Companies operating in more than one country often have to factor for the cultural and linguistic differences of individuals they deal with. They need to translate and localize marketing or communication collaterals to suit the target audience. The same is true with eLearning courses as well. A course meant for the American employees may not be appropriate for their workforce who is located in say Malaysia or Japan. There are many reasons for it. Some of them are as follows:

Cultural differences: When you have employees spread across different countries, you know you are dealing with people from different cultural backgrounds. You need to consider these cultural sensibilities while designing courses – be it the choice of language or images used. For example, if you have an image of a young CEO in the American version of the course, it may not be appropriate in certain countries where the average age of a CEO is 50+. For maximum impact, the image will have to be changed appropriately as required for this other audience.

Contextual & legal differences: Suppose you are creating a course about a manufacturing process that needs to be deployed across manufacturing plants located in different countries. You may have a segment that talks about safety procedures and the safety requirements as per the laws applicable to that country in a module. In such instances, you will have to customize the courses to include local laws and regulations. Only then will it be relevant to the target group of learners.

Differences in formats: Units and measurements vary from one country to another such as pounds or kilograms. Similarly, the format in which date is written and read differs. References to terms will have to be localized so that there is no ambiguity in comprehension for learners. Localization assumes significance in this context.

Linguistic differences: Certain terms are referred to differently in different places. It may be gas in America, but people in Europe know it as petrol. Similarly, there may be other differences in terms of language usage, slang and inappropriate or taboo words and these factors need to be considered while localizing eLearning courses.

Therefore, translation and localization becomes necessary for all forms of communication, including eLearning courses. What are the practices you adopt to ensure that all your eLearning courses go through a stringent localization process before being used in regions other than where it has been originally developed? Do share your experiences.

Your organization intends to implement mLearning soon and probably the question that is foremost on your mind is: What is the approach that you can adopt? As a part of your mLearning strategy, you need to decide on the approach that is best suited for implementing mobile learning in your organization. Basically, there are three approaches towards mobile learning. You can choose the best option based on the context and learning objective.

Push Learning:

Push learning essentially refers to the approach where content or information is “pushed” to the learners. Here, learners have little choice in terms of the content they receive. In the context of mLearning however, it has special significance – particularly when essential and relevant information needs to reach target learners real-time. For example, if a competitor has launched a new product, this information will need to be shared with the sales force quickly so that they can tweak their sales pitch accordingly. A quick tutorial on how to realign the sales pitch could also form a part of the package.

Performance Support or Pull Learning:

Pull learning refers to having information made available either on online portals or intranets for learners. They can retrieve such information when required. It is more need-based where you access knowledge when required. For example, if a service engineer wants to quickly refer to a checklist before assembling a product, he can go online using his Smartphone or iPad and access the checklist that is documented, along with the product installation guide.

Collaborative Learning:

Organizations may not have a defined mLearning policy or strategy. However, collaborative learning does take place on an informal basis thanks to social media sites such as LinkedIn. Sites such as LinkedIn or even company intranets offer groups and forums where professionals can collaborate and share their professional experiences. Organizations can also create groups and forums for their employees. Such groups become an online venue where employees can collaborate and interact with each other and share knowledge and learn collectively. Access to such forums through mobile devices makes it easy for employees to participate, debate and discuss issues.

The best approach towards mLearning for your organization depends on the objectives you wish to fulfill. Is it meant to help in knowledge-sharing or is it meant to provide a means to access information when required. Alternatively, is it simply a collaborative platform for social learning? Choose the best approach, based on the needs of the learners and their learning objectives.

Sage Open recently published an article by Jerry P Haenisch titled, “Factors Affecting the Productivity of Government Workers”. It is interesting that a significant percentage of the respondents (35.5%) attributed poor supervision and management as the factors that limit their ability to perform productively.

What it means, is that employees are looking for guidance and direction from their supervisors; who perhaps are not trained for the purpose. These findings are as much applicable to the private sector as to the public sector. The report emphasizes the need for formal training programs to enhance the skills and knowledge of the workforce.

While summarizing on the findings, the author recommends, “Organizations are well advised to attend to development of effective supervisors through both formal and on-the-job training. Enhancement of front-line supervisory effectiveness can be a critical first initiative toward productivity improvement in any organization.” (Ref: Report of Sage Open)

Training front-line supervisors and managers who are located in different states is not easy. More so, if it needs to be done in-house through traditional Instructor-led programs. However, due to tight budgets and increasing costs for instructor-led programs, online training options are being explored as a viable alternative. In fact, organizations such as the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) have successfully utilized online training wherever possible to train their employees.

