This article examines the most significant difficulties that L&D teams encounters, and how each of them can be addressed using online training solutions.
The number one difficulty L&D professionals confront across all global firms is sustaining the efficacy of the corporate training program. Despite careful thinking, resource allocation, and planning, most eLearning programs fail—either because of inadequate material that makes the training uninteresting or because a new technology or trend emerges to disturb the otherwise tranquil training program. What could be the solution, you might ask?
“The only constant changes,” as the old saying goes, and this couldn’t be truer in today’s corporate training. L&D departments must be on their feet to recognize and address any training difficulty they come across. In this article, we’ll look at the three most prevalent difficulties that L&D departments are likely to confront and how they might be addressed head-on.
What Are the Common Pitfalls in L&D and How to Solve Them?
The Three Most Important L&D Problems:
- Training Is Not a Priority for Today’s Busy Employee’s Schedule
- Low Levels of Engagement and Knowledge Transfer
- Budget-Friendly Training Development
Read on to find out the solutions…
Top 3 L & D Roadblocks and How to Get Around Them
1. Training Is Not a Priority for Today’s Busy Employee’s Schedule
Learning has indeed been pushed aside in today’s ruthless business climate because of the speed at which it flourishes. Employees have busy work schedules, so asking them to devote an hour to typical training is unrealistic. Here are a few potential solutions to the issue:
Think About Adopting Microlearning
Microlearning is when you learn in little chunks of 5–10 minutes, each of which covers a single learning result. You may provide learners with only the information they need using microlearning modules. Employees will be able to browse the training information at their leisure if these modules are made mobile-friendly.
Microlearning may be delivered in many ways, including independent micro-courses, visuals, interactive PDFs, brief animated video clips, and whiteboard animation that make training more digestible.
Use Responsive Learning to Enable Learning at Any Time and From Any Location
Responding to this learning need will become a must rather than a choice as the workforce becomes crowded with millennials who favour learning on the move, on their smartphones, and other portable devices.
Download a Handy Guide on Getting Started with Microlearning
2. Low Levels of Engagement and Knowledge Transfer
Content must be entertaining and valuable to the learner for training to be effective. Learners may cognitively oppose involvement if the information is badly designed and irrelevant to their work. As a result, knowledge transmission is extremely limited. Here are some suggestions for increasing participation and transfer of knowledge.
Make the Performance-Based Learning Objectives Clear up Front
If learners are told up front how well the learning will assist them to face their job difficulties, they are more likely to put in extra work to learn and adhere to the training. Clearly define performance-based learning objectives at the start of the course to grab their interest straight away. Describe whatever the learner would be able to achieve as well as how the training will help them perform better at work.
Use Appropriate Instructional Techniques to Promote Relevance
The foundation of every training is instructional techniques. They are instructional design strategies for training or presenting a concept to learners. There are a variety of instructional design methods that can assist you to increase learner engagement and information transfer.
Here are a few examples:
- Learning through Exploration and Discovery (LEAD)
- Game-based learning
- Scenario-based learning
- Storytelling
Just in Time and Refresher Training Can Help You Beat the Forgetting Curve
Many learning and development experts are concerned about their learners succumbing to the forgetting curve. If you want to assist learners to overcome the forgetting curve and retain information for long-term use, make sure you reinforce it after the training.
Use Microlearning Elements Like:
- Infographics
- PDFs
- Videos and
- Whiteboard animations
to deliver knowledge in a digestible way. After a training session, offer frequent refresher courses to ensure that they are prepared for the real world.
When learners want urgent knowledge to complete a work assignment, they may not have enough time to attend a full training session only to get the information they require. Provide just-in-time performance support in such instances.
3. Budget-Friendly Training Development
What makes things even more difficult for L&D departments is having to develop training on a tight budget. What do you do if your training budget is limited yet you need to give training at a blazing pace? When training must be completed quickly, developing courses from start is a time-taking and expensive procedure. Rapid eLearning is a game-changer in such situations.
For a Cost-effective Deployment, Choose Rapid eLearning
Rapid eLearning is the method of creating eLearning at a quick pace utilizing rapid authoring tools like Lectora Inspire, Elucidat, etc… You don’t have to construct courses from the start because the tools come with built-in templates and multimedia libraries. Rapid eLearning does not imply that you must settle for a low-quality training solution.
Some components of the training are likely into becoming standardized as the project advances, allowing one template to be used numerous times. You may construct an e-library of customizable templates to maintain consistency in the format while also enhancing your return on investment and lowering development costs.
Think About Outsourcing
As an L&D professional, you should ensure that your internal staff has the necessary instructional design experience and can deliver high training via rapid authoring tools—having a semi-skilled internal team will just add to the overall time and cost. Then the only choice is to hire an eLearning vendor to create the courses for you. Make sure to:
- Create a pool of instructional design and authoring tool expertise
- To ramp up (or down) eLearning development, you’ll need strong project management techniques
- Provide add-on services, such as translations
Parting Thoughts!
These are the three major obstacles that are likely to prevent L & D professionals from putting together a comprehensive staff training program. But, as I’ve described in this article, being aware of the various technology-based solutions could truly help you face the difficulties head-on.
Want to stay updated with the recent happenings in the world of eLearning? Check our eBook on top eLearning trends in 2022.
