If your company is like ours, the exciting business prospects brought on by evolving technology sparks curiosity and enthusiasm among your employees. While new tech developments continue to transform nearly every industry across the globe, workplace culture and employee expectations are being redefined just as quickly as internal operations. It’s no wonder that when it comes to providing your team with the right opportunities to access and utilize new information that they need to succeed, e-learning trends contain some of the most efficient and progressive solutions out there.
Staying up-to-date with what’s happening in the e-learning world can be overwhelming, but for management teams that strive to embrace these trends in practical and cost-effective ways, the solution is simple: find ways to make technology work for you.
Here are the top three e-learning trends that we’re most excited about:
Gamification
Gamification is the integration of game-like elements into e-learning programs to help engage and retain users. When it comes to workplace learning, it’s an efficient and fun way for companies to help improve their employee’s learning experiences by boosting motivation with rewards and recognition. Gamification also provides managers with the ability to easily track progress and identify a training program’s success (or need for improvement).
Some common gamification examples include challenges or levels to be achieved that align with learning objectives, a points system that rewards users for their accomplishments, and public ranking boards that help establish a competitive edge.
How your company can implement it:
- Gamify employee assessments and compliance courses required internally (e.g. with interactive quizzes or adventure-like courses).
- Use game-like elements to integrate training components into your company’s internal comms portal (e.g. badges for improving customer service knowledge or leader boards for achievements).
- Incorporate gamification into employee onboarding and even into your hiring process.
Virtual Reality Training
Virtual Reality (VR) training is an interactive and immersive 360° video technology where virtual scenarios are simulated to provide employees with a safe space to learn by doing. This cutting edge form of workplace learning offers new possibilities for hands-on training that’s incredibly engaging and exciting for users, while significantly reducing long-term overhead costs, safety risks, and the many other logistical challenges employers face.
Plus, recent research shows that VR training leads to better performance and decision-making skills. With the increasing popularity and high demand, the VR industry is continuously growing and more is becoming possible. Surveys show that over a third of employees expect to see VR in staff training within the next 10 years — so jump on board!
How your company can implement it:
- Integrate VR components into vital and mandatory employee training experiences like workplace safety, risk mitigation, and empathy training.
- Work with a digital training provider to create on-brand VR scenarios that simulate client interactions and public speaking to improve communication skills.
- Use VR training to introduce new employees to your offices and company culture in a more efficient and streamlined way.
Microlearning
When it comes to workplace learning, microlearning is the practice of divvying up large training programs into more manageable pieces of content that are easier for employees to digest.
These short, hyper-focused training components are designed to promote new models of workplace training, like mobile and on-the-go learning. Planting a series of microlearning “seeds” along a learning path is an effective way to offer comprehensive training that allows employees to obtain knowledge at a pace that suits their needs and fits into their workflow. By allowing trainers to pinpoint and focus on employee’s real-time needs, microlearning combats many of the core challenges that companies face today, including the high costs of large-scale training programs, employee retention, and team motivation.
How your company can implement it:
- Offer daily suggestions and tips embedded within internal emails that promote a specific goal or team initiative.
- Provide access to webcasts or short video content to combat frequently encountered internal problems, e.g. IT glitches or customer service support issues.
- Integrate a user-friendly and customizable mobile-learning app into your workflow that focuses on a specific topic of interest or company requirement.
To learn more about digitalization and language learning in companies, check out our practical guide that introduces different possibilities for learning languages offline and online.
