The COVID-19 crisis has disrupted workforces all around the globe. Companies have had to flip to work-from-home models overnight or worse, downsize their staff. With the world’s economy in flux, only businesses that stay ahead of their competition will make it to the other side of this pandemic.
Some companies have seen the potential in investing in their employees. They are using this uncertain and ambiguous time to upskill their staff and fill any knowledge gaps.
The Singaporean government has worked closely with its job skills programme SkillsFuture for several years, but it is now offering training geared toward remote working and COVID-19 management. To deliver training to their now remote employees, many companies will have to rely on sophisticated Learning Management Systems (LMS).
Training a diverse and dispersed workforce
In 2017, the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that 14 per cent of the global workforce would need to acquire new skills or switch occupations by 2030 due to the continuing use of automation and the further development of artificial intelligence.
COVID-19 has shed a light on these skills shortages, only making them more urgent and providing an increased impetus in many sectors to implement training. Despite the previous success of government-sponsored job skill schemes, human resource leaders have identified a greater need for talent development in the context of the pandemic. Companies are developing coronavirus-specific training programmes by leveraging the potential found in e-learning platforms.
PwC’s Academy in Singapore has adapted their upskilling content for the pandemic. They’ve made their Digital Fitness for the World app free to individuals and organisations for the next year.
Talent assessment companies such as Talview have released modules and resources aimed directly at remote working and the handling of HR coronavirus procedures. Initiatives like these recognise the value of remote skills training during the pandemic.
Also Read: Why cross-cultural training programme is a must-have for the modern workplace
Moving face-to-face instruction online
A survey released by EngageRocket in May found that nine out of 10 Singaporean employees would prefer to keep working from home after the pandemic. Companies are also seeing the benefits of remote operations, and, as a result, many plan to keep a reduced in-office workforce.
By having smaller offices, firms can reduce their costs on insurance, building maintenance, utilities, and rent, which is especially beneficial during times of economic uncertainty. Businesses wishing to upskill, therefore, need to turn to distance learning platforms to carry out training.
Course content is the foundation of any training — in-person or remote. Shorter content, broken into multiple videos or sections, is better for retention, particularly when learning at a distance. To ensure the course delivers useful training content, trainers should also carry out a needs assessment before diving in, allowing them to target the requirements of the participants adequately.
Trainers who are busy supporting the organisation can find relevant content that’s ready to deliver and meets their learners’ needs while encouraging collaboration amongst staff and allowing subject matter experts within their firms to contribute to the training. A robust LMS allows training programme managers to evaluate the firm’s needs, build, deliver and monitor engagement with course content, all on the same platform.
Consistently train remote workers
Adapting to a full-time remote workforce means ensuring consistent and effective skills training long-term becomes an essential requirement. One major concern of distance working is the maintenance of high levels of productivity. By implementing a few of the following approaches to e-learning, trainers can keep staff members motivated to complete their course:
Gamification has proven to keep learners engaged as they complete an online course. Gamified courses reward learners with points or badges as they progress. Trainers should tailor rewards to their audience, making them relevant and noteworthy.
Personalisation is another way to deliver engaging educational content to employees. Meaningful feedback, accessibility across devices, and letting the participants incorporate their own video content are all ways to personalise remote instruction.
Evaluating what learners already know and designing courses to test their specific knowledge is the best way to cater content to individuals.
An LMS with a sophisticated course builder and gamification capabilities, like the Brightspace platform from global software company D2L, makes bespoke remote courses easy to deliver and more engaging for the end-users.
Also Read: Workbean: Empowering the workplace in the time of COVID-19
Holistic online solutions for remote training
Many corporations in Southeast Asia rely on learning management systems (LMS) to deliver training modules to their employees. Even before COVID-19, companies were using these platforms to train staff across the region with a wide range of customised courses.
These companies understood the need for a remote, decentralised instruction model, accessible to the entire workforce. An LMS allows clients with regional or global presence to cater their course content to the needs of each office, regardless of location or specific functions and specialties. The LMS has the potential to become a learning and resource hub for staff members, where employees can share updates and relevant information quickly and easily.
As onboarding, talent development, and education become dispersed processes, the need for remote learning grows. Transferring face-to-face training to an online model isn’t always intuitive, however. Companies need third-party learning platforms to develop courses that achieve their objectives and remove the burden of establishing an in-house structure that may lack the capabilities and resources required.
Remote working isn’t going away any time soon, and neither is the need to continue professional development, upskilling, and on the job training. As long as the workforce is remote, distance learning will also be essential. Distance learning is very much the future for the vast majority of people, and now is the optimum time to introduce it while employees are already learning to adapt to a new way of working.
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