Do you find it difficult getting an organisation to learn something new every day? Do corporate learning initiatives fizzle out after a while? How can we make corporate learning a success?
Effective corporate learning begins with adopting a digital mindset.
And for digital transformations to work, CEOs and top management must get up to speed and be bought over by a digital mindset. Fair enough.
But… what if your employees are the ones resistant to change?
According to a 2008 McKinsey study, 70% of digital transformation programs fail.
The biggest culprit? Employees themselves, it seems! At 39%, employees’ resistance to change was cited as the biggest factor for failure.
So, aside from convincing top management, we need to rethink the learning habits of employees. After all, learning goes beyond our years spent in formal education. In fact, the half-life of skills is pegged at just 5 years!
In Jan 2017, the Harvard Business Review suggested 5 ways to make corporate learning a daily habit.
The trick is simple: get learners to repeat the act of learning, and make it a habit over time. Here’s how you can do so:
1. Articulate outcomes
It’s all about focus when making corporate learning a good habit.
By clarifying your learning objectives at the start of each lesson, learners keep their eye on the prize. Better yet, when you structure learning into courses, employees are more likely to see a progression chain and be keen to pursue it.
SmartUp offers a library of content in the hottest topics such as Deep Tech, Digital Disruption, and Entrepreneurship. In our subscription-based Snapshot community, you’ll find a series of courses to equip your teams with the latest in Tech.
2. Set realistic goals
Just imagine being handed a thick, densely-worded manual, with a looming examination in two weeks’ time– doesn’t sound very encouraging, right?
Therefore, to make learning more engaging, you need to break down content into smaller chunks. This should guide your learner through a step-by-step process, leading them towards a bigger knowledge goal.
Sure, it may sound deceptively simple, but task completion motivates learners to keep coming back for more!
3. Develop a learning community
Humans are inherently social creatures, be it in face-to-face interactions or virtual connections. Likewise, learners become more motivated when they see a group of peers working on the same series of content as themselves.
SmartUp’s Leaderboard function lets learners compare their scores with peers in a little friendly competition. How it works? Each microlearning module you complete earns you points, and this tallied in the community leaderboard.
With Quiz and Poll cards embedded in these modules, users get to see where their competency and opinion stands within their organisation too.
4. Ditch distractions
‘But why can’t I just learn from Google?’ employees might ask.
In the Age of Information, it’s easy to assume we’re increasingly connected to knowledge. However, the problem with looking something up on the internet is the amount of outbound links or tabs that might distract your focus. Did you know the average attention span of a person is just 8 seconds?
Moreover, the legitimacy of content online might be questionable. SmartUp consults a panel of trusted advisors and entrepreneurs when creating learning content, so you can be assured this knowledge is verified.
5. Use Tech to support learning
This can be in the form of a cue card or prompt to ease the learning journey, and get your learning back on track.
We’re especially excited for SmartUp’s Notification feature launching in the second half of 2018! This new feature alerts users of new SmartUp content so they’ll be more committed to learning.
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