08 Sep 2023

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What is the need for an L&D partner?

L&D staff needs an enhancement in every company due to the workload pressure. Although a company might have an internal L&D department, problems arise when there are many projects.

There can be a requirement for an external training partner who knows where the skill gaps of a company are.

These are the reasons why an external L&D partner is needed:

Conducts a skills assessment:

An L&D company knows the difference between how a company is performing and how it is supposed to. It knows how to conduct a needs assessment to detect skill gaps. It can ensure that simulations are handed over to employees, through which real skills can be evaluated. If they are lacking, it’s time to implement a training program.

Tests for assessment

There can be quizzes handed over to employees to check their real skills. There are many red flags for a company that its employees suffer from skill gaps when it has trouble meeting its desired ROI. The company also might have adopted a new technology, and employees might face trouble using it.

A company can use a Likert scale and rate skills from 1 to 5 depending on their importance. Then, evaluate the employees based on their skills. These skills gap can be higher for freshers who have just joined the company.

In that case, an L&D program is not the complete solution; shadowing is the answer, where the novices follow the expert people on the job. Also, every job profile has some skills that are more important than others, and the training should focus on closing the pivotal skill gaps first. For example, in the case of a telesales executive who sells products to customers daily, knowing negotiation skills is much more important than being an expert at Excel.

He can just know how to store data in Excel, but it’s a waste of time when he can’t make customers buy at certain prices.

Hence, for every employee, skills must be rated for criticality, i.e., which skills are more necessary than others. This is the last stage of a skills assessment process. After this process, the company can begin training for skills deemed a prerequisite for job performance and hire an L&D partner if needed.

Cheaper to use external resources:

The L&D team of a company needs to be supplied with expensive software licenses. But this is not the problem with an external L&D team, which gets its own software licenses, reducing the costs for a company.

Access to the best resources:

When an L&D partner is hired, a lot of problems are solved for the company. It’s able to come up with the best output required for training. It gets access to the best training partners in terms of instructional designers.

Furthermore, it has content developers like subject-matter experts who know the topics in detail. Even if such an L&D partner does not have the best people on board currently, it can suggest the most productive resources to a company based on its connections. Especially in the case of technical skill gaps, where finding a subject-matter expert and instructional designers is not so easy.

When a Company has access to an experienced L&D partner, it hires the skilled resources swiftly and saves time. It also hires L&D staff who know the latest eLearning processes and authoring tools. It also knows the technology a certain industry needs to create its eLearning content.

L&D Partners often help companies fulfil their training needs without hiring resources for a long time.

Diversification of resources:

Such external L&D partners also help companies hire resources from other countries, which also helps an organization create resources for local training. It may have trouble finding the right resource for creating training materials for employees of a certain region. But with an L&D partner, all its localization needs are solved.

This freedom to choose resources from anywhere ensures the company can work with resources with complete credibility. It can allow remote work to them, and it’s the headache of the L&D Partner to manage them and get the work done seamlessly. A company can also save costs by opting for resources from cheaper regions than its own.

Sometimes, better resources also exist for a company outside its own country; hence, hiring an L&D partner is necessary to find them.

Conclusion

When a company opts for an external L&D partner, it maximizes its productivity with internal and external resources. The company benefits from cooperation between its resources and the L&D partner. It can also give feedback to the L&D partner so that its staff performs to the best of its abilities and any performance gaps are removed on time.

However, a major problem can arise when the in-house L&D refuses to collaborate with an external partner. This can be more troublesome when both kinds of resources work in different time zones, and cooperation is required. So, the company should convince the internal staff to be at their best level with an external partner.

30 Aug 2023

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How has the creation of simulations evolved over the years?

The simulations are now being used for all kinds of eLearning in the corporate world.

Importance of simulations for banking training:

For example, simulations have been extremely useful in banks, where they can be used for explaining to the employees what can be the harmful effects of making wrong decisions.

They are taught how various situations can affect the balance sheet of a bank.

In such simulations, various factors become more understandable to banking employees like how they must cope with poor business conditions which happens when there is a recession in the economy and banks don’t get many lending opportunities.

When the banking employees see a change in numbers due to any alteration in regulatory conditions like a hike in interest rates, they learn how to adapt to such situations. Also, there can be problems when the central bank increases interest rates to curb inflation.

When the central banks increase interest rates, the cost of lending increases, and hence banks have to increase their own interest rates to earn profits. The interest rates are increased and banks have to convey to the borrower the reasons behind them to maintain their loyalty. It’s because their loans go for a toss in such situations and hence, they must know how their decisions influence assets and liabilities.