What do you think this means to an L&D manager or an HR manager responsible for training employees? How can they realign and formulate a Learning and Development Strategy that takes into account these recent findings? Faced with reduced budgets, how can they continue to provide valuable training to their workforce? Do share your thoughts and experiences.

Faced with decreasing performance levels of employees, some questions that are likely to occupy a manager’s mind would be – What training can I give them to increase their productivity and performance? How can I motivate them so that they perform to the best of their abilities?

However, before deciding on a training program, the manager needs to identify the factors that affect the productivity and performance of employees. Unless you know the causes, you will not be able to find the solutions. The causes for dwindling productivity of employees could be any of the following factors:

Skills & knowledge: If employees do not have the necessary capability, skill or knowledge to do the job, their performance suffers.

Clarity about role: Employees need to know their responsibilities and have a clear understanding about what they need to accomplish at the end of the day. Ambiguity about roles could be another reason for a drop in their performance.

Work environment and culture: Unhealthy work environment is another factor that affects performance of employees. A positive workplace culture boosts employee morale, creates a work environment that is enjoyable and contributes to increased productivity.

Employee attitude: If employees do not have the enthusiasm to work and are disinterested in the job, it would have an impact on their performance.

Right tools and resources: You need to have right tools, equipment and resources in order to perform well. Absence of these resources also could contribute to a dip in performance level.

Once the manager identifies the reasons for reduced productivity in his organization, he can take corrective action. In cases where productivity suffers due to lack of right tools and resources, he will have to consider upgrading his set up.

Training will be an option when it has been firmly established that inadequate knowledge or skill set is impairing employees’ performance. In such a scenario, employees need to upgrade their skills or knowledge using either traditional instructor-led programs, blended learning or eLearning. eLearning programs have a quick development time and can be launched across the organization within a short duration. They can be customized to suit the specific requirements of their employees. eLearning courses also offer employees the flexibility to upgrade their knowledge and skills at a time that is convenient to them.

However, it is important to identify the factors that are affecting the performance of employees before choosing the best training options.

A sales process provides your sales team with step-by-step guidelines for selling, keeping in mind the unique context of your organization, domain and market. Providing sales process training is not all that difficult in today’s eLearning environment. In fact you don’t even have to wait until you have a group of people to be trained. You can create an eLearning course for sales process training that can be accessed easily by new employees.

Now let’s see why providing sales process training for your sales team is a necessity.

Organizational strategy

Sales people, who have been with your organization for long, may be familiar with your systems and processes. However, if they have just joined, irrespective of the level at which they have joined, they need to have an orientation to the way you conduct your business. They also need to know about the strategy that you adopt to highlight your competitive advantage to prospects. This is what makes the sales process training significant, particularly to those who just joined your organization.

Consistency in approach

Training ensures that all your sales people talk the same language while showcasing your products and adhere to the same procedures irrespective of their sales territories. This ensures that there is no ambiguity and confusion in terms of the methods adopted by sales people to conclude sales. Training also sets parameters about acceptable and unacceptable practices during the sales process.

Lower sales cycle time

The focus of sales process training, ideally should be, on the right procedure to be adopted; keeping in mind the buying behavior of prospects. It should provide a roadmap to sales personnel about the steps to be followed to win over prospects and convince them about your products. Research has shown that poor knowledge of the sales process or a poorly defined sales process has a significant impact on sales figures. Therefore, it is important to have a defined sales process and provide training on the process to your sales personnel for lower sales cycle time.

To sum up, it is important for your sales team to be trained in your organization’s sales process and the most practical and cost-effective method is to take your training online.

We might have all heard a great deal about working memory and long term memory and their influence on instructional design. It is said that the working memory has limited capacity and can only process a defined amount of information at a given point of time. Cognitive psychologist George Miller says that the working memory can process 7 ± 2 chunks of information at a time. It is widely referred to as Miller’s law. How is this theory applicable when designing eLearning courses?

Instructional designers can play a key role to free the working memory of learners by managing the cognitive load well. Cognitive load is basically categorized as intrinsic, extraneous and germane.

