Employee training is critical in the digital age. The rapid pace of the digital revolution means enterprises must commit to a continuous process of upskilling their staff.
It’s not something that happens once and is then considered finished.
Enterprise employees must continuously be learning, so that the business is continuously improving.
Knowledgeable, skilled, properly trained employees not only perform better but also ensure customers are better served. A good employee experience means a good customer experience, which means more sales.
The alternative — poorly trained or badly equipped employees — means low morale and high frustration in the workforce, which ultimately results in a worse service being provided to customers.
But how do enterprises provide continuous training in an affordable and productive manner? And how do they ensure that digital training achieves ROI when enterprise software changes so frequently?
In today’s technology-filled workplace, employee training is not about classroom learning. It’s about digital adoption
The curse of bad employee training
80% of information that employees learn is forgotten, so there is a very real need to take a different approach to employee training programs — particularly where digital is concerned.
A Gallup study found that only 32% of US employees are engaged in their work.
“People are working harder, but they’re not working smarter”, writes Forbes.
“Due to job complexity, poorly designed applications and a general lack of training, many employees are just not accomplishing enough to leverage the innovation and drive growth that successful businesses require.”
There is a serious productivity issue within today’s enterprises that needs to be solved through more digitally-focused training. However, many enterprises seem to struggle in determining how to deliver that digital training, using what sort of programs and tools.
This results in massive training investment losses. Leadership Choice says that a huge amount of training dollars are being wasted.
“Studies by the University of Phoenix and ATD (now TD) revealed that only 20-30% of skills and behaviors learned during training are retained [&] applied. That means that on average, less than $3 of every $10 spent on training translates into business impact.”
Instead of creating more training resources and scheduling more classroom sessions, putting yet more money into a system that has been shown time and time again not to work, L&D leaders need to be brave enough to take a completely different approach.
Many training decision-makers are now taking the 70-20-10 approach. 70% of training should be on the job learning. 20% comes from a mentor or manager. The final 10% should be formal training.
In other words, leading organizations are finally realizing that the traditional classroom scenario is not necessarily a successful format for effective digital learning.
Employee training must be approached from a strategic business perspective. What skills gaps exist within your organization and what tools, people, and processes do you need to fill them? What can the digital revolution offer you in terms of a solution?
This is where the DAP comes in.
You want your employees to learn how to use digital tools as though they’re an extension of their own arm. That’s digital adoption.
DAP: the new employee training tool
Employee training in the modern age is made easy by using a Digital Adoption Platform (DAP). It allows employees to learn while they work and at their own individual pace.
Think of the DAP as an in-app assistant or trainer, providing personalized guidance in real-time.
So, when employees have to learn how to use a new system or platform, instead of pausing their daily activities to undergo classroom training, they are taught within the system itself, as they’re accomplishing tasks.
This has a number of benefits. Employees won’t have to attend training workshops, which are expensive and notoriously inefficient at imparting knowledge that is retained and applied.
Traditional training is dreaded by employees who become stressed about the duties that are piling up while (s)he attends sessions.
The DAP method of training allows employees to train while on the job, completing their tasks as they learn.
Conclusion
Today’s enterprises are having to undergo major cultural shifts in order to react and keep pace with the digital revolution. One of those is embracing a different approach to employee training.
Forget about training materials and classroom trainers. 80% of the information learned using those methods will just be forgotten.
Instead, think real-time, contextualized training. Learning on the job. Think suggestions, pointers, helpful hints, and interaction right when it’s needed. Think no productivity decline. That’s the magic of the DAP.
It’s super-effective in-app training that saves company time and money. It helps knowledge retention by making information accessible whenever it’s needed. In a nutshell, it’s the future of digital employee training.