These and many more changes in external factors require intelligent decision-making by banking employees, and this skill gets enhanced through a simulator. The simulation shows how the assets and liabilities of a bank change as a consequence of the changes in such factors, and how to cope with such situations.

Simulations before 1980s:

A simulation showcases a business situation. When this happens, the businesses know how to leverage or emerge as a survivor in such a situation. They understand the challenges of a situation as a whole, rather than being absorbed in the complexities of the situation.

Now, due to authoring tools, creating simulations is not as tough as before.

The simulations were however initially not so popular. This was because there had been no advent of eLearning authoring tools. So, it was quite complicated to create simulations using programming and generating computer variables. The users could not be given simple variables for decision-making, due to which it was tough for them to understand and learn. Therefore, the users could not establish any relations between the variables chosen in decisions and their results. Consequently, the earlier simulations could not fulfil any kind of learning goals of clients. Hence, making simulations simple was required.

How were simulations created back then?

There was a need for creating graphic characters from scratch using design software and then creating body movements and gestures for them through Flash.

Apart from that, it was also required to use programming languages such as C++ and Java to showcase the behavior of the elements in such simulations after any option was chosen, like the user would see a pop-up on screen after he chose any option in a quiz.

Creation of Simulations after invention of authoring tools:

Firstly, the authoring tools have templates, elements, and characters designed for a specific business situation. Even gestures and facial expressions have been created to depict situations.

Therefore, the creators just need to drag and drop animated characters and other elements into templates to create situations. There is no coding required to create templates.

Benefits of using authoring tools for creating simulations:

No need for programming:

Moreover, programming is also not needed to create branching scenarios in such simulations. The eLearning authoring tools are already well-endowed with the triggers and the users just have to choose the options.

They contain triggers that are invoked as a user chooses a certain option in a pre-built quiz, and then the user is enlightened about his choice. Therefore, the user can be presented with many options in terms of situations and quizzes.

Immediate feedback received:

Another advantage of these simulations is that since they can be produced so quickly, feedback can be sought immediately from the client. So, the procedure to produce these simulations is quite agile. Changes are made often, and the client does not have to wait for a certain time to offer feedback before the final results are shown to him. Different scenarios can be prepared, produced and altered till they satisfy a client in terms of end results.

Easier collaboration:

Since these authoring tools are hosted on cloud-based servers, the graphic designers can work alongside them with SMEs who can tell them whether a certain situation has been shown correctly. When they find anything wrong with a situation, they ask the graphic designers to correct it immediately.

28 Jul 2023

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What are inclusive assessments in eLearning?

Assessments form the basis for eLearning. Without them, it can’t be decided whether the learners are ready for work or not. But the assessments should be inclusive which means that nobody is biased against them due to personal problems, or lack of knowledge of local languages. There could also be other disabilities like dyslexia which could prevent a person from attempting a paper-based test and hence it should be taken care of.

Therefore, it’s the job of the L&D team of the company to design inclusive assessments.

Now what should be the characteristics of such assessments:

Prepare tests in all formats and common languages:

The test should allow participants to provide oral answers to questions. This makes sure that participants with reading or speaking disabilities are also able to pass the exam with flying colors. Also, the test questions should be translated into different languages so that all the participants can answer them. If a participant has a writing disability like a fractured arm, he should be provided an aide to complete the test for him or he can be provided speech-to-text facility for the test.

In fact, visually impaired participants should also be given the same facility so that they have no problems doing the test. The test could be converted into the braille format for them and they must have a speech-to-text typewriter so that they can complete the test.

The test takers should not have problems attempting the questions due to the language. The language of the questions should be simple and comprehensible for all. Apart from that, the questions should not be specific to a particular region. For example, if the questions are being attempted by someone from a specific country, then the questions should keep in mind his cultural norms.

There should not be phrases used in such questions which such test takers are not familiar with.

Relevant questions:

The aim of any good test is to the knowledge of someone who is going to work in a certain position in the company, whether he is apt for the role or not. The test creator must see to it that someone is not made to answer irrelevant questions in the test which are not related to his caliber to perform the job duties. A digital test is the norm these days since it can be easily evaluated by software and the test results are generated quickly. But someone, who is not required to type so much as a part of his/her role must not be given a test with a lot of typing requirements because it’s useless to check this skill.

