Gone are the hours of lengthy and inefficient corporate training sessions that dragged on without yielding meaningful results. Worn-out employees just yawned and drowsed over their desks.
Fortunately, digital tech advancements have given rise to new pathways and methods in employee training. Currently, 40% of global leaders already use technology to train their workers.
Technology in workplace learning isn’t simply a trend to crash on; it may be just the proper mechanism to wind up your corporate training success by minimising the time investment and maximising learning outcomes. You’ll see how in this article. It is your one-stop shop for everything you need to turbocharge employee learning and development with tech solutions.
Consider each idea carefully and view the range of tools available for use.
8 Ideas for Using Technology in Corporate Learning
It’s time to modernise your corporate L&D strategy with a robust tech stack. Grab it below.
Learning management systems
A learning management system (LMS) proves to be a silver bullet for efficient and effective employee training.
But the following numbers speak for themselves. Workers trained with LMS save an average of 157.5 hours yearly, and 87% of companies investing in LMS notice a positive ROI in two years.
The best LMS platforms to facilitate employee learning with technology are:
- Moodle
- Coggno
- Tenneo LMS
- LearnUpon
- 360Learning
- LearnAmp
- iSpring Learn
- Lessonly
Let’s take Moodle as an excellent LMS for multilingual employees. Moodle confidently carves its niche in multi-language support. It covers over 100 languages and allows users to install additional language packs.
Private VideoTubes
The usage of video is a superb way to engage employees and increase knowledge retention during training. According to the report, viewers retain 95% of information obtained from videos, compared to only 10% from texts.
But where can you keep your educational videos safe and sound?
The first thing that comes to your mind is probably YouTube. You may indeed make your YouTube channel private and host corporate videos there. Only your team members will have access to them.
Alternatively, you can establish a corporate VideoTube—a video portal accessible only to you and your employees to learn and develop daily with the power of engaging virtual training through interactive visual content.
For example:
Cincopa may become a cosy home for your video courses, images, and slide decks, with customisation features for company branding. Decorate it as you wish; it is your playground, your rules.
Gamification
Celebrated for its interactivity and engagement levels, gamification literally holds another key to corporate training efficiency.
In fact, 73% of HR managers believe game-based learning activities are effective in training the staff, and 62% of employees report higher motivation to learn if workplace training is gamified.
Jesse Hanson, Content Manager at Online Solitaire & World of Card Games, recommends using game-based platforms to bring gamification technology into L&D. He says, “Tech tools like Gametize, Playit.Training, or Gamelearn, can help your team learn through gamified simulations with true-to-life scenarios. You don’t necessarily need to turn the whole training into a game. You can apply only separate game elements to non-game learning contexts.”
Hanson shares a list of methods to do that to gamify your corporate training:
- Let employees create avatars in your LMS.
- Set goals in the form of challenges or levels (Challenge 1 or Level 1).
- Celebrate employees’ achievements and progress throughout the learning process.
- Design a reward system with badges, awards, ranks, points, or other alternatives.
- Add a competitive touch with leaderboards.
Gamification techniques like these can help you motivate your remote team and make it a more fun and engaging experience.
However, Logan Mallory, Vice President of Marketing at Motivosity, remarks, “Before gamifying workplace education, you should define what exactly motivates your employees to prepare individual rewards for them. Some may prioritise financial bonuses, while others might appreciate extra days off.”
Mobile learning apps
2,617 times per day!
That’s how often an average smartphone user touches, taps, or swipes the device.
“Your employees are most likely ‘stuck’ to their mobiles. Why not use this to your benefit with the help of mobile learning (m-learning)? They can complete corporate training courses at their own pace and at their preferred time on their mobile devices,” notes Sergey Taver, Marketing Manager at Precision Watches.
Today, 66% of companies plan to add even more m-learning to their corporate training programmes in the next few years. And they certainly have a solid point to do that—mobile learning boosts employee engagement by 50%.
Why not make your digital learning more interactive and convenient via mobile?
There’s a wide variety of apps to pick from:
- Groundwork1
- TalentCards
- Yarno
- KeepItApp
- Fliplet
- Training Grid
AI-driven training solutions
How about corporate learning powered by artificial intelligence (AI)?
AI can help you minimise time and maximise employee learning by crafting personalised materials for everyone, whether texts or visuals.
For example:
Cisco leveraged Mindtickle’s AI solution to scale remote team training. This tool helped the company educate 18,000 sales reps in roughly six weeks.
