Blended Learning
We are living in an era where nothing remains the same and change has become an integral part of every organization. Change can be experienced in many ways, such as outsourcing, introducing new company policies, implementing new technology, and more. Change is an important as well as a critical part of any system. Statistics show that 33% of management behavior does not support change and 39% of employees are resistant to change. To boost overall business performance during the change management process, it is very important to design and develop a proper method of communication.
eLearning, when designed with effective strategies, is impactful. During the change management process, managers need to deal with certain challenges, such as what to change in the first place, the resistance of the workforce, and more. This is the reason that the blend of modern eLearning strategies, such as microlearning, theme-based learning, gamification, spaced learning, and more, are implemented to smooth the entire process.
One of our leading clients in the energy management and automation domain wished to roll out an impactful training intervention that would aid employees and stakeholders in understanding the need to change the values in the overall system. So, to cater to the diverse needs of these two distinct learner groups, we followed a two-pronged learning strategy—one for all the employees and another for the organization’s stakeholders.
New Values Module
For employees all across the organization, we created a "new values module", a learning module with multiple strategies woven into it, including theme-based, gamified, and spaced microlearning. The module had diverse learning objects to promote optimal learner engagement and help learners understand the changing company values. The theme-based learning strategy focused on the "time machine" concept, which corresponded with the idea of taking the learners from an old system in the past to a new one in the future.
To start with, a highly interactive animated video was played to aid the learners to understand the entire context of learning. Then, the learners were asked to view a video message from the company’s CEO who informed the employees about the relevance of the revised organizational values and the need to traverse a journey from the present to the future. This was done to convey a strong message to the learners on the need to transition from the old to a new value system. Then, a fun-filled gamified learning approach was followed so that learners could effectively learn, apply their skills, and compete with their peers. Undoubtedly, games in eLearning have proven to be fun and engaging. A "learn, apply, and share" strategy was followed to create an appropriate learning flow as discussed below:
1. Learn
In this phase, the learners gained knowledge on the overall context for learning, which answered their queries on why the change was required, the need to implement new values, and so on. Then, the learners traversed to an immersive learning environment via a storytelling mode, in which the company’s CEO expressed his views on new and refreshing values, the need for change in the company’s values, and how it would impact the growth of the organization.
2. Apply
In this phase, learners transited from the present to the future-ready value system. Mini-games were incorporated during this phase to boost overall learner engagement and enable employees to effectively apply what they had learned. The changing values were depicted via engaging videos which imparted detailed information and improved learners’ competence on values and facts.
3. Share
Certainly, learning is a continuous process and it should be spaced over regular periods of time. Modern learners reinforce their knowledge if they learn quickly and refresh their learning at regular intervals. So, this phase included the delivery of training in the form of infographics, audio podcasts, and comic strips to boost learning reinforcement. The microlearning approach was adopted as an effective strategy to support reinforcement. The content was created in the form of chunks and then was delivered at spaced intervals of time. Consequently, it helped the workforce to retain information and learn at their own pace and their own choice of location.
In today’s digital era, change management is considered a structured approach that helps to transition individual learners, teams, and organizations to the expected future state. It is not about training the latest processes for change, but rather creating a new type of organization that is optimized for change. The entire transformation is based on the need to align with the ever-evolving business environment and stay ahead of the curve. By following a combination of modern eLearning strategies, from game-based learning and a theme-based approach to micro-content delivery, scenario-based learning, and more, it is easier for organizations to smooth the transition process and leverage the benefits of eLearning more rapidly.
Originally published at www.gc-solutions.net.
