The Shift to Digital Remote Learning is Working – Here's Proof

The lights are coming back on in some corporate training classrooms. But most will remain dark even after the current pandemic is behind us. Reflective of that is the response from a customer who was asked: Which “C” had the biggest impact on accelerating her company’s remote learning programs? Her answer was wasn’t the CEO, CIO, or CLO. It was COVID-19. Centrical's CEO, Gal Rimon, explains what that means for training post-pandemic in this post.

By: Gal Rimon, Founder & CEO, Centrical

The Shift to Digital Remote Learning is Working – Here's Proof

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When the health crisis forced most employees to work from home (WFH), instructor-led training (ILT) held in classroom settings stopped. And, for many, a more robust learning technology infrastructure had to take shape – in a hurry.

Whether for new hires, new skills for veteran employees or sharpening up their existing capabilities, learning took a similar path taken by organizations, overall, in the move to WFH. It began with getting them equipment. If employees didn’t have the right gear to do their jobs, it was unlikely they’d be able to do much training. Then learning content and methods that lent themselves to remote learning had to be produced and delivered in a way that would engage employees, motivate them to complete the training, absorb it, and apply it to their work.

Despite dramatically decreased commutation time, there wasn’t increased time for training from home. Because there were lots of distractions there. Suddenly, the notion of training as an event, one that managers and employees made time for, became something that had to be fit – if not squeezed – into an already jam-packed workday.

All of this discontinuity prompted companies to speed up development and deployment of digital remote learning programs. As said during other crises: “necessity is the mother of invention.” Without question, COVID-19 was the force that drove the implementation of different methods to engage employees in learning activities while WFH. Among them was a far broader application of microlearning. This shifted learning from being an event to something that occurred in short bursts, several times a day.

It is unlikely we’ll see a complete reversion to pre-pandemic training approaches. The reason is simple: digital remote learning, especially efforts utilizing microlearning, is working. Really well.

Customers of Centrical’s employee performance management platform, one that blends real-time performance management and personalized microlearning with advanced gamification, have seen a big rise in learning interactions from March levels to July’s. A 230% increase.

The skeptic might suggest that with employees out-of-sight, remote training would yield low participation rates. Clearly, that’s not the case.

Also, between March and July, Centrical saw the number of learning missions completed– containing job-related training – increased 540%. Granted, a portion of that growth can be attributed to the curtailment of traditional training activities. More than amazing, a five-fold jump is reassuring. It shows WFH employees recognize the value of training and will engage with it when offered in a manner that works for them.

Post-pandemic, like so many other aspects of work, learning will be conducted from anywhere, at just about any time. In a reflection of that, research conducted by Centrical among managers in the financial services, BPO/contact center, insurance, telecoms, and tech industries found 80% of survey respondents envision a further transition to more adaptive, more agile learning tools.

For such tools to really work, companies will need a platform that draws on lots of performance data to fine-tune training to the learning needs and styles of individual employees as well as allow managers to be more effective coaches. Yes, like Centrical’s.