How can SMEs leverage online learning and mobile-based modules for training their workforce?

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are at very critical position today. With the use of technology and uberization of services, on one hand SMEs have leverage to compete with global players but this has also lead to threat of competition from global players. And irrespective of the size of enterprise, businesses always need to keep reinventing to remain relevant to the market. “Human Capital” is the backbone of any business.  Hence future ready business needs to have future ready “Human Capital” including leadership, management & workforce.

Importance of Developing Leadership:

Businesses are reflection of the Leadership. In case of SMEs, this reflection is even more stronger. If we list down various functions of the business and map them with the personality preferences of the business owner/leadership, there seems to be a meaningful correlation. There can be broadly two ways to manage it

1. Create and implement systems and processes so that business perform as per its Standard operating procedures (SOP)
2. Leadership need to constantly evolve themselve in terms of Skill, Knowledge, Attitude so that their reflection is having positive impact on the business

For my program, “Leadership Learning Series”, I have been interviewing/interacting with world leaders like Alan Mamedi (founder truecaller), Brian Tracy (International management guru) and more. And after interviewing leaders from three continents, it seems that constant learning is always one of the top preference of leadership and as they strongly credit importance of learning in their success. Hence these online & mobile based modules can play important role in the learning of leaders too to transform their enterprise.

Importance of Developing Management team:

Management plays a crucial role in transforming the vision of the leaders using the right strategies and processes by executing them through the workforce. In today’s world, where agility is playing a critical role, strategies and processes need to be agile enough to accommodate the change. In addition of existing threat from global competitors, Management is constantly working on new age phenomenon like millennial workforce, increased work-from-home culture, cross-cultural collaboration, fast changing government policies, gig economy, employable skill gap at entry level, retention of skilled workforce and more. For these changing scenarios, management need to constantly upgrade themselve with recent development in Industry to not just manage, but capitalize and converting the phenomenon into opportunities.  

Importance of Developing Workforce:

Workforce is the most critical component of any organization. At the end-of-the-day, work is completed by action from workforce. When we say workforce, we already know that “right workforce” is an asset to the organization as otherwise it would turn into liability. And businesses are in pursuit of acquiring “assets” and not liabilities. As the skill requirements are fast changing, there seems to be few options like:

1. Keep hiring the workforce as per the new skills
2. Upgrade the existing workforce to acquire new skills

Both of these strategies would keep playing their due role, but as the shelf life of a skill is getting reduced and considering the time required during hiring, induction & backup planning of employee, upgrading the existing workforce become very relevant.

Relevance of Online/Mobile learning over Classroom

With geographically spread workforce, the time and money cost of bringing everyone in a classroom is very high. With online/mobile based learning, we can achieve the desired benefits to a large extent with lesser impact on their regular work assignments.

Different Approaches for delivering modules

Video based:

One of the most well known content for transferring learning is video based modules. There can be various format in which these videos can be created. Some of the most popular one are mentioned below:

1. Video of the person delivering the content as it would happen otherwise in live class
2. Video of the person shown with some text and animation on one side to support the message
3. Presentation based video with explanatory audio
4. Animation/Cartoon based video with some characters to convey the message
5. Storytelling videos with animated hand drawing the message with background audio

            These are some of the commonly used video formats through with advent in technology using Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality mobile/headset, Webinar, Live Streaming

Gamification Approach:

In the gamified approach to learning, learning and test modules is converted into a fun game approach with scoring for every desired action. As more people tend to prefer games compared to learning, hence this leads to better engagement. There are various companies offering gamified version of learning modules.

Webinar Based Approach:

One of the common observations with e-learning approach is the lack of engagement from participants. People would just play the videos/modules without actually attending them. Recorded module approach is asynchronous approach whereas webinar is synchronous approach. In the Webinar based approach, some person is sharing the knowledge on one side and participants are attending the webinar. As there is additional human factor of learning from someone at the same time, webinar based approach is shown to have higher engagement among participants.

Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality based mobile/headset

Virtual Reality (VR) is creating a simulation of the environment close to the real environment. If you have played any 3D game, it’s like the same just that module is designed to impart business related learning. For example, to train the workforce on functionality of new machine, a VR based module could be created showing the component of the machine much like the real machine.
Augmented Reality (AR) is merging of real environment with animated information. For example, if we go to a new factory, instead of a manager showing the facility, a AR enabled headset can be given to the person. This headset would show the real factory and will also provide additional information about different facilities/equipments based on the location and view of the person.

Live Streaming

In Live streaming, a real time view of the site is provided to participants attending the session from various locations. One of the common use case is the live streaming of “surgery while surgeon perform a real operation”. In those cases, a very high resolution camera along with high speed network is utilized so that doctors sitting in other countries can have a live viewing of the operation performed by surgeon in other part of the world. With entrepreneurs exploring the medical fields, this way of transferring knowledge can be really useful.

Audio Based Modules

Some people might think that in the age of video, audio based learning may not be that useful. But that’s not the case. There are some attributes of audio which can make them more useful as compared to video. Some of those use cases are:

1. Business people, who are travelling most of the time like driving a car, cannot look at video but can listen to an audio. Video based modules require dedicated time but audio based modules can be consumed while performing other work. This could be the reason that “audio books” are very famous among business leaders who tend to utilize their time to the best
2. For employees travelling in public transport: Travel time in metro cities is increasing due to high traffic. At the same time, many people tend to avoid watching video during travel as it leads to headache and nausea. In those cases, people can listen to a “townhall” talk delivered by CEO or attend audio based module which does not require “visual” content

Audio based module requires a person to have ability to visualize the speech and hence they can be more relevant for Leadership Development and management based program. One of the companies in India used to record every Leadership speeches in audio format and this repository was made available to all leaders and managers to listen to for later reference. 
Another benefit of audio content over video content is that the cost in terms of time, effort and money for creating an audio module is much lower than video based module.

Text Based Module

To many it may appear that text is losing its importance but text based module can be an important addon with other online/mobile modules. Some of the use cases are mentioned below:

1. A Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) guide is always relevant and important for quick reference the employees. It has been commonly observed that a significant portion of communication (email/sms/phone/messenger) within team is “repetitive” which can be avoided by having a FAQ guide. This could have top 100 FAQ by a new joinee which can be circulated among the new joinees. A simple process that a question would be entertained only if it’s not there in FAQ would bring down the induction cost significantly. Later this additional question can be further added to FAQ
2. With additional advantage of searching/hyperlink, text based modules can be used for additional reference and can be combined with other type of modules
3. For quick collaboration among participants, a google drive documents could be created, where individuals add their content and knowledge and at the end of the day same can be downloaded and circulated among team in PDF format

Hybrid Approach - Flip Classroom: Online/Mobile Module + Class room

For some scenarios, classroom based training would still be relevant. In those cases, online/mobile learning modules can also well integrated with the classroom training plan.
In academic circle, this is called flip classroom. In past, classroom sessions were used to deliver the content and participant used to practice at home. In flip classroom, participants are having the access of “Video based content” before the program. Hence they watch the content before the program, and classroom time is used for advance questions & answers.

These different approaches can help SMEs to utilize the best of the technology to train their workforce. This is can help the business to create a future ready workforce in fast changing and disruptive business environment.