3 Ways to Stimulate the Digital-Age Employee to Learn

The information age has made it extremely easy to find just about any information you could possibly want access to and, while there are many advantages to this immediate access, there are also some drawbacks

Many employers and employees don’t see eye-to-eye about their responsibilities for staying up to date on their industry and learning new skills to improve their workflow. Many employers expect employees to make use of the extensive resources available online in order to ensure they are keeping their knowledge current. Employees, however, feel that employers should provide the opportunities and access to enable them to improve their skills.

This can create a sense of conflict that may disrupt workflow and lead to acrimony in the workplace. It’s important for employers then to find a comfortable and effective middle ground in which they can provide opportunities for their employees to learn comfortably and on their own terms.

On-Demand

In many companies, it’s no longer practical to schedule large learning sessions for a particular time and place. These enforced learning sessions can be disruptive to the workflow of your staff and are unlikely to be welcomed and appreciated as they should be.

Instead, utilize web-based learning applications that allow employees to learn on their own schedule and participate from within the office or off-site. These on-demand sessions prevent unnecessary interruptions to workflow and allow employees to control when – and how – they learn new skills.

Keep things Short
Time is your employee’s most precious resource, and one of the most common complaints about forced learning sessions in the workplace is that employees simply do not have time to participate. In order to prevent taking them away from completing essential aspects of their job, keep on-demand training sessions short and to the point. Create a series of videos to discuss more complex topics and break them down into bite size pieces that are easier to find time for, and easier to digest.

Personalized

Just like in school, each employee will learn differently and at a different rate. Using adaptive eLearning technology it’s easy to customize each employee’s learning plan to fit their style and needs to help those master topics relevant to their jobs quickly and effectively.

These systems use a series of questions to adjust the content provided to suit their role in the company, as well as their competency level at certain tasks.