“AI bots are growing in popularity in L&D due to their immense resource-saving potential and 24/7 assistance,” mentions Jeffrey Zhou, CEO and Founder of Fig Loans. “Investing in your own chatbot can be your go-to solution to streamline employee training with innovative technologies and save precious time, costs, and human resources.”
That is virtually what PwC did.
The multinational company allocated $1 billion to developing an internal AI assistant, ChatPwC, to train 75,000 workers.
Coaching and mentoring tools
What if we told you that 92% of employers already train their workforce with mentoring programmes?
Suppose you also want to implement mentoring as a part of your L&D strategy in the workplace. That’s when a mentorship tool becomes handy to improve your corporate training efforts. It reduces the time spent on tasks such as skill assessment or mentor-mentee matching.
Thomas Medlin, Co-founder at JumpMD, finds this technology advantageous from yet another (psychological) perspective. “As if melting the ice, mentoring tools thaw the invisible barriers that separate senior leaders and frontline employees. They eliminate the hierarchical structures or even remove the ‘mentor’ and ‘mentee’ labels, whether in executive mentoring or peer-to-peer learning.”
Likewise, such a tool may assist you with cross-generational mentoring while pairing employees from different demographic cohorts and breaking down age-related biases.
Educate your employees more effectively with mentoring and coaching software as follows:
- PushFar
- MentorcliQ
- Together Platform
- CoachHub
- Mentornity, etc.
For example:
Arbuthnot Latham, a private banking company, used PushFar’s mentoring solution to better onboard new employees and promote faster learning.
Social media channels
Social media learning is like a coin with two winning sides. In workplace education, a social network can be used as an instrument and a target.
Here, we’ll focus on only one side: using social communication channels as tech tools for effective corporate training.
At this rate, you can leverage the following methods:
- Twitter/X Spaces: organise knowledge sharing in audio-only chat rooms
- Private Facebook Groups: create learning units, ask and answer questions, share employee training videos, etc.
- LinkedIn Learning: develop employees’ skills with an individualised approach.
Regarding the latter, the platform offers an AI-powered coaching chatbot to answer employees’ inquiries and suggest personalised materials.
John Baek, Founder of JSB Digital Works, encourages leaders to try micro-training via social media: “If your team is already on social media (let’s say, digital marketers who run promotional campaigns there), you can hold micro-learning sessions without leaving the channel. It’s as easy as opening a group chat or DM to send an instructional video, screenshot, or voice message to teach employees on the go, depending on the platform’s features.”
Immersive training in the Metaverse
Coined by sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson in 1992, the term “Metaverse” took deep roots in the game industry and later spread to other spheres. Meta (formerly Facebook) disrupted the marketing world with it. At this very moment, it is driving a revolution in corporate training.
The Metaverse expands employee training beyond demographic or geographic boundaries because it is a virtual reality (VR). As it heavily relies on VR technology in corporate training, it fully immerses employees in a unique and memorable learning experience.
And when asked about its impact, 34% of organisations claimed the Metaverse is “a more effective way to develop and train” their people.
Now, look at the benefits of the Metaverse for employee L&D in numbers. Typically, VR learners are:
- Get trained 4x faster than in the classroom
- Experience 3.75x higher emotional connection to the content
- Are 4x more focused than their non-VR peers
- Feel 275% more confident when applying the acquired skills
Yet another great advantage is that the Metaverse space can be adjusted to meet your organisational training needs.
Let’s take Accenture’s use case.
In 2022, Accenture created the “Nth floor”—the Metaverse with digital twins of the enterprise’s physical offices worldwide—and introduced the virtual learning content in this environment. For example, the “VR Cybersecurity Adventure” course took Accenture’s workers through an immersive journey where they learned cybersecurity practices.
Final Word on Technology in Corporate Education
Don’t let outdated methods hold your team back. Instead, transform your workplace learning with modern tech tools.
Think of technology as a finely tuned engine in your L&D vehicle, helping you cruise smoothly down the highway of corporate training. Whether you tap into mobile learning, jump head over toe into the Metaverse, or choose any other idea from this list to train your workforce—it’s up to you.
But as a meticulous driver, you must strategically apply these tech tools to keep your employees on the fast track to L&D success, minimising unnecessary pit stops and maximising the educational impact.
So, put the pedal to the metal!
Author: Catherine Schwartz – HARO & Content Outreach
Photo credit: StockCake
