According to the Annual Global CEO Survey, the majority of CEOs would rather upskill and retain existing staff than rehire. One question posed though, is how we effectively upskill our teams. Also whilst ensuring we keep our staff engaged and eager to develop within the company.

Learning methods adopted over recent years tend to lean towards Online Learning. In addition, there are many reasons why this method works. However, staff development is more than just completing a few online courses and quizzes. Without recognising the need for a holistic approach to a staff member’s journey, it can cause a disconnect between staff and the organisation they work for, for instance.

Frustrations some learners can experience with eLearning

When identifying why frustration can occur with traditional eLearning programs, five main reasons form a continuing theme:

1. Course isn’t relevant to the role
2. Course doesn’t assist with getting them to their goals
3. Content is too hard or too easy
4. Training doesn’t live up to the learner’s expectations
5. They don’t have enough time to complete the courses required

You can solve these frustrations with a training program that looks at each team members individual circumstances. For example, a system that can cater to each individual automatically by the implementation of Learning Pathways for your business.

What are Learning Pathways?

Learning Pathways put the learner at the centre of their learning.

• Training isn’t one size fits all. ‘Everyone learns differently and at a different pace‘.
• Individual learning pathways based are based on the learner’s circumstances. ‘Each pathway will be different depending on the learner’s position, location and overall career goals‘.
• They take the confusion out of your employee’s learning. No longer do they have to wonder, “Where do I begin or what’s the right way to move forward?”. ‘The learner’s pathway is automatic and bases it on their own circumstances‘.
• Training becomes a developmental journey for the learner. ‘They can see where they are heading and what their goal is‘.

What can you include in learning elements?

• Online learning modules and courses
• Face to face training, seminars and events
• Key competency elements required for a specific role
• Compliance obligations and auditing 
• CPD (Continuing Professional Development) tracking

Looking to implement learning pathways to engage, upskill and retain staff via an LMS?

Having a system in place that can account for and cater to your organisation’s and employees’ pathways is essential. Therefore, Learning Pathways are more than just online training modules. For example, they’re about the full learning and developmental journey of your staff. They encompass the whole journey, as well as every learning avenue and technique. 

Auto assignment of a customised pathway based on the learner circumstance – position, location, team, department is essential. One of the biggest frustrations with Training and HR Managers is that they don’t know where to start or what courses, events and activities need to be assigned to a new employee. 

Setting up this training solution requires many components to enable the employer to structure ongoing purposeful Learning Pathways for their employees. To achieve this, you need the following 10 elements:

1. Turnkey Solutions

The success of any project is reliant upon the processes and systems that have been put in place and the ability to have them delivered in a consistent and ongoing fashion. You will inevitably end up with cracks appearing in your pathway when trying to juggle multiple platforms and associated processes to offer the one solution. You need a single platform that can take care of all the processes and elements required for the path – One that doesn’t require ongoing technical and IT support to make changes.

2. Cloud Hosting

Focus should be on creating, monitoring and delivering consistent and evolving training pathways, not trying to juggle and manage all the different departmental requirements with incomplete solutions or systems that don’t talk with each other. A cloud-based solution allows the organisation to concentrate on their brief and not get distracted by ‘old technology’ problems that inevitably slow you down. Cloud hosting will always end up cheaper and more reliable, plus most importantly gain superior outcomes.

3. Competency Mapping

Training pathways should always start mapping each staff member’s competencies. The mapping facility automates a complex and often overwhelming process that can fail if controlled by multiple training facilitators. Your organisation needs a platform that allows you the flexibility to create your own competencies. As well as automate the mapping process to ensure each individual is kept up to date. Put simply, excel and word docs are not the answer anymore. They can cause the process to be bogged down by manual data entry. You can read more about Competency Mapping here.

4. Professional Development

In addition to standard compliance training, it’s vital that organisations have specific professional development training available to its workforce. This has many benefits. For example, it keeps staff up to date in their chosen field. It also allows them to expand their professional skills into different areas. It also maintains a pathway for personal and professional growth within your organisation, for instance. Therefore, this helps keep your staff happy as it gives them growth potential. It also gives you more scope to fill vacant positions from within the organisation.

5. Library Management

An important component of a successful training matrix and the successful offering of professional development is the ability to manage a library of courses and skill-based training. Your platform should at least be able to offer library integration for access by individuals, groups and the organisation’s workforce as a whole. Library management helps you focus personnel on the professional development most suitable for them, thus forming part of their pathway.

6. Instant Updating

One of the greatest downfalls of a successful training system is the inability to be able to do instant updating without the need to involve other stakeholders. Legislation and workforce compliance is an ever-evolving proposition, so it’s crucial you’re able to issue relevant changes easily, including updates, additions and removals within a single platform. You shouldn’t be reliant on other stakeholders as this eventually leads to an out of date matrix and offering, and therefore a system that only offers superficial solutions.

7. Automated Communications

To achieve superior outcomes, you need to streamline the communication process by automation. Once training competencies and other training material, resources and events are set up, the system then needs to take over the role of communication. Therefore, this ensures best practices and high levels of consistency are in place to retain important processes.

8. Customisable Reporting

There is usually a requirement for team leaders and/or training facilitators to address their team throughout their learning journey, focusing on their training progress and competencies. To help make this effective, each administrator/facilitator of the training platform needs to be able to create relevant customisable and automated reporting. The system also needs to offer instant emailing functionality via the customised reporting function to allow instant and effective communication.

9. Customisable Theming

This is an important psychological factor that ensures that the staff member understands who the training is coming from and that it is an essential part of their work responsibilities. Loading and delivering training through a process and look that is always identifiable by staff as being prepared and delivered by their employer will bring a feeling of consistency to the minds of staff members. This will help engage them and promote their desire to complete relevant training materials as required.

10. Responsive Design for all Devices

In today’s work environments, we tend to no longer buy bulk hardware across the entire workforce. Instead, multiple versions of computers, laptops, tablets and phones are incorporated into the business. Therefore, this means we need the training to be deliverable across all devices via the one platform. For instance, having a system that has a responsive user interface delivered using the latest HTML5 standards means all personnel can now access their training no matter what devices they have at their disposal. Overall, not having this flexibility to deliver training in this way could mean large parts of your workforce fall behind in their learning pathway.

In conclusion, to see how dita Solutions can start your business on the pathway to a better eLearning experience for your staff. Therefore, you can book a live demo below.