Hi all. For my A3 I put together a short OER on the topic of current trends in corporate training and development. I thought this was an important subject to cover because there’s a whole world of learning outside of the traditional secondary and post secondary learning environments. I consider myself an educator although I’m not a teacher. Instead, I educate my staff and co-workers on new technologies and business processes. It’s a different style of learning and it requires a different approach- hopefully my A3 submission will be of some interest!
https://lovigj.wixsite.com/trainingdevelopment
Looking at new ways of improving corporate training is vital not only to ensure our workforces can stay ahead of the curve but to help share the knowledge of those who have years of corporate knowledge and stories to share. The issue with transferring corporate knowledge is the fact that these are often older employees who are not interested in utilizing new tools and for companies who do not have training teams to support in gathering information from these experts and developing training in newer ways will eventually lead to a loss of that knowledge. People do not want to sit in a boardroom and be talked at especially if you are an adult with ADHD. Learning should be a multipronged approach that uses different methods for sharing knowledge.
Thank you for using this topic for your A3 project and sharing ideas and apps that others can look into and further the growth and improvement of Corporate training!
Hi Jordon,
Great point about corporate training being another dimension of e-learning (that isn’t always thought of by educators).
I think micro learning plays very well with going mobile on all of this — employees and staff aren’t in school anymore. They would benefit more from relevant, practical, and contextual content / tasks rather than have to sit through some boring training course (which I’m sure a lot of us have had to!).
Gamification is also a good motivator. I worked briefly at a company where the sales team had a dashboard, detailing every rep’s numbers that month. Giving someone bragging rights for doing better in their privacy training than their cubicle neighbour could be a simple but fun way of nudging them to actually pay attention.
Hi Jordon, a fellow Learning guru working within the confines of training and development! I was going to do a similar take on institutional learning based on outside post-secondary but glad to see you did it. I’m currently dealing with post LMS implementations and training and development for staff.
I have pushed for mobile registration for staff and since most users have access to it, it was a no brainier to leverage that learning right in the palm of their hands. However, mobile learning is not ideal for long periods so micro learning is where we are at.
We have yet to progress to AR or gamification, but some instructors are doing that. I have been pushing micro learning on LMS usage for my Admins and it works. People are happy to get bits of information and just like your case study, saw value in the quick material delivery for what they wanted to know without the long-winded courses we used to just email them to read.
I will keep your apps in mind, however, in any Canadian institution, privacy data is important in how they manage users.
Thanks for a great read and presentation.
Hi Jordan,
Thank you for sharing this topic with the group. I was surprised at the statistics you provided, with “87% of companies expect their employees to use their mobile devices for work purposes.” As a teacher, I do not give out my cell number to parents. I found it challenging while we were distance teaching because I would have parents email to say, “just text me, or call me at home.” I was working from home, and I did not want to pass that boundary. My boss also repeatedly texts and calls my personal cell phone, even when I am in my classroom. Is it more common in the corporate world to be given a company cell phone? If not, still 87% of companies EXPECT their employees to use their mobile devices at work? When my principal sends a text, and I answer in my classroom, I feel I have to justify responding to onlookers. If employees are using their personal mobile devices at work, how is it regulated? How can they leave their work at the end of the day when their job continues through their phones?
I like the convenience and the accessibility of the apps, as well as the idea of microlearning. These are valuable tools to improve efficiency. I believe there needs to be company policies in place to protect both the employer and employee productivity.
Hi Kristin-
Thank you for the reply!
Yes, some of those statistics were pretty surprising to me as well. I think fundamentally the relationship between and employee and their place of work is different than that of a student and their school. In my experience it’s socially acceptable for employers to expect their staff to use their devices for work purposes… but that doesn’t mean it’s right! It really fits into our discussions on mobile culture. It’s possible that this is something that could be addressed through labour laws and regulations, but given the current state of things, I’m not holding my breath. Emerging technologies such as Geofencing further complicate the issue.They can be very useful for productivity, but they also require your job to know exactly where you are at all times, which to me is quite concerning.
It will be interesting to see how these trends develop moving forward. I’d like to think that personal freedom and privacy will be front and center to the conversation, but honestly I’m just not that optimistic. Brave new world, indeed.
Hi Jordon,
Great work on an interesting topic that wouldn’t be one I know much about. I really liked the information you shared about micro learning and assessments. This seems to be such time manageable, efficient way to train staff on various subjects. For myself, I could see it being useful as an Educator with minimal time out of the classroom but such a strong desire to learn more. It would be great to give staff the chance to access these but I do imagine they would need to be mandatory to achieve the outcomes you want. It could as well cut down on overall business costs with staff being more up to date with technological changes. There may be a need for less professional development days which can cost a whole lot for businesses.
Thanks for sharing!