The pandemic’s impact on business has been challenging all the way around. Learning & Development teams found themselves in a rather precarious position. Simultaneously, they have seen their budgets frozen or cut, their learners become remote and the business lean on them more heavily than ever to solve skills challenges. L&D has always juggled priorities, but it is as if the pandemic threw a few more into the mix and set them all on fire.
In response, organizations seek to change how they approach learning to efficiently and effectively upskill and reskill the workforce to meet new and changing demands. Large event-based learning programs simply do not have the required agility or impact.
Brandon Hall Group Smartchoice Preferred Provider Origin Learning has helped clients through these kinds of challenges long before the pandemic. One of the approaches they are using to help companies target specific skills gaps is through role-based training. One of their clients is a technology company focused on developing and implementing artificial intelligence. This is clearly a rapidly evolving area that requires frequent assessment of available skills. They turned to Origin Learning and its Fractal LXP to ensure the right people had the right skills.
The solution involved developing a series of microlearning elements in a variety of formats. Each microlearning piece was self-contained and specifically focused on a single objective. These objectives were then mapped to targeted roles in the organization. This way, each learner in a specific role had access to just what they needed for that role without any redundancy or superfluous material. The role-mapping allowed the microlearning elements to be leveraged where and when they were needed, rather than having all of the learning objectives contained within one larger program.
The microlearning was rolled out weekly in the form of videos, podcasts and eLearning and there were virtual labs available throughout for more hands-on training. They were mapped to seven different roles: agents, administrators, data engineers, data scientists, skill developers, support technicians and technical leads. By taking a role-based approach, the company could scale their skills training across not only the organization but their extended enterprise network as well. This included more than 250 customer organizations.
As companies strive for a more personalized, contextual learning experience, role-based training is a perfect place to start. This targeted approach ensures that the resources to create and deliver learning achieve maximum return.
–David Wentworth, Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group