Manage the intrinsic load:

Intrinsic load is something that is inherently generated by the core content of the learning material. For example, if you intend to teach how to create a PowerPoint presentation, the information that needs to be processed for the purpose is something integral for the course to meet its desired objective. There isn’t much that you can reduce here. All you can do is manage the load in the best possible manner to ensure that information is communicated effectively. So, if you are helping learners create PowerPoint presentations, you can create a step-by-step process where learners are introduced to one concept at a time, beginning with the creation of a simple PPT presentation.

Reduce the extraneous load:

The second type of cognitive load is the extraneous load which is nothing but the extra information that may not be directly relevant to the learning objective. Taking the example of the “PowerPoint course” that you want to design, there are many advanced features in the program which may not be immediately required for a novice. A novice may be only interested in knowing how to create a presentation deck. While advance features are good to know in the long run, you need to first focus on what is important and has immediate relevance for the learner. The additional knowledge about advanced features creates an extraneous load, which when minimized can help in reducing the overall cognitive load on the learners.

Capitalize on germane load:

Germane load is the next category of cognitive load. It refers to the manner in which learner’s process Information for learning. It could be by providing mental schemas or examples that aid in the learning process. A good instructional designer works towards providing such tools to the learners that aid them in effective learning. Examples, hands-on exercises or flow charts are some of the tools that help in capitalizing on the germane load of learners.

The ideal instructional strategy for developing an eLearning course would be to segregate information based on what is essential, what is supportive and what is additional. You use the supportive information to teach what is essential and leave out the additional information as a separate resource to be retrieved when the learner seeks it.

Training needs analysis helps in identifying the performance gap between the expected performance and the current performance of employees. It is the first step in the training process and helps in identifying deficiencies so that training programs can be conducted to fill the gap between the actual and expected performance. It enables the training manager to set training objectives and plan the training and development process by identifying the training requirement that is relevant to the workforce and the intended outcome that is improved job performance.

Here are some of the tips for conducting effective training needs analysis:

• Observation: You can obtain crucial data by observing employees’ daily tasks such as the techniques or the methods employees use to perform their assigned tasks or regular activities, the time they take to complete the work, difficulties that they encounter and so on. This information is essential to identify the areas where employees need training.
• Interview: Having informal conversations with employees helps to explore their performance deficiencies easily and have an understanding of their aspirations. Are they facing any problem while at work? Are there any better ways or options that can help them to do their job better and more easily? Answers to these questions will lay the foundation for your next training program.
• Questionnaire: A questionnaire can be used as a formal way of seeking employees’ opinion about their skills and proficiency levels. It can be designed to understand the current knowledge and skills in relation to expected competency for doing a particular job. It also can be used to gauge the areas where employees need support and training.
• Skill test: Skill tests are a direct method to evaluate employees’ competencies and their capability in completing tasks associated with their job. The outcome of this test helps in identifying the skills that need to be imparted through training or the skills that need to be refined. It can be a great way to measure the competency of employees in terms of their skills and the areas where they need to improve.

Conducting training needs analysis helps to identify the training that is relevant for the workforce to improve their job performance. A clear idea about what needs to be taught and who will be trained can be developed so that performance gaps are reduced or eliminated with training and development. The outcome of training needs analysis helps in setting the training objectives for any training program.

Rapid eLearning development involves using eLearning authoring tools that require minimum programming knowledge. They enable instructional designers and learning professionals to transform content to instructionally sound learning material within a short duration. While traditional eLearning course may take months to be developed, rapid eLearning course can be developed in a few weeks.

From the organizations’ perspective, rapid eLearning development is best when many courses need to be developed within a short span of time and deployed at multiple locations. The development time is short hence it is a cost-effective, feasible and achievable solution for organizations.

Some of the features of rapid eLearning development are as follows:

• Rapid eLearning development is possible with the help of authoring tools such as Captivate, Articulate or Lectora.
• It is easier to integrate content and various media into courses using readymade templates. Readymade templates greatly reduce the developmental time.
• No programming knowledge is required for developing the courseware. Therefore instructional designers can develop the courses on their own.
• Some courses do not have a long shelf-life, but content can be updated or repurposed if designed well.
• Emphasis is more on content and learning value than on the technology and technicalities of development.

The major advantage of rapid eLearning development is the short development time. Additionally, instructional designers along with the subject matter experts can take complete charge of course design without having to depend on software programmers. It is therefore no wonder that organizations prefer rapid eLearning to traditional eLearning development.

