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Sabine_Benz
Advisor
Advisor

Over the past couple of years, the drumbeat for corporate learning has been getting louder within the hallowed walls of the executive suite – and for good reason. Every day, new technologies emerge with the game-changing potential. New regulations are often introduced, typically transforming how business is done. And as customers continue to become more and more empowered, informed, global, and in control, new approaches to engaging, enticing, and serving customers are now a business requirement for survival. What about your workforce? How do you make sure they’re knowledgeable on how to incorporate each of these changes into their daily work?

Let’s face it: Not all employees are techies – nor should they be. However, it’s still obvious that organizations are suffering from a significant skills gap. According to the 2014 Corporate Learning Factbook by Bersin by Deloitte, 70% of organizations list “capability gaps” as one of their top five challenges and state that it can take up to five years to take make a seasoned professional fully productive. Who has time for that?

Innovative companies often seek to close this gap by nurturing a culture of corporate learning. They’re blending formal, informal, and on-the-job learning opportunities to help their employees learn, practice, and apply their new-found knowledge. But, convincing people to learn and collaborate isn’t always easy – especially when new technology and processes are being introduced. That’s when attention to user adoption can play a big role.

Every company is different. Every learner is unique. Individual needs, interests, and schedules naturally shape the learning solution, budget, and any effort required to drive adoption. However, there’s one thing all learners have in common – the desire to share knowledge with each other. For any learning program to be effective, it needs to be social and collaborative. At the same time, it should enable in-application guidance and step-by-step guidance without disrupting daily operations.

Although all of these requirements for a successful learning solution can be daunting, convincing employees to adopt a learning solution doesn’t have to be as difficult as you think. Ask yourself these three questions when considering a new learning solution. Trust me, you’ll be ahead of the “corporate learning” game if you do.

1. Can all employees access to all learning content and tools on one platform?

For mass adoption of a learning solution, the ability to easily update skills and educate oneself in critical innovation areas is key. All the training a learner needs – whether it’s for a certain application or other training content that a large organization uses – should be available in one place whenever your people demand it.

Social collaboration is also an essential component. Are all employees authorized to access a private online learning room as a standard capability whenever they wish to use it? Do they also have access to a full range of public learning rooms? They should. With dynamic social collaboration opportunities through online learning rooms, employees can maximize their experience – anytime, anywhere. To practice all of this formal and informal learning, the platform should support a live, hands-on, on-demand training system.

2. Can you operate your own content factory with greater ease and little effort?

Creation and customization of learning materials are important when securing user adoption, especially since all implementations can be slightly different for every organization. With the access to standard learning tools, organizations can get a head start in creating learning content specific to the implementation, process, and workforce need. Be sure that training material relevant for end-user enablement – not just technology training, but also onboarding information and soft skills content – can be uploaded into your organization’s private learning environment through a content uploading service.

Also, keep an eye out for the opportunity to collaborate with a network of partners that can facilitate the learning content creation process. These partners can prove to be invaluable when customizing content specifically for your organization and researching insights into learning initiatives, progress, and history.

3. Does the solution provide in-application guidance?

In-application guidance enables employees to learn at the moment of need while carrying out daily tasks and processes in the technology in question. Plus, structured, continuous self-study help employees keep knowledge fresh and avoid skills loss. With these capabilities, less time is needed to create user training by offering standard learning content as well as access to tools that allow customization and localization of this content.

With the mix-and-match functionality, experts can create clear learning paths for individual learners or a group of learners by blending together standard and custom content in their curricula. Because we all learn best by practicing the new skills, content should also include standard transaction simulations as well as job-specific training scenarios, activities, and support materials – out-of-the-box or customized.

Not sure if such a learning solution exists? Contact your local SAP representative to find out how the user adoption edition of SAP Learning Hub can help your organization create a learning environment that truly gives your employees what they need with an approach in which they learn best.