate a computer by the time they were 2, there are still members of the workforce who have never been required to learn IT systems as part of their role. Introducing new systems can cause distress, frustration and fear among workers who ‘have always done it a certain way’, and this means that consideration must be made to the implementation and integration of new systems and processes. This extra layer puts off many organisations from stepping forward with improved systems, and it shouldn’t.
LMSs today are as easy to use as an every day email account and it wouldn’t take more than a 30 minute live webinar, live screencast or face to face demo to get even your most completely computer illiterate employees confidently navigating around their learner dashboard.
Leaving It Out of Everyday Business
Make your LMS an everyday part of your employees work so that it doesn’t get lost and forgotten . If it becomes an integral part of the work they have to do every single day it will become a natural daily resource that they engage with, without needing a reminder or feeling like it’s an extra chore.
Although there are many variables and context specific reasons behind a difficulty, fear or lack of capability to implement organisational e-Learning, it is easy to see how these most common barriers can be easily overcome with the right e-Learning development partners and a little bit of experience.
