By Patricia Santos *
I work for a training company that exists for 90 years.
We’ve made a long journey, and the last 10 years were a real challenge, especially when we look at the way people learn and how we had to adapt to this digital world.
10 years ago we didn’t have some of the most popular technologies that we use today, like the smartphones, artificial intelligence, social tools like Facebook, and others.
If we want to predict how technology will change how people learn, we need to follow how technology is changing how people live.
We live now in a digital ecosystem and learning has to be accessible in all our screens.
Cegos had to make its own journey to move from an almost exclusively face-to-face training offering, to digital learning solutions. Our focus is still the “learning”, not the “technology”, but we had to upgrade our DNA to be able to propose more effective and efficient learning solutions.
Keeping this focus means always having in mind the key pedagogical principles for an engaging learning experience, like:
- RELEVANT and highly operational contents
- ENGAGING & EFFECTIVE learning environment
- EASE OF USE, creating user friendly interfaces and prioritizing experience over instruction
- Creating GLOBAL learning solutions that respect the LOCAL culture
- In brief… keeping a learner-centric pedagogy!
Our own digital journey for over a decade gave us insight into the evolution and refinement of how to best digitize our learning, how to engage learners in the journey, how to mobilize the organizational leadership behind it. We now consult and help companies all over the world in their own digitization journeys – including the conversion of traditional learning assets to digitally enabled solutions.
One of the key success factors is to anticipate, as much as possible all the barriers and constraints we may find during our journey. And of course… prepare for them!
So, if your company is thinking on starting its own digital journey, please remember that your plan should include the following 6 steps:
- It’s all about the user learning experience. Prepare how you will manage your digitally enabled learning academy. From access to technical support, from the F2F to the online, your learners need to have a seamless learning experience.
- Look at your existing technologies. If your company doesn’t have the appropriate software and hardware, you won’t be able to continue your journey.
- Prepare and organize your digital strategy around your learning vision. Start with the end in mind and the outcome you want to achieve. Digital should support your L&D strategy and meet business goals.
- This journey is about people and change. You need to communicate, prepare, engage and secure support from all the stakeholders.
- Create an impactful learning mix. Understand your best mix of learning solutions (content, method, tools and technologies) that best suit your delivery goals for higher business impact.
- Keep the journey alive. Once it’s in place, your digital strategy needs to be supported by a continuous evolution and improvement of the learning solutions, learner engagement strategies and business impact proofing.
* ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Patricia Santos is the Head of eLearning and e-Services of Cegos Group.