If HR professionals miss the way, e-learning could turn to become their nightmare

You and we don’t want that to happen. So, let’s get some tips about e-learning implementation in companies to be sure to get all the e-learning benefits.

It was a time when it was simply SIMPLE, to just approach a colleague, or have a chat with an employee and be able to express the needs of training. During that kind of interactive meeting HR team had the opportunity to better assess and to interpret people’s needs through the conversations, body language, face expression… and spontaneity of reactions when exchanging ideas of new learning needs.  

All that was giving space for the colleagues, employees to feel safe in engaging in the learning process, understanding the outputs without feeling a top-down pressure, a must-to-do order. 

E-learning definitely changed that into a more formal way to approach learning needs i.e. receiving a push-notification or an email to register to a training session, with a direct impact on employee’s engagement to learning.  

According to a survey made by LO Magazine market research, a mere 20% of employees were willing to engage in e-learning sessions a few year ago. This is the painful percentage knowing that e-learning had been part of company digital transformation, involving a lot of changes and investments. 

One key change was for HR people to gain the e-learning culture to better understand how it works – here I don’t speak about features but how to approach and build contents which bring all the benefits e-learning could bring to their learning and development strategies. But, then they had to face a poor reality: remote workplaces, and e-learning participated to break that particular link HR people built over the years with the employees. That relationship or we could say true connection established when explaining the benefits of a training, face to face, listening to the employee’s reactions. 

And at the same time, employees lost the safety space they had for interaction when speaking about their needs for self-improvement, career path, skills to improve etc.  

No more buffers, direct e-requests for training, optimisation of training KPI, automatic training reminders… creating new employee feelings. Exactly the type of employee’s feeling against e-learning, HR professionals didn’t expect to generate. The feelings of employees to be always controlled, under pressure for achievement learning sessions on top of the daily business pressure… making them reluctant to achieve more in their learning engagement. 

I am not sure there is one unique solution to change that and to still take the benefits of the e-learning solutions.  

But I am sure that the experience of the lockdown brought us, somehow, an understanding of how to improve that kind of situation. 

At worldwide scale, a big number of companies lost part of their company DNA and team spirits just by keeping the old way of communicating, without highlights on people true needs facing that unprecedented situation. Then, another big number of companies, proved to take advantage of the e-learning tools to turn them as the right vehicle to keep cove values and key messages spread. This gives the advantages to interaction versus obligations i.e., interaction allowing more employee feedback, initiating ideas and creativity, versus the obligations to achieve courses. And one more approach for those latest group of companies, was and still has been to make the more inspiring connection (so seen as learning session still keeping the learning angle), and respectful of people needs, creating back the safety space employees need to engage. 

For any HR professionals, learning manager or company trainers, the experience viewed from the learner is therefore key to how to approach an effective way to implement employee learning and development strategy. 

It is not the way to say ‘yes’ to learner’s expectations to make this happening.

But to create the right cocktail between:

• The needs to have session KPI – so to have less but different KPIs than what they used to be, may help to unload the way learning sessions are presented and followed-up 
• The time dedicated for a learning session – shorter will be far better, bringing more flexible for people to arrange their time with the motivation to have more small sessions than one long. This is related as well to the information retention. See my blog ‘Small to achieve more: this is the secret of micro-learning’.
• Gamification as defined here. This could be achieved by the content itself, the format of the e-learning you use. 
• The novelty of the solutions you use…. Here it is not the point to spend more money, but it is to have an e-learning solution which is in line with what people have easily access to in their personal life in terms of technology and formats. This is even truer for millenniums but should be applied to all generation and genders of employees. For ones, it will be considered as normal, for others as inspirations, and for the latest as a challenge to take to move-on. 
• The mobility of the support. Don’t put more time to your employees front of their computer, give them this kind of freedom smartphone and tablets offer, it means flexibility of whenever wherever. 

Ready to take the challenge and get all the benefits of the e-learning solutions.

So, all the best to prepare your right cocktail? 

All the best! 

Christophe Beaujard