Professional Training makes its digital revolution

The 2020 health crisis has really upset learning and training models in companies. By imposing remote work as the generalized new order on private and public organizations, it has made digital training an essential channel. According to recent WHO statements on the recurrence of future health crises, training is emerging as a key investment that must be prepared now. In such a context, how can we overcome the distance and maximize the engagement of the learner whose motivation factor is implicitly challenged? What lessons can be drawn from 2020 to rethink training strategies? How can we seize the opportunities offered by new technological learning solutions (“learner-centred”) and make the right choices?

The COVID-19 epidemic has disrupted learning models and corporate training. Faced with this unprecedented situation where remote work is becoming widespread, training plans and their annual development have been seriously called into question. For example, a leading player in public transport testified: in the 10th month of the company’s financial year, the training plan had painfully reached 40% of its target when it usually reaches 90% at this same period of the year. Not to mention that classroom training budgets have been frozen by about half.

Therefore, several questions arise: how to build and further increase the quality of the digital training offer, with a view to increasing learner autonomy and generating greater commitment from them? How to address certain practical subjects of a “business” nature from a distance, while avoiding falling back into cumbersome and costly solutions to develop and maintain? How to rationalize content and scale up educational approaches to offer an ever more personalized and innovative “learning experience”? What solution should finally be chosen to accelerate the rise in skills and maximize the return on investment of training efforts?

These solutions seem promising for transforming learning methods and putting the learner back at the centre of attention around three priorities.

The customization possibilities offered by learning platforms make it possible to simplify access to content, especially when the offer is broad and targets several learner profiles.

The content proposals can be personalized according to both the profile of the learner and the contextualized needs of business teams.

For example, the experiential training platform can push sales and product training content for sales reps, depending on the key times of the year (Christmas, annual campaigns, year-end, etc.). This makes it possible to develop a more regular relationship with the learners in connection with the business logic.

In addition, bridging the gap between an existing skill level and a target level is most often working overtime. Beyond a one-off training, digital offers the ability to mark out the distribution of content over time, the validation of acquired knowledge, and to point out gaps on specific subjects. It also gives the learner autonomy in their choices, the possibility of organizing their workload and of sequencing their skills development over time.

The new possibilities offered by features based on artificial intelligence and data analysis of the learner’s training path, also allow the creation of a new value proposition.

Among the pioneering solutions, we find “Machine Learning” which puts the learner in a situation of immediate interaction with the content that adapts during the training sequence with their level of competence. We enter into the logic of adaptive learning: the learning experience is individualized with content selected according to their relevance, the profile and level of the learner, and suggestions for additional content consistent with the initial learning objectives.

Improving “Soft Skills” or “behavioural skills” (creativity, management skills, negotiation, etc.) was for a long time considered to require face-to-face facilitation. Thus, managerial training in feedback from a manager to his employee was presented as a sufficiently sensitive subject that it could only be dealt with face-to-face. The progressive digitization of managerial practices, accelerated by the health crisis, means that today coaching, co-development and any other training action on interpersonal skills are more easily done digitally.

Here again, the contributions of AI are proving their worth. Complex scenarios are now made possible by tools, such as virtual or augmented reality, or micro-learning solutions that activate changes in work practices.

Community learning, lifelong learning and augmented reality. Here is the winning triptych of the new generation training. These three trends are levers that enrich a fundamentally “learner” oriented learning offer and system. And if digital training is becoming the new standard, it does not exclude a more “classic” classroom approach. Moreover, we are even convinced that the first stone to the building of a balanced and well thought out training strategy rests first of all on the need to build this complementary, and to think about the linkage of these two models.

So, if the Covid19 crisis is undoubtedly accelerating the digital transformation of training, we might as well see it as an opportunity to examine it now.