Even if a candidate scores well on this test, it does not measure his ability to do good at his job which does not require typing. Therefore, a test must not suffer from construct irrelevant variance which means including impertinent questions in the test which don’t indicate anything in the context of certain skills.

There are also engineering test for employees to check whether they can fix machines in the future. But this test must not include questions in the local language containing intricate words which can’t be understood by someone who is not a fluent speaker. He is required to fix machines but not required needed to speak a language coherently.

Therefore, a test checking the engineering capabilities should be translated into foreign languages too for foreign engineers to attempt it. This is what the test creator has to keep in mind.

How to formulate test questions:

What is the construct of a test?

Whatever quality a test seeks to measure in a test-taker is its construct. Constructs are very important to be established before the test so that it does not stray away from its objective.

Hence, it should be the target of the L&D department to see that test content should be as per its construct. If a test content varies from the construct, which means it starts evaluating something other than the construct and this phenomenon is known as the construct irrelevant variance. For example, when a test requires engineering candidates to show an exemplary typing speed, it is varying from its objective of measuring engineering skills.

Then, as per these test results, the scores of the candidates will reflect their typing skills and not their engineering caliber.

Therefore, before designing any test it’s crucial that some steps are followed so that the test results reflect its purpose:

Definition of the Construct:

The first step is that the construct of the test should be established clearly.

Coming up with questions:

Designing the questions based on the construct of the test.

Testing:

Checking the test’s validity is important so that if there are any problems they can be identified before the test is given to the real candidates. It’s better that before a test is given to a sample, it’s chosen carefully. Such a sample should consist of diverse candidates so that the final test is as inclusive as possible.

For example, there can be the inclusion of someone who does not speak the local language in this sample so that the use of any complex term in the local language is detected

Modification:

Revise the test based on the feedback of the sample of the candidates chosen in the previous step.

Test anxiety is also a problem in which a test taker can have trouble answering questions because of the pressure to complete the test within a certain time limit. It’s better that the test is designed in mind, keeping the construct. If the construct is to check the competence of a test taker, there should be a liberal speed limit.

27 Jul 2023

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How can AI help L&D in a company?

Artificial intelligence can be used in many beneficial ways to leverage the power of L&D. In the following ways it can be useful to create better solutions for learners.

Easy search results:

Content tagging is useful for learners because it helps differentiate the content. AI can tag the content as per the keywords contained in it. So, when a user enters a particular keyword in the search bar of the LMS, he can get the desired results. All this is possible through AI which analyses the content carefully and checks what keywords can be used to describe it. This is the keyword extraction strategy used for content segregation.

AI can also segregate the content as per the named entity recognition method. This involves assigning tags to the content as per the names and the places which are a part of it. So, when the user wants to get more information about a certain entity, he can use AI to do it. Apart from the above two methods, AI can also use the images and the videos contained in the content to tag it. It can use the title of the image to know what the content is all about.

Since the learners can easily access the content through the use of AI in the LMS, it reduces the workload of the admin. Apart from that, since the searches are made quite easy through the use of AI in the LMS, there is greater scope for just-in-time learning because the learners can easily get information. With AI-based algorithms working to deliver the search results to them, they learn immediately leading to better outcomes for the company. They don’t have to scroll through the entire content trying to find the relevant results.

Fair performance review:

Artificial intelligence is also useful when it comes to evaluating skill gaps. The AI can also be used to check whether there are any skill gaps in any employee’s performance so that proper training programs can be created to help them in time.

Without AI, organizations have to spend a lot of time creating the proper employee evaluation forms and using them to get relevant data. Then it again expends hours to go through that data. AI, on the other hand, creates forecasts of employee performance based on the current performance data and how will the employee perform in the future. But AI can ensure that the performance reviews don’t have any element of partiality in them.

Managers may give a positive opinion about someone based on favoritism. Therefore, there is no bias in the AI-based performance reviews.

When such gaps are analyzed, it becomes easier for a company to design proper training programs for its employees.

Managers can have a prejudice against an employee apart from that it’s not possible for them to conduct performance reviews for so many employees, it’s exhausting for them. It’s also tough for them to fill out forms about the performance of so many employees because they don’t have such knowledge. They can’t analyze the performance-based data of so many employees.

But with AI, it’s easy for such forms to be accessed by everyone who is in touch with an employee. When the employee’s performance data has been collected from different sources, there is less scope for wrong data getting collected. Therefore, when data is collected through AI, true feedback about an employee’s performance is received.

When the future performance of the employee is predicted through AI, it can give the management an accurate idea about his performance gaps and what to do about them. They can also set realistic training goals through L&D for him.

