I think we can all agree itโs been a long couple of years. The pandemic has caused many of us to have our first experiences working from home. Itโs opened up the globe in a way very few could have anticipated, with many people now fully or partially working from home. For now, hybrid working has become the new norm for a lot of people.
How has the shift to online learning affected employee training?
Corporate training can be difficult to get right at the best of times. Many companies employ a lecture/seminar style approach which can be incredibly effective when you have an employeeโs full attention. However when this approach moves to the online space some difficulties start to arise. It can be much more difficult to retain peopleโs attention while teaching from behind a screen.
This can be more observed in universities that have made the leap to online classes also due to the pandemic, Eduthinker writes โOnline class lectures often lead to passive listening on the part of the students.โ Continuing, โin an online class, students will often attempt to wait until the end of a lecture to speak to a teacher. But due to time constraints more often than not they end up not being able to communicate with them, or they postpone it altogether. This approach eventually breaks the interest level of students‘.
So if passivity and a general lack of communication are the common issues experienced due to online learning, then a viable solution may well be making better use of collaborative learning tools.
What is Collaborative Learning?
Collaborative learning is the act of encouraging employees to learn alongside one another, usually in the setting of company training. Whether it be learning about D&I or cyber security, as long as employees are communicating and working towards a common goal, you might consider this collaborative learning.
VIVIDA has a variety of collaborative online experiences to choose from. Better yet, our experiences can be taken online which makes them effective with employees who work from home as well as those who are still working from the office. We encourage a level of communication to which lecture style or individual learning exercises cannot compare.
But how do these added benefits from collaborative learning take effect?
1. It inspires some next level team building
Collaborative learning exercises are a great way to help your team become closer and more efficient, as it allows them to practice their skills associated with working in a team. VIVIDAโs group training modules simplifies complex topics encouraging people in groups to communicate with one another in order to complete them. This can mean simply sharing information or dividing tasks between participants so that they can be completed more efficiently.
Dividing tasks amongst the group also gives everyone the opportunity to share their experiences and learn each otherโs skills. Where one person is good at one thing, another person is good at another. The team can become acutely familiar with who is good at what.
2. Employees have more fun
But employees also have so much more value beyond the skills they possess. Collaborative learning everyone is able to highlight this fact in how it helps everyone connect on a personal level, as well as the professional. Put simply, learning together in a safe online environment can be really fun.
VIVIDAโs training experiences, in particular, provide an environment which can take on a more casual tone, where employees can take the time to converse and crack the occasional joke without interrupting the flow or distracting from the information theyโre learning.
It gives them a space away from the everyday where they can pick up new skills whilst connecting with the people behind every job role. This helps to create lasting relationships and strengthen your team beyond belief.
Interactive online environment
3. Breaks down departmental boundaries
In a similar vein, if you bring together employees from different departments for a collaborative training exercise it will help them understand one anotherโs job roles better. Itโs easy to assume what another department does but itโs another thing entirely to hear it first hand. Building familiarity like this encourages further interdepartmental communication outside of the training exercise since everyone has been brought together in such a way that a usual workday might not be able to. Put simply, it breaks the ice and makes the company more connected as a whole.
In short, collaborative learning helps to provide a space where your employees can come together in every sense of the word. Whether this means simply practising their ability to work together or growing closer as co-workers. Building familiarity like this is a fantastic first step toward building a more inclusive environment for everyone to succeed.
