TECHNOLOGY WILL REDEFINE THE

ENTIRE LANDSCAPE OF TRAINING FOR

THE CURRENT AND FUTURE GENERATIONS

Learning and Development Whitepaper

Guide: Prof. Praveen Kamath

T. A. Pai Management Institute, Manipal

Submitted By:

16F133 – Joveena Abreo

Introduction
The rapidly changing world of business demands agile, flexible and accessible learning practices.
Emerging technologies are influencing the way organizations develop programs and deliver learning.
The CIPD Learning and Development annual survey report, 2015 describes the purpose of Learning
and Development in organizations for improving individual as well as organizational performance by
developing employee capability. The role of L&D is also defined as a function for achieving corporate
goals and business improvement.
With the aim to improve access to learning, facilitate continuous learning and improve the
application of learning to workplace, organizations are leveraging the benefits offered by
technology. The future of learning is thus expected to be continuous and collaborative, accessible to
learners anytime, anywhere.
Trend analysts indicate that with growing availability of augmented reality, the digital and real
worlds are coming closer. Organizations are increasingly adopting technology in the workplace as a
means to enable learning and development. However, the pace of change in technology and the
need for focus on learner’s needs are the challenges being faced by the organizations.
This report reflects on the current learning and development practices in organizations with use of
technology, highlights the recent trends in technology and the impact technology has on the future
of L&D.

Role and Implications of Technology

Technology has surrounded the younger generations and the modern learner also called ‘digital
native’ expect steady connectivity and internet as source of information. This, along with their
extensive use of social networking sites and mobiles have led to the wide acceptance of technology
as a means for learning.
Technology allows learners to have control on the pace and content of their learning. This course of
learning works best on self-directed learners provided they are given the required guidance, their
individual needs are addressed and the organizational environment supports such learning.
Employees have increasingly rated lack of time for learning as a barrier and technology aims at
addressing this barrier.
Although, technology is widely used by employees at their workplace, we cannot assume digital
learning to be simply effective as a result. The limitation lies in the individual differences in digital
literacy and acceptance for workplace learning. Also, it is critical to be aware that a learner’s ability
to be self-directed depends on the context of learning. The barrier of lack of time can also be
attributed to organization’s failure of ensuring there is adequate time assigned for learning in
working hours.
Using technology in training brings in benefits such as saving travel time, improving staff retention
rates and monitoring the learner’s progress at all times. A learner centric system highlights
important actions for both the individual and mentor thus facilitating the coaching program.
Technology also enables the organization to design a blended learning program with instructional
learning, interactivity and opportunity for practice as the key facets leading to positive learning
outcomes.

Technology-Enabled Learning Trends

The changes in learning and development function are attributed majorly to the advent of learning
technology trends, where social, mobile and informal learning has become the rage. The way
learners now prefer to learn is changing dramatically; they are accessing learning content almost
everywhere, thanks to their smartphones. Thus, the learning space desires a change in both content
and technology used to deliver the content.

Microlearning

Real World
Gamification
Learning

Trends

Social Mobile
Learning Learning
1. Microlearning
Delivering content in small ‘chunks’ of content over time, has emerged as an effective concept of
learning. Neuroscience research shows that providing small bits of content enhances learning as
the millennials have arguably shorter attention spans. Google Primer is one such innovative
platform designed for businesses to develop skills through interactive lessons of just 5 minutes.

2. Real World Learning

The most effective way of learning is to put the learners in an environment that has close
resemblance to the actual work environment. The emergence of virtual experiences in real-time
using augmented reality has enabled learners to completely immerse themselves in the
environment. Augmented reality can be formed by overlaying computer images on real settings,
providing the learner an experience of the exact needs of a situation. In 2014, The Cleveland
Clinic and Case Western Reserve University teamed with Microsoft to develop education
applications for Microsoft’s HoloLens, allowing users to explore biological system, individually or
together.

3. Mobile Learning
With increasing penetration of mobile devices, the learning landscape is witnessing the biggest
technological change. This has impacted the way interactive and engaging content is delivered to
the learners. Mobile learning enhances collaboration and social interaction, provides learning
opportunities that can be applied to relevant situations and allows learners to access learning at
their convenience.

4. Social Learning
Social learning is developed on the core idea of collaboration that engages employees and
enhances their decision making skills. It drives transparency and communication, thus reducing
the time-to-business and costs. Peer learning is mostly achieved through social learning using
either internal networking apps or social media networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook.

5. Gamification
Learners spend great amount of time with learning materials that use gamification techniques,
thereby engaging the learners in the process. Gamification integrates the learning elements in a
highly effective and engaging manner to deliver real-life situations in a controlled environment.
Domino’s Pizza created the Pizza Maker course using gamification to engage, assess and reward
 employees for reducing on boarding time. This resulted to a significant increased speed to
competency, cost savings and decrease in customer complaints.

Organizations using technology

Cisco, designed a blended learning program using social learning and gamification in order to gain a
competitive edge. To global social media training program aimed to boost the social media skillsets
of the company’s employees and contractors. The problem was addressed with gamification of the
social media training program by introducing three levels of certification – Specialist, Strategist and
Master. An atmosphere of competition and collaboration was also introduced with teams
challenging each other. This led to over 13,000 courses being registered and over 650 Cisco
employees to have gained the certification.

Strivr, a leading company developing virtual reality training programs, produced a curriculum for
Walmart training the employees for Black Friday shopping spree. The oculus rift headset puts the
employees in real-world scenarios where are asked to make simple choices on what they see. The
training was conducted in Walmart’s 200 academies in the US and trained 1,50,000 employees in
2017.

Conclusion
The future of learning is driven by providing access to learning through any device, any time and
from any place. Although technology addresses the issue of flexibility, it cannot overcome the
barriers of lack of time for learning and content design. It is critical to understand that learning can
be more effective using technology only if these conditions are met. Technology will definitely add
value to a learning process; however, practitioners must be clear on the purpose of the learning
before incorporating technology as a means. The success of technology implementation will be
determined by the match of the tool characteristic and purpose of training.
The adoption and evaluation of technology should be driven by the learner’s needs considering the
varying levels digital literacy among the employees. Learning is most effective only if it is relevant to
the employees and enables the employees to practice the skills learned.
Technology is definitely redefining the learning landscape; however, it should be applied to the right
context and should focus on the learner.
References

CIPD, Learning and Development Annual Survey Report, 2015

CIPD, The future of technology and learning, Research Report Nov. 2017
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15725732/walmart-strivr-vr-training-module
https://www.td.org/insights/5-learning-tech-trends-to-watch-in-the-next-5-years
http://blog.insynctraining.com/effective-training-strategies-7-companies-using-gamification-
correctly