Product knowledge training requires learners (who could be sales people or service people) to assimilate lot of information with respect to the products – its features and benefits. Learners can be overwhelmed with the amount of information that needs to be absorbed. Here are some tips that can help you to develop effective online product training courses.

Establish the learning goals: Understand your learners and the learning objectives to be achieved – who are the target audience for the course and what are they expected to achieve after completing the course. They could be sales team, service team or customer service representatives. For example, a customer service representative might be expected to have a good knowledge of the company’s products so that they are in a position to direct the customer to the right sales representative. However, a sales representative might be expected to provide value proposition to his customers while explaining the product features and benefits. The online training program/eLearning course would need to address these individual learning goals.

Decide on how much information is enough: The amount of product knowledge required varies depending on the profile of learners. While a sales person might need a particular level of knowledge about products, a service engineer or technician might require an in-depth knowledge of the product. Separate the “need to know” information from “nice to know”. Organizing information according to the different levels of knowledge would help in creating a relevant and meaningful eLearning course that can be accessed by different learners as per their needs.

Factor the motivation levels of learners: When designing courses for diverse learners, it is important to take into account their individual motivational levels. A sales person might be interested to know how the product would benefit the customer as he can use the information to make a sales pitch. A service engineer might want to learn about troubleshooting a problem that the customer brings to his notice. One strategy is to ensure basic information relevant to all in the regular flow of instruction and have specific information on clickable basis with click on tabs to suit diverse learners.

Create a common structure in case of long product line: In case you need to talk about multiple products in a single course, it helps to create a common structure that is relevant to all the products. Information pertaining to the products can be presented using info-graphics where information about all the products is provided visually as per its relevance to the learner. For example, products could be categorized based on their features, benefits, costs and their USP for different segments of learners. For example, in case the training is for sales team, each product can have a guideline about the profile of target customers. A service engineer might be interested in common spare parts used in most products and those that need specialized ones; as this information might be helpful while placing his order for spare parts.

These are some of the ideas to make online product knowledge training effective. This is not a comprehensive list and I am sure there are others which you may be practicing. Do share your very own strategies while designing product knowledge training courses via eLearning.

eLearning as a training option is more interactive and learner-centric today – more like a virtual guide or mentor acting as a facilitator in the learning process. The focus is not just on knowledge sharing but more on knowledge assimilation and application. Therefore, to make your eLearning program a success, instructional designers and L&D managers need to understand the key influencers that shape the learning effectiveness of eLearning courses. Based on our experience, here are few such factors that should be taken into consideration.

Subject matter: The subject matter is the first and the foremost influencer. Its relevance to the learners would directly affect their interest and motivation levels in taking up the course. In case the subject matter does not have immediate relevance to the learner but could be important to the learner in future, an ID will have to highlight this piece of information right at the beginning of the course to ensure that the learner stays interested in the course.

Opportunity that the learning provides: When the new knowledge gained is going to affect their performance directly, learners are likely to make more effort to obtain that knowledge. Additionally, the knowledge that is going to provide them with newer opportunities for career growth also encourages effective learning.

Eagerness to learn: Learner profiles also have a bearing on learning effectiveness. Sometimes the target audience may lack the motivation or interest to explore or learn something new. Learning is unlikely to be effective in such cases. However, if learners exhibit eagerness to learn, they are motivated to explore the domain -resulting in effective learning.

Instructional design: Following sound instructional design principles catering to all learning types is important to ensure learning effectiveness. The course design needs to keep the learning objectives of learners, their profile and preferences in mind. Young learners might need interactivities with more audio/ visual interface. Experienced learners might expect more case studies and research data to substantiate the concepts dealt in the course.

Collaborative feature: Providing a collaborative platform to discuss debate and share viewpoints regarding course enhances the learning value. Each learner brings along valuable experiences and insights which can be shared through common forums. Online groups and forums where learners can collaborate beyond the course framework will ensure learning is continuous and ongoing. It greatly enhances learning effectiveness.

Developing effective course content is one factor that influences learning effectiveness. However, marketing the course to ensure that learners realize the value that the course brings to them will ensure that learners remain eager to learn and look forward to the program. Additionally, L&D managers need to provide a platform that facilitates peer-to-peer interaction where discussions and knowledge exchange happens that further improves learning effectiveness.