Easier learning in L&D:

AI can be used to provide better search results for learners based on their usage in L&D.

This technology can also be used to help those learners who have hearing impairments. It can create subtitles for them so that they have an ease of understanding the content. When AI is used in the LMS, it leads to better experiences for the learners.

The standard operating procedures can quickly be created with AI-based algorithms so that users can quickly consult them and solve their work-related problems.

AI is also useful for getting better tracking data from the LMS, implying that the company can take better decisions about its use. It can also get insights into how well the users are responding to the eLearning content. AI can be helpful in creating content in the appropriate format for learners. Suppose the learners want to see simulations of a theoretical chapter, it’s possible with AI. This ensures that the learners are able to understand the tough concepts quite easily.

When the LMS admins in L&D, don’t have time to check the assignments given by students, AI can do the same tasks quite expediently and efficiently. This makes sure that the admin and the instructors are relieved to do other work.

13 Jul 2023

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3 tips to design microlearning modules

Companies are now focussing on microlearning to provide the best training to employees. But there can be problems in creating such kind of learning also. Microlearning is a structured approach and it’s not about just decomposing the elearning into several modules.

Microlearning may not just consist of videos but it can include PPT presentations, games, and puzzles. You can follow lessons with games that can maintain the interest of the learners. All this creation of modules requires experience and proper analysis.

Problems with microlearning:

No flow in the videos:

Microlearning requires creating a proper flow before you can create the short videos. If the microlearning videos are not connected, it can cause problems for the learner. They may have trouble understanding one video after the other. This way, the learners can get confused and may fail to apply whatever they have learned in practical scenarios.

Cognitive overload:

Although microlearning aims to present limited information to the users, it can cause problems when they have to see too many videos. It can not cause problems in retaining information but also make sure that learners leave the course in between. Therefore, this issue can be avoided when the learners have to watch only a limited number of videos which eliminates any cognitive burden.

Lack of assessments:

Microlearning includes a fixed number of short-duration modules that may skip simulations and infographics. The learners might not get enough practice through such videos because no games are there. There is a lack of quizzes and assessments in such videos.

Also, unlike a long-term course that involves having discussions with fellow learners, microlearning lacks this element. The learners might not have time to talk to each other not leading to a better understanding.

The following tips can ensure that microlearning is created properly for the users:

Tips for successful microlearning implementation:

Proper Analysis:

Just because microlearning consists of smaller modules, it does not mean that it should exclude critical information.

It can cause problems for the learners. The subject matter experts should provide guidelines to instructional designers about how such videos must be created. They only know what’s to be included so that the relevant information is passed on. If microlearning doesn’t cover the skills gap in the workforce, then it’s not worth the purpose. The subject matter experts can help discover the learning needs of the workforce through a needs analysis.

Therefore, microlearning is not a suitable approach when a deeper understanding of the problem is needed. For example, simulations are needed in many learning scenarios when the workers need better retention. Skipping on them can cause issues, hence microlearning may not be the best possible approach every time.

Timely delivery:

The microlearning video should not be sent to the learner too late or too early because he could have forgotten what he watched last. In fact, the delivery of videos should be scheduled in such a strategy in the form of drip feed delivery or spaced learning.

Spaced learning which involves sending content to learners after intervals is useful because the same videos are sent to learners and there’s no confusion. When the learners are on the same playing field, they will have the same approach toward work.

Drip feed delivery is used in spaced learning that involves how many days will elapse before a new microlearning module is sent to the learners.

In the drip feed approach, it’s decided when the content will be delivered to the audience. Hence, an elearning company can help in building the perfect drip feed of the microlearning strategy of the company. This ensures that the learners have enough curiosity to watch the latest video. This ensures better audience engagement with the videos.

Automation can be used for this purpose so that the videos reach the learners at the appropriate moment.

The learners can be sent emails so that they can watch the latest video through the company’s video platform. Also, blog posts on the LMS can be used where the latest post consists of the lesson. The learners can be notified through the WhatsApp chatgroup about the same.

Right design

The design also requires an apt focus in microlearning. In the case of design, you have to ensure that the videos should consist of a checklist or a lookup table for the learners to recall the previous information. An experienced elearning company can help with such decisions. Whether a simulation is required or a decision tree is also a complex problem in microlearning because their duration is less.

In the end:

If microlearning has to be implemented properly, it has to take care of issues such as the learner’s needs and the decomposition of content based on its intricacy.

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