For years the providers of e-learning solutions in Italy, excluding certain exceptional situations, have faced interlocutors who were equally divided into two categories. Firstly, one that had to solve a specific mandatory training need where there was little interest in “how”, but rather that this requirement was ticked off the list. Secondly, one that had a better idea and conscious that staff training is a complex process which has to include, in addition to good contents, a series of activities before, during and after training. Unfortunately these enlightened HR people had to contend with the available budget that most of the time only allowed the former solution to be solved!
Training is no longer seen as a process in itself but as an integral part of company processes of communication, marketing and socialisation
But now times are changing and the reasons are many; let’s try to analyze them.
- The supporting technologies to learning processes are significantly less expensive and cloud solutions enable to pay only what you use with no hidden costs (TCO is expected at 100%);
- These technologies are open and the collaboration with other company information systems (e.g. via API) or other web environments (e.g. via LTI) are quite easy to implement;
- Training is no longer seen as a process in itself but as an integral part of company processes of communication, marketing and socialisation;
- The digital culture is always greater, so surf the web, participate in community or social environments has accustomed people to cross patterns that are used in the same way both for personal or for job reasons;
- The entry of Millenials in companies has significantly raised the bar of digital culture but also the expectation of innovative solutions.
In this scenario it is becoming easier to propose solutions that only a few years ago seemed impossible in an Italian company; we can see now thate-learning platforms have been supplanted by real learning environments where users can find various channels to learn, socialize, deal with others, obviously using their mobile device, from office or home computers in the same way. Content curation also immerses them in multimedia contexts for which they had previously only associated wewith television and the web and gamification proposes them challenges, as every day they see on TV in the various Big Brother or MasterChef programs.
At the same time, companies have not only provided an environment for delivering learning contents and measure the skills acquired by their employees. They have a powerful tool to govern their organizations which are often distributed on the territory and the thousands of analytical data coming from reports, in fact, can easily provide a picture of their workforces, know what habits have, when and how access the system, if they participate in the learning community or are sensitive to the challenges.
In many years of experience in the e-learning industry, and keeping an eye on international trends, finally we have gained, as consultants, the ability to accompany our clients towards really feasible and effective solutions.
