eLearning In 2021: Points For L&D To Remember
When the requirements are so diverse and very little is clearly known, it is up to L&D departments to address everybody’s needs.
Expect Training Budgets To Tighten
Tightening of budgets, in general, is a serious possibility across all industries. Many will have to reconsider their spending in order to prepare for the future. Training and development is already considered a cost-based activity and L&D is looked at as a cost-center. As a result, training and development might be the first to witness budget cuts. However, cutting training budgets is a precarious activity. Even though cutting budgets during tough times makes sense, the current situation says otherwise. The lack of training and development to support remote workers can be equally risky as the pandemic itself.
The benefits of keeping a strong L&D setup as we progress through 2021 can benefit both the health and safety of employees while also assisting with the economic turnaround of impacted organizations. However, one must prepare for budget cuts, and the L&D teams of some organizations must manage this by avoiding astronomical expenses on vanity eLearning technology.
Avoid Traditional Training Based Expenditure
First off, traditional training isn’t the right approach right now because:
- Groups of people gathering in a closed environment isn’t recommended during a pandemic;
- Circulation of any paper-based assessments could lead to unnecessary contact; and,
- Traveling training experts and learners is unsafe during this time.
Although some organizations may consider crawling toward resuming operations, mistakes, such as conducting a training session in a closed classroom, place the whole organization at risk. Hence, eLearning is recommended.
L&D must plan to wisely ration their tight and limited training budgets to procure the right eLearning technology at the right price. Similarly, moving in the direction of complete remote training will only assist the L&D team during such difficult situations. Switching to a complete remote training setup may be difficult, but we have simplified the process.
Focus On Safety, Mitigation, And Compliance Training
Compliance is not taken seriously by all, but 2020 surely changed this outlook. 2020’s events ensured that people take compliance training seriously, as it can save lives as well. This puts greater pressure on L&D teams to plan and execute better and more engaging compliance courses on acceptable behavior within the workplace. This is obviously for the year ahead and not any time soon. However, now is the time to prepare for it.
Compliance and safety training is about keeping your employees safe while also safeguarding the organization’s interests. To ensure the success of such training, L&D needs to study the current situation and invest time in devising a framework to keep the working environment accident and risk-free. The inclusion of transcripts from the health and safety regulatory documents published freely by many top research and prevention centers is abundant with content.
Compliance is something that L&D must consider as very important and there are no two ways about it.
Budget Smartly For A Consistent Training Initiative Through 2021
Budget cut bans on traditional training and an over-emphasized focus on health and safety may put off a regular L&D team, but avoiding this is very important. Training must continue at any cost, even if it is delivered in a constricted format. The future is full of uncertainties and training and development is something that helps organizations and employees prepare for these uncertainties.
A good solution to keep consistent training activities in play is by switching to affordable learning technologies, especially in the case of Learning Management Systems. Overpaying for expensive systems will not make any sense and will only bleed L&D departments of limited budgets. Streamline your training activities and avoid spreading out too much, as limited budgets do not support the expansion and entering unfamiliar territories. As a result, your fancy LMS with multiple fancy features may be left with very little to do. You will almost end up paying for an LMS that you hardly use.
The current agenda is to train and develop and keep employees updated, which is more than possible with a simple, robust, and affordable LMS.
Training Internal Teams To Fill New Positions
Cutting training costs is just one piece of the puzzle. Other functions, like cutting down on hiring, are also in play. A lot of costs are saved by downsizing human resources and many organizations are practicing it already.
Instead of hiring multiple people for multiple roles, focus on upskilling existing employees. It will save you the cost of training new employees as well. Many are already focusing on training existing employees to fill openings within the organization with the help of training and development. Upskilling and multi-role fulfillment are two terms that organizations may just throw around a lot when considering new roles. And, training and development are perfectly suited for this.
If organizations do consider taking this route as a permanent solution, L&D may soon find themselves in a very critical role in solving very critical needs.
Takeaways
With that, we come to the end of this article and the takeaways at a glance are:
- Ration your training budgets wisely, invest in cost-friendly eLearning solutions;
- Compliance training is important now more than ever;
- Hire internally;
- Consistent training is the motto; and,
- Minimize reliance on traditional training, keeping health, safety, and budgets in mind.
