2015 Training Trends That Can Be Applied To eLearning

2015 Training Trends That Can Be Applied To eLearning
Summary: As eLearning becomes more popular in today’s work environment, organizations are looking how to best optimize training with current trends. Within this past year, current corporate training trends have related to employee productivity, retention as well as better career growth. When training brings these results, organizations not only get a better ROI, but employees grow to become leaders within their industry.

4 Training Trends In 2015 That Can Be Applied To eLearning 

Below are 4 training trends in 2015 that can be applied to eLearning within the workforce.

  1. Gamification.
    Gamification is the integration of game principles and mechanics into a non-game experience. As such, it has been put into organizational courses or into organizational curriculum. When integrated well, and instilled with a purpose, gamification can be beneficial to the eLearning industry. It not only gives a sense of competition to increase engagement, but can help employees practice and put to use the modules they completed. In addition, it can help upper management gain a better understanding of how well employees are grasping the training and if they are utilizing the skills learned in the right manner.
  2. Mobile Learning.
    Within the last 10 years mobile learning has crossed over into multiple industries, including higher education, where people can earn degrees online from online colleges. With remote work environments sprouting within various industries, employees are no longer in the office Monday through Friday. Because of that, it’s important for organizational training to be on-the-go as well. Not just through desktop computers, but accessible through multiple devices, from laptops to tablets and smartphones. Making training more available to employees can help them set their own pace and schedule for completing the training. Mobile learning can also help innovate different training techniques that aren’t found in traditional training methods.
  3. Rich Media.
    From informational videos to well designed templates, rich design and media has allowed training to become more interactive on the user end. This is very much in line with a major 2015 business trend where video is the more popular form of communication than text. Why? Because video is “more engaging and impactful” than text and people retain more information than just from reading. As Ron Zamir, President and CEO of AllenComm explains, “By bringing rich media into your blending learning, you’re going to have better outcomes. Video and animated graphics are easy to place within well-designed templates. We can significantly shorten seat time by using rich storytelling techniques to provide context, while using exploratory activities for content that needs to be practiced and retained…When employees connect more with the material, you will get better fulfillment of the training goals”. In order for employees to become more engaged during the training process as well as retain information, rich media should be incorporated.
  4. Personalization.
    One of the keys to employee engagement in today’s workforce is personalization. With various eLearning platforms, from network based to internet-based, employees can learn at a different pace and in different styles. This helps improve the quality of training as it’s tailored to employees, which can give a better ROI for an organization. Personalized training can also give data and help upper management see strengthens and weaknesses within their workforce and where training efforts need to be made.

Look for eLearning to continue grow and become more innovative in connection with future trends of the training industry, which will help create a more customized, accessible, and influential training model to organizations.

Download Allen Communication’s 2015 Training Trends whitepaper to learn more.