Videos now for a significant portion of the internet with marketing research by Kleiner Perkins claiming that figure to be at 60% of the total. There are videos to help with cooking, for fun or entertainment. Yet the world ofcorporate training has been relatively late to wake up. The likes of Coursera, EdX and Udacity have courses for several topics, yet they are quite long. On the other hand Lynda, Big Think and Udemy are growing fast yet their applications are very difficult to integrate with existing systems. That is where Workday plans to bridge the gap. The platform is extremely mobile friendly allowing the agility for learning to take place at any time or place. Campaigns can be created by users, storage is infinite and feedback instant. The entire content is stored inside its virtual digital library. It will soon have features to manage external or third party content.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2016/09/27/workday-launches-corporate-learning-platform-brings-video-to-the-enterprise/#3d648912a50c

The transformation of workplaces began at the start of the 21st century yet such change took much longer to implement in the education industry. The Ed Tech market was simply doling out newer versions of older items. Now it has suddenly exploded especially on the west coast of the USA which boasts of several billion dollar funded Ed Tech firms namely – Udacity, Age of Learning, Plural-sight and i-Tutor-Group. Ed Tech focused accelerators have also developed such as Imagine K 12. This business innovation is not just restricted to the USA, but has also gained ground in the UK. One of the largest accelerator programmes on the continent called Emerge Education is based in London which also hosts Ed-Tech-X-Europe which is its largest Ed tech conference. Lynda which does corporate training sessions on LinkedIn has received funding for over six billion US dollars.

Source: http://raconteur.net/technology/tech-is-transforming-teaching-and-learning

Some new corporate training trends have emerged in order to engage employees. First of all the location is changing from a traditional classroom mode to a mix of onsite and online modes. Major amount of technology is being included such as videos to demonstrate best practices. Feedback no longer takes time but gets instantly delivered. Gamification has brought in a sense of fun and freshness to such training sessions. Many are learning new skills while participating in ‘treasure hunts’ or games like “Jeopardy”. The content is seeing change with focus shifting away from information to behavioral aspects. Instead of having single dedicated windows of such trainings, companies are routing them at constant intervals. Training used to be an abstract concept meant for the development of staff. Now it has moved on to being an integral business aspect where a session must instantly convertible to business or monetary gains.

Source: http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/113190/new-training-trends-engage-employees-jim-karrh-on-marketing

Personal level coaching is increasingly being adopted by managers as a corporate training tool. Each such manager must engage in two kinds of coaching. The first one of them is Calendar- driven. This one is formal, structured and can only be initiated by the manager. It is a broad form of coaching where the entire work is reviewed across all aspects, not any particular project or assignment. Such sessions act as a forum for all with proper two-sided feedback. The other form of coaching is Event- driven. As the name suggests, this one is activated whenever there is a requirement around major events or projects. The focus is on particular happenings. Managers try to eradicate specific mistakes which their team members may have committed. Event- driven coaching can be initiated either by the boss or the subordinate.  

Source: https://hbr.org/2016/09/every-manager-needs-to-practice-two-types-of-coaching

A substantial portion of time and being is being invested by organizations across industries on corporate trainingprogrammes. Yet their role in enhancing business capabilities remains untested as few of them are actually evaluating. The Brandon Hall Group has conducted a thorough business analysis to provide us with five levels of such training and development activities. At the bottom is the Non-existent level, followed by Developing, then the Standardized one. The fourth level achieved by very few is Robust and right on top is Analytical. Some key findings have been collated post this study by the group. The need to measure learning mainly comes from the training wing itself so that it can be more fruitful the next time. Organizations aren’t able to measure ways in which informal or experiential learning are proving to be crucial. Basic metrics are being used to evaluate success of training programmes. This includes parameters such as ‘employee satisfaction surveys’, ‘completion of sources’ or ‘peer observations.’ Unfortunately few training programmes are evaluated for the ROI generated. This leads to training and development being on the back-burner as no business results are being generated.

Source: https://trainingmag.com/meaningful-learning-measurement-continues-be-elusive-goal

Soft skills corporate training programmes often fall flat due to the fact that training in simulated environments with little or no repercussion of mistakes is very different to the real word. That is why a lot of people struggle on the soft side during meetings or presentations. Instead, organizations can take a leaf out of the way professional sports teams practice. The coach of the New England Patriots for example prepares his teams’ visits to loud stadiums by playing music in the background or wet pitches by making the players practice using wet balls. Sports teams also prepare thoroughly on opposition teams’ strengths and weaknesses. Soft skills trainers must also simulate environments which are as real as possible. Several different scenarios of the same situation must be exposed to just as sports team scouts bring different viewpoints on same opponents.

Source: https://hbr.org/2016/02/practice-for-tough-situations-as-youd-practice-a-sport

Human beings do not grow up in vacuum but together intertwined within several relationships. While it is possible that in the workplace, individuals grow on their own, corporate training is always far more effective when done within a group. There are various ways in which informally such systems can be developed. A post lunchtime team may be developed to watch educational talks or take online course together. Instructional course material may be developed for the team members. Learning goals for the time period must be clearly mentioned. Challenging tasks within the organization quell the learning motives. Such meet-ups must also on occasions involve remote workers so they too feel part of the team. Another valuable method is to connect with other people within the trade but not necessarily within the organization. Ideas on work then get exchanged.

Source: https://hbr.org/2016/01/we-learn-more-when-we-learn-together