As a result of COVID-19, work will never be the same for many companies and employees. The pandemic has impacted almost every aspect of our work life including, not just our physical work environment, but how we interact and communicate with colleagues and managers. And as more organizations shift to remote working, COVID-19 is also changing the way employees around the world learn and train for their job roles. This shift to remote working calls for access to newer tools that will support the ongoing need for training in this new normal.
The Post COVID-19 Impact on eLearning and Employee Training
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, much has evolved in the area of corporate training and workforce development as learning and training professionals have had to adapt to these new challenges. Some of the trends that we have seen and can expect into the future.
Shift to Virtual Training
The shift to remote workforces will cause a significant increase in virtual training. As more companies discover and adopt new, cloud-based learning and training tools, traditional, classroom-based training will begin to phase out.
Increased Collaborative Learning
As more organizations embrace this shift to virtual training, many will look for methods and technologies to support the training experience through learner collaboration. Offering employees opportunities to share their learning and training experiences through discussion and distribution of resources will help to make workers feel connected as they conduct their learning and training activities.
New Emphasis on Soft Skills Training
Soft skills refer to those abilities that help workers excel at a company, regardless of their job role. Listening, problem-solving, and time management, and effective communication are skills that will be especially important for employees to thrive in remote work environments.
Accountability and Analytics
An unfortunate reality for managing remote workforces is in an enhanced need for accountability. Given this, corporate learning and training programs will need to be driven by technologies that can streamline the user onboarding process and capture detailed data regarding worker engagement and performance.
The Post-COVID Role of Learning Management Systems
The core technology that supports all types of eLearning programs, including corporate learning and training, is a Learning Management System, or “LMS”. An LMS is the application that is used to build, deliver, manage, and track online corporate training, thus providing a solid foundation for remote workforce development.
While some companies choose to “stand up” an LMS on their own servers, they tend to be larger organizations that have the labor and financial resources to support this type of extensive project. More commonly today, companies choose to work with a cloud-based LMS vendor that offers all of the LMS features and capacity they need, without requiring a large, up-front capital investment.
Some of the additional benefits your organization can expect from a cloud-based LMS can include:
Cost-Effectiveness
In addition to eliminating the need for a large, upfront capital spend, cloud-based LMS offerings shift the responsibility for the ongoing management and maintenance to the cloud vendor, thus freeing up your team to focus on the development and delivery of great corporate eLearning and training.
Flexibility
A cloud-based LMS allows your employees to access the training content they need, when and where they need it. All that is required is an Internet connection. This flexibility ensures that your employees can access critical learning content at the point of need and is well-suited for contextual learning.
Security
Cloud-based LMS vendors can typically offer a level of security that most companies cannot achieve and maintain on their own. This is because the cloud vendor can spread the (significant) security costs across their entire client base, thus making this high level of security affordable to even small companies.
LMS Portals for Post-COVID Corporate eLearning
LMS Portals provides our clients and partners with a cloud-based, multi-tenant learning management system that allows you to “spin up” private eLearning environments (portals) on-demand. Each portal you launch can have its own branding and includes supporting tools for course and category development, user onboarding, collaboration, and analytics.
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