There's no denying it, we've entered a new era of e-learning. Based on market research, case studies, discussions with our customers and partners, and data from industry analysts, here's our take on the future of e-learning.
(FYI: This is just a sneak peek of what you can find in the full report.)
Learning content
There's a lot of content out there. Whether you create it yourself using content creation/authoring tools or pull it from a marketplace of curated content, sometimes the hardest part is finding the right combination of e-learning content that will meet your learners' needs and your business needs.
Another challenge is ensuring the content you have is current. This is especially important with recurring courses where information can change, like compliance training (and even onboarding). E-learning courses like these can quickly become outdated soon after they've been created, so the major struggle continues to be the relevancy of training content and ways to streamline the ongoing updating of online training courses.
In the next year, there will be a greater focus on using learning solutions to ensure learners get the most up-to-date content. Solutions to this common problem will take the form of smarter content curation tools that produce catalogs for individual learning needs, and extended enterprise lms functionality, like social learning tools, to empower subject matter experts (SMEs) to create and share their own content with employees and non-employees (e.g. members of the extended enterprise, such as customers and/or partners) alike.
“It’s up to learning technology providers to help organizations through this. None of these other learning tools work if you don't have your content either curated or mapped” - David Wentworth, Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group
Learning experience
As always, engagement is an uphill battle for all those in learning and development. Providing the best possible corporate e-learning experience for users is paramount, and we’re becoming more and more inventive with our solutions.
Leveraging AI-powered learning management systems (LMS) will spur an increased usage of personalization approaches alongside the use of personal learning trainers. Focusing specifically on how to support your learners, digital coaches will prompt them to finish courses, suggest new content, and answer questions. In addition, your learners will be able to have more of a say about what skills they want to develop and how.
Taking learning out of the office, mobile learning is set to shake things up, and the various applications for gamification and AR/VR simulations will continue to spark interest for L&D teams.
“We’re starting to see a growing need for a stronger corporate commitment to the value of learning. Modernizing the company’s learning environment to meet demand for personalized employee career paths is still a bit of a tough sell [...] – the payoff down the line is worth it though.” - Zachary Chertok, Analyst at Aberdeen Group
Learning automation
As the need for employee training that focuses on upskilling and reskilling the workforce becomes more necessary, so too does the need to support this strategy by bringing automation into the realm of skills analysis.
With AI becoming even more sophisticated, intelligent online learning platforms are now enabling learners to identify which skills they want to grow within their learning environment and then have the LMS platform serve up related content.
76% of organizations state that AI is essential for their organization’s strategy to succeed. - Infosys
Learning impact
As ever, the impact that our learning programs have on individuals and the business is our most important metric.
Not only must we prove value in our actions to our management teams, but we want to know that the knowledge our learners have acquired is being applied on the job.
In addition, a new generation of employees are demanding progression of knowledge and increasingly base their hiring choices and loyalty on corporate training programs and learning opportunities available. It’s an exciting time for L&D!
Learning evaluation tools will become more prominent as delivering effective learning programs becomes even more critical and businesses look to strategically upskill, reskill, hire and retain top talent.
“The first thing organizations have to do is stop building learning with no objectives. That's the number one thing. If you don't understand what the specific organizational objectives are, how do you know what learning to create? And more importantly, how do you know how to measure it?” - Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer and Principal HCM Analyst at Brandon Hall Group
As we all prepare ourselves for a new e-learning era, it’s safe to say that these trends will make the learning and development sector even more sophisticated and effective.
You can lean on the Docebo Learning Suite for the enterprise learning management system and training solutions you need to meet the enterprise training challenges this new era of e-learning head on.