Technological assistance for daily tasks has engulfed the world over rapidly since the last decade and two. Parallelly, upskilling and reskilling have held the spotlight in organizations especially in the last 5 years, and we had highlighted this aspect in our previous blog too. Various research reports and expert opinions have directed attention to joining both these forces – learning technology to upskill and reskill, and it is safe to say that organizations had made inroads towards this mission well before the onset of the global pandemic. What has changed is the intensity at which this is being pursued. Owing to the climate of global markets, L&D leaders rely more on insights, analytics, and solutions to address immediate and future learner needs. This is a smart way to enhance skill set and secure the future of the organization.

Before we delve deeper into the subject and how organizations are building workforce capabilities, let us highlight key findings from 2021 research reports from the Brandon Hall Group.

• While all organizations recognize the importance of upskilling and reskilling the workforce to meet new demands, only 36% believe they are prepared to do so.
• While 64% say business leaders are pushing for improvement, 60% reveal that the lack of a technological ecosystem in place has hindered their efforts to deliver personalized training at scale.

Personalized learning has proven repeatedly to be one of the ideal ways to deliver specific skills to employees. While it is hard to fathom any aspect of our life sans technology, the numbers at an organizational level tell a different story.

• Research also shows that 76% of Gen Z learners believe learning is the key to a successful career and are more focused than ever. Their preference is unwavering – a tech platform to consolidate, boost and deliver the experiences they are seeking, and reports validate this too. LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report for 2021 reveals that Gen Z learners have watched 50% more hours per learner of learning content in 2020 vs 2019.

There are no two ways to go about this. Organizations must deploy dependable learning technology in their quest to upskill and reskill the workforce.

With tech capabilities and its adoption in L&D, delivering specific skills and achieving greater learning outcomes to meet business objectives is now simplified. This blog will precisely address these aspects, how technology can help achieve skilling success across industries and enterprises.

In the next section, allow us to highlight three broad areas about how technology plays a critical role in the success of delivering specific skills. And, how it can support organizations in their quest to upskill and reskill to improve workforce capabilities:

A. Training Accuracy

Did you know the impact on organizations due to ineffective training? A staggering total loss of $13.5m per year, per one thousand employees!

In every aspect, more so in training and learning, technology is synonymous with accuracy. Various learning technologies or learning platforms today are built with a host of features and capabilities that can simplify training to accurately upskill and reskill. It can function as a one-stop tool for end-to-end solutions. From knowledge and skills analysis to identifying gaps in skill set to provide specific training, recommendations based on user profile and assessments, learning technology has no alternative. Allow us to explain further:

• Enable “Custom Path” through technology. Allow every employee or user to experience learning that has been exclusively created and delivered to them.
• Map user profiles and recommend content. Mapping user-profiles give insights on their role, qualifications, interests, and more that could be useful to facilitate content recommendations. Lead the learner directly to the content that would benefit them.
• An added advantage of mapping user profiles is it improves content discoverability too. Every training content that has been created has an audience. Mapping positions and presents such modules directly to the targeted audience, which could have otherwise been lost in the mix.
• Deliver role-based training and score high on personalization; a need broadly demanded by consumers globally. A role-based training paradigm remains a powerful tool to deliver specific skills needed to bridge gaps in the required skill set.
• Learning technologies are a gateway to fascinating insights: Assess progress of learners, data to back learner’s preferences, content performance across mediums, strategies that resonate with the audience, and so much more. Use these actionable insights to enhance training and learning experiences in the organization.
• Enjoy ease in deployment and delivery of assessments to learners. With technological aid, learners welcome assessments. Notice the pulse of the audience on trends and capitalize.

B. Meet Business Objectives

The focus for all organizations now remains firmly on the mission to upskill and reskill, and quickly too. With dynamic market trends and needs, organizations want to equip and strengthen workforce armor so that they can rise to challenges. A learning platform can help deliver results that meet business objectives. This is how:

• Employees welcome ways to improve their skill set to perform at a higher level, however, they lack time to pause for a training session. Technology enables the delivery of training and learning in the flow of work, offering them much-needed flexibility and motivation to pursue training.
• It fosters a culture of learning at the workplace, providing a continuous and consistent learning experience to employees.
• Perhaps, the most vital feature of all is its ability to offer a safe platform/environment to practice what they have learned. Boost confidence and encourage application to meet objectives quickly.
• Take the first step towards a self-paced learning environment. This has been the long-term vision for sustainable training and development for most organizations at their workplace. To boost certification of programs, self-paced learning is essential.
• Did you know that a learning platform delivers business outcomes for all stakeholders? From Sales and Customer Success to L&D and Extended Enterprise. Achieve specific skill goals with greater efficiency and return on investment. This video highlights how Fractal LXP delivers.

C. An Ally in the Current Environment

This is of supreme importance now more than ever. While the pandemic has completely changed work environments, reports indicate that organizations and employees are preferring the remote or hybrid work culture. Businesses have been able to draw from the many benefits and are positive about continuing in the same direction. A technology platform offers better personalization while working remote or hybrid than any other means and provides a stable experience when everything else is changing at a fast pace. Additionally, technology has the power to propel positive learner experiences to drive skills and skill set to employees. We explain:

• With dynamic access to the learning platform, learning can be continuous. Allow learners to begin a module on their work laptop, continue on their personal tablet and wind down through their mobile phone. Cloud-enabled for easy access to content adds to the flexibility in learning.
• When the learning platform is device agnostic and has a provision for single sign-on across applications, it boosts learner-centric learning experiences for employees.
• Did you know that an average American spends 5.4 hours per day using mobile devices? And that we check our phone about 58 times per day? Yet, reports indicate that employees spend only 24mins per week on formal learning! Capitalize on the many advantages of informal learning to deliver formal workplace skill set development through the power of technology.
• “Instant-culture” and short attention span have been a cause of great concern to trainers since time immemorial. Technology helps offset such issues through the deployment of experiential learning using modern learning strategies with microlearning, gamification, mixed reality solutions, and much more. These have proven to fetch greater results when deployed on a learning platform.

To further substantiate the role of technology as a prerequisite to improving workforce competencies, we have a use case from a leading organization renowned for its AI range of products.
The growth-stage AI enterprise had its goals cut out – provide effective training, deliver specific skills to the workforce, allow product engineers to focus on their core competencies of product development, and drive product adoption of its new product to meet business objectives.

By deploying a robust and scalable Learning Experience Platform, every objective was achieved. Further, with this solution model, they were additionally able to go-to-market quickly and save a staggering 2.9 million USD.

Watch the solution snapshot of how role-based training deployed on a learning platform drew widespread appreciation.

We also recommend reading the detailed case study, which explores challenges and highlights the impact registered.

Are you ready to deploy learning technology to upskill and reskill at your organization? Explore ideas and discover solutions as the world regroups in this post-pandemic era. Write to lxp@originlearning.com to talk to our team about delivering training to improve the skill set of employees. Request for a demo or start a free trial now.