The Need for a Corporate Training Culture in New Age Enterprises Employees are looking to upgrade their knowledge as well as skills required for their job roles and are keener to join organizations that provide opportunities to grow

A decade ago, when India began it ascends to high GDP rates, companies realized that the workforce needs to step up and embrace the inevitable effects of change. Jargons like VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) and growth mindset were not widespread and most training intervention was led by instructors using projector and PPTs!

But today these jargons are the harsh reality that unicorns of India Inc. have accepted and inculcated in their strategy. The need is to align the corporate training with a mindset of delivering quality learning & development solutions, which have a direct and measurable impact on key business performance indicators.

Today, employees are looking to upgrade their knowledge as well as skills required for their job roles and are keener to join organizations that provide opportunities to grow. In the last couple of years, corporates have realized the importance of training and have made exceptional progress. Organizations make heavy investments in learning and development practices as it is a major tool of employee retention and effectiveness. Any training solution is ineffective if it doesn't impact the organization's primary objective – that is business outcomes, Knowledge index, and Service quality to mention a few. The way people work is changing rapidly, which means that they are taking the lattice approach to learning (Learn, unlearn, relearn, repeat). With the globalization of best practices in corporate training and advancement in technology, eLearning and technology-enabled blended learning methodology have become a more sound investment that key stakeholders gladly agree to invest in.

With the explosive growth of eLearning—from Learning Management System (LMS) to AI enabled - Learning Experience Platforms(LXP), and dozens of other ways like MOOCs (massive open online courses)—is redefining how training is being dealt today. Employees are able to access training anytime, anywhere using mobile phones and the need for classroom pieces of training are replaced with virtual classes with whiteboards and gamification through technology-enabled blended learning methodology- which maximizes engagement through capturing the interest of learners and inspiring them to continue learning.

The training interventions using smart platforms commence the moment an employee joins an organization, the pre-hire inductions and assessments are being conducted to ensure learning path is created on day one and the eLearning modules are updated on the platform. As employees turn more active and drivers their own learning experience, HR's role in the organizations become more critical.

With Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, the Learning experience platforms devise the most optimal learning path that is best suited for organizations and learning alike. Advanced algorithms in the background analyses and assess the learners and prepare the next set of learnings accordingly, without the daily intervention of trainers.

Let's take an example of consumer durable companies who face fierce competition and product obsolesce is seen as an opportunity to bring more innovative solutions. A key requirement for them is that the sales force, during any interaction, should possess complete product knowledge to attract and sustain a wide customer base. As the sales force of large consumer durable companies is geographically spread out across different branches covering entire Indian geography. Challenges became much folded since this activity is required to be undertaken Hence executing the process of customized continuous learning and development becomes cumbersome.

TeBL

Here, the technology-enabled blended learning Methodology (TeBL) effectively resolves such multifaceted requirements by following an innovative method to gauge, teach and assess the distributed sales force on - product, competition and market knowledge.

L&D

Entire training intervention can be customized by the L&D function and by utilising the smart AI-enabled recommendations can formulate individual learning paths based on their knowledge gaps. Post training, the smart-platform sends the sales staff, micro-learning based nuggets to help them revise better. This seamless process allows the sales force to enhance their sales effectiveness and directly impact business outcomes. Customized self-paced training offers them on-demand support and assistance as well.

Another reason why adoption of L&D in organizations is crucial is to engage and retain the digital savvy workforce. While conducting classroom training sessions for them is becoming increasingly expensive, a smart learning platform that can easily deliver personalized learning experience is the need of the hour. We at Centum have been aggressively following the technology-enabled blended training methodology to ensure that the challenges faced by the organizations are effectively taken care of. Through our 400+ corporate L&D specialists and a smart learning experience platform – Centum LearnPro, we have been able to effectively able to meet the training needs of the corporates as well as have been able to keep the digitally savvy workforce very engaged during this process.