It’s a fact that as robotic and AI technology continues to improve, many human jobs will be replaced by machines. There are few areas in business that are safe from such a threat including the sales force. 

Person-to-person contact between the sales department and their clients is still a vital business link. But with the coming age of robotic devices that speak and even use logical reasoning, it’s important that the types of employee training needed to face this competition be utilized.

Unfortunately, statistics show that companies in general do a fairly poor job of training. The ES Research Group claims that their studies show that only 10 to 15% of the information given out during sales training sessions has a lasting impression beyond 120 days.

Those who suggest that eLearning and instructional design are dead or dying must have a different view of eLearning than the millions of people who leverage it daily. Instructional design and eLearning are here to stay, evidenced by the sheer numbers of online learning opportunities available to the individual with a laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

What is eLearning?

To have a true discussion about eLearning, it helps to define the term. Elearning is learning that takes place through electronic devices outside of a brick-and-mortar classroom. Due to the portability of devices like smart phones and tablets, eLearning can take place anywhere there is access to the internet.

Onboarding training is a great opportunity to introduce employees to your learning culture. In fact, if you're moving to virtual and blended learning, we believe it's the best place to start the transition. Regular blog contributor Brigg Patten explores other key elements to include in this type of training event. 

The onboarding process serves as a new employee's first impression of a company's culture, values, and structure. It sets the stage for the employee's ability to succeed and contribute to the organization's overall goals. Unfortunately, many companies do not invest properly in the onboarding process and this lack of attention can be costly.

A recent study found that 31 percent of new employees leave a company after 6 months. This high, early turnover rate seems to be partly correlated with poorly executed training and onboarding programs. If you're looking to revamp your onboarding process, consider these key elements and send your new staff member up on the road to success.

Training and development are extremely important components of employee satisfaction and engagement. Appropriate training and development opportunities also play a factor in your staff's ability to be productive throughout the day. In fact, a recent study found that 87 percent of Millennial-aged employees list opportunity for training and career advancement as extremely important in their job search.

We believe that organizational learning serves a higher purpose: we aren't just teaching people content, we're teaching people how to work. Understanding emerging trends, and how they'll impact work in the future, allows learning professionals to better support their learners. Virtual and augmented reality is already making waves in the workplace, and by extension, in training. Guest blogger Brigg Patten explores this new technology and its impact on learning and common workforce tasks. 

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality at Work

Virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are two technologies that are making waves in the workplace and are set to grow even more than mobile in just a few years. Companies are already making use of tools like Magic Leap from Google, HoloLens from Microsoft, and Facebook's Oculus. AR and VRs don't have restrictions when it comes to their usage in work environments. Although it is not exactly new technology, some companies have not gotten around to adopting AR and VR in their operations. For some companies that provide custom elearning solutions, it is a matter of not comprehending the role that AR and VR can play.

While social media is one of the best mediums for marketing, not enough companies are giving their employees the training and tools to make the most out of it. Most companies will give their employees some basic guidelines on how to conduct themselves on various platforms but often do not go any further.

If you’ve been thinking about rallying your team to boost your social media results, here are some tips to launch a successful training program.

Curriculum design is a hot topic these days, especially with the debates over the Common Core teaching strategies in the United States. Often, many critics find that programs like the Common Core aren't helping students learn essential skills that they will need to learn. Despite the emphasis on testing and measurement, it seems that these programs might not be measuring the things that will actually help students succeed.

In order to make it in the proverbial real world, students need to develop critical thinking skills, and they need a curriculum that will foster these skills. This principle is easily applied to any learning situation, whether in school or business.

One of the primary goals in online learning is promoting active recall in students. Summarizing subject matter into a useful context is one of the keys to information recall. Elearners should be invited to express lessons in their own words for better comprehension and retention.

Active and Passive

Two different approaches are typically used to instill learning objectives:

• Passive recall involves learners reading textual recaps or listening to summaries in the form of lectures. This serves as a reinforcement of covered material in order to promote memorization.
• Active recall links information to problems that stimulate the brain to provide answers. Focusing on the practical value of the information is a more effective way to establish it in long-term memory than passive repetition with no real-world context.

Here are some of the ways you can increase active recall in your elearning projects.

The mobile explosion is sweeping the globe. Here in the U.S., statistics from Pew Research tell us that 64 percent of American adults now own a smartphone of some kind. This proliferation of mobile devices - coupled with the rise of the millennial generation - has ushered in the era of the modern learner. No longer content with having to absorb large chunks of learning content served up on a desktop computer, modern learners prefer to consume “bite-sized” lessons on the tablet or smartphone of their choice. And since eLearning on mobile platforms has been shown to be highly effective, this trend will only grow larger.

Today, both large and small companies have various options when it comes to corporate training programs and training their staff. From using innovative technology with integrated rich media, to microlearning and mobile apps, the types of training styles are unlimited. One of these learning styles (and a trending topic in L&D) is gamification, which takes gaming principles and mechanics and applies them to a non-game experience. When gamification is successfully implemented into training programs, it can help employees effectively gain new skills and develop new behaviors, all while being engaged in the process.