In the L&D world, digital transformation has been a trending topic for years. However, due to recent circumstances, organizations are forced to launch online learning models nearly overnight.
Today’s learners expect a modern, robust, and engaging learning experience that supports their lifelong learning journey. And organizations are rushing to meet their learner’s needs in a short time. But a question remains: how can you rapidly build a solution without jeopardizing quality?
In a recent webinar with BenchPrep’s CEO, Ashish Rangnekar, John Leh, Lead Analyst from Talented Learning, and Ryan Blankenship, VP of Product Management from CompTIA. We highlighted how to move training and certification online fast. Here are the highlights from this webinar:
Have a Strategy in Place for Digital Transformation
How can we continue to proceed as business as usual when everything around us is so unusual at this time? The truth is, we can’t. However, that doesn’t mean everything stops until the world returns back to normal. It means that the future of work is here. Organizations, job roles, and working environments have to change dramatically in order to function in this new normal.
Not only will these things be different, but training will change as well. As we already have seen, a rapid shift to digital transformation has been exemplified and more organizations are urging to provide training and certification digitally to maintain business and revenue continuity.
But for the training and certification organizations that don’t have a digital footprint in place, what strategies can help you start transforming their current training materials online rapidly?
- Prioritize speed over everything
When transferring to digital-first, it’s important to keep things simple. Don’t overwhelm yourself by developing an online learning platform from scratch. Instead, find a partner that will get you to want you to need quickly today and can help you scale in the future.
- Content is key
It’s important to start with your content once you have a strategy in plan. Think of your content like a harp. A harp is already an amazing instrument, but you have to tune it to make it better. The same works with your content. Your content might work right now in an instructor-led environment. However, once your content enters the digital world it needs to be adjusted to meet your learner’s needs. Good content does not only help your learners but it can also improve your bottom line.
- Market your learning program
To expand your reach, you need to effectively market your learning program. When doing this, be sure you have a marketing plan that highlights the urgency, value, and importance of your learning program.
- Start thinking with a digital-first, digital now, digital-only mindset
Digital is not just now, digital is the future. COVID-19 taught us that digital learning is now and is a channel that will remain prevalent throughout time. Invest now, rather than later.
Have a Plan for Prioritizing Your Content
No one can bring all their content online overnight. That’s why it’s important to build a roadmap, to see steps you all need to take to go digital. With CompTIA, we were able to build their successful continuing education program, by starting with a robust roadmap, where we laid out each step.
But how does one know what to prioritize first? Here are a few key criteria to consider when prioritizing your content:
- When considering which courses to put online, look at the enrollment of each course. The courses that have higher enrollment will create a higher impact on your organization.
- There are some courses that are better taught in a digital space than an instructor-led environment. Look at the current courses that you offer and see which will benefit the most from modernization and digitalization.
- When thinking about the introduction of COVID-19, which of your programs were impacted the most?
Once the prioritizing phrase is completed, many organizations feel like they are ready to build their own solution from scratch. But what many fail to realize, is that this way is the least efficient way to get your content online fast.
The best way to successfully transform your content digitally is to invest a partner that delivers a learning program with a ton of engagement features that go beyond just your content. When vetting out partners, ask them what engagement features do they offer.
Do they have flashcards, gamification, video benchmarking, learner confidence rates, discussion boards, etc.? These features are not only nice add-ons to your content, but it elevates your learner’s overall experience and interaction with your learning program.
In addition to engagement features, it important to tie back your strategies to different researched learning strategies, like microlearning. Most people will have forgotten an average of 50 percent of the information you presented within one hour, and that’s what we call the forgetting curve.
To combat this, you can implement spaced repetition microlearning into your program. This doesn’t mean you need new content, it means you have to format it differently. Break down your content into bite-size chunks and build meta tags around them. By using this researched learning strategy, it will allow the learners to retain the information easier and at a faster rate.
What’s Next?
When transforming your current training into digital-first fast, there are so many steps but limited time for action. That’s why it so important to think critically when going through digital transformation, instead of jumping right into it.
We covered two essential parts to moving training and certifications digitally, however they are two more to consider, technology and people. Check out our webinar to learn what all you need to know about going digital fast. 
