Developing An eLearning Strategy For Fast-Growing Startups

Developing An eLearning Strategy For Fast-Growing Startups
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Summary: Using eLearning to deliver corporate training for fast-growing startups is a different ball game.

How To Develop An eLearning Strategy For Your Fast-Growing Startups

If you build a startup after surpassing several obstacles, then, witnessing it grow and expand over a period of time always gives a sense of accomplishment. But, with the rapid business growth, also come certain challenges.

Fast-growing startups face several challenges in the form of launching new products or services, managing larger teams, making changes in the work culture, and much more. Corporate training has an important role to play in enabling your fast-growing startup to overcome these challenges and adapt to the dynamic business environment.

When it comes to imparting corporate training, eLearning is an old strategy. Businesses have been relying on eLearning to deliver corporate training since the late 90s. However, using eLearning to deliver employee training in a fast-growing startup is a whole different aspect. A large multinational and established organization has a well-developed L&D strategy. L&D managers or CLOs of such organizations know how to cater to the specific corporate eLearning needs.

However, in the case of fast-growing startups, there is a need for developing an eLearning strategy from scratch. Developing an eLearning strategy for your startup and similar organizations requires careful assessment of learning needs, partnering with an eLearning agency, etc.

Apart from the need to start developing eLearning courses from zero, there are also constraints related to time, along with the need to train the new-age workforce. Time is always a constraint for a business that has to handle new clients and engage more in productive areas, rather than indulging in tasks like developing eLearning courses.

Another challenge that you may come across while developing a corporate training strategy is that you will have to cater to the vibrant needs of the new-age workforce. These days, startups usually comprise of young Millennials (Gen Y) and post-Millennials (Gen Z). These generations of employees are impatient. Their average retention rate is much lower, and their overall characteristics differ from their predecessors. Gen Y and Z generations are actively exposed to portable technologies and social networking, and are best described as digital natives as well.

Acknowledging these challenges when developing a corporate training strategy for your fast-growing startup is vital, and it is also advisable that you bank on 3 contemporary eLearning trends:

1. Personalized eLearning

Personalized learning is an old phrase that has an influence on today's corporate training. The personalized or customized learning helps learners experience 'learning' the way they want. Personalized eLearning can also be described as designing an eLearning course, in which the instructional approach and the pace of learning are optimized according to the needs of individual learners.

Implementing personalized eLearning in a dynamic business environment helps you understand unique learning needs, and then develop learning activities that are based on learners' interest and convenience accordingly.

Before you start creating custom eLearning courses for your employees, it is important to understand their unique learning needs by carrying pre-assessments and surveys. To create personalized eLearning, you need to include customized elements, such as language, color, fonts, themes, etc. Furthermore, there will also be a need for customizing content delivery as well. By implementing personalized eLearning as part of your corporate training strategy, both the organization and the learners can help you save time and money, achieve higher course completion rates, and transform learning into profit.

2. Social Learning

Social learning is a contemporary trend that exists in the industry of L&D. It has the potential to meet the learning needs of Gen Y and Z generation, who comprise the majority of the workforce in startups. Social learning can be explained as delivering learning—i.e. employee-driven, collaborative, and manager-led—in informal ways through the use of social spaces. Imparting eLearning through social spaces helps generate higher engagement, stickier learning experiences, and more learning ripples across your fast-growing startup. There are numerous social platforms, such as LinkedIn on which you can rely for delivering corporate training to your new-age workforce.

All in all, social learning is community-based learning that potentially has more impact on new-age learners. Taking eLearning into the social realm also guarantees a powerful learning experience exceeding your developed content.

3. Microlearning

Microlearning, or bite-sized learning, is yet another modern phenomenon that can be a game-changer in delivering corporate training in a fast-growing startup. Microlearning nuggets in recent days have turned out to be important training assets. Bite-sized eLearning is being rapidly embraced by organizations that have a time constraint when it comes to corporate training. This form of learning can be scenario-based learning, gamified activities, short videos, or anything that can be summed up in between 5 to 10 minutes. By applying microlearning, you can grab the attention of the highly impatient millennial and post-millennial workforce of your startup, and also ensure that there are higher engagement and retention rates.

Final Thoughts

It is important to carefully implement a corporate eLearning strategy for your fast-growing startup. Customized and precise eLearning solutions ensure sustainable business growth. And the blend of personalized eLearning, social learning, and microlearning will altogether prove effective in the long run.