Addressing workplace learning challenges is a top priority for growing organizations today. With even the newest technologies and products becoming obsolete before you can even blink, offices constantly need adaptation to tackle workplace challenges and learnings. Taking employees’ skill set improvement for granted in such a scenario is a mistake. Employers find themselves buried under an avalanche of problems all too often due to a skill-set gap on an ongoing basis.
A recent study found that 42% of L&D professionals believe that creating a learning culture in your organization is one of the many significant workplace challenges and learnings faced by growing businesses today. Unfortunately, there are no universal solutions and measures to address each of the challenges faced by growing companies today, but knowing why organizations should invest in learning helps us solve these issues when they arise.
In navigating workplace learning challenges, Sampada Inamdar, VP and Group Learning Head at Anand Group India, emphasizes the critical questions of what, how, when, and how much we learn. This exploration is not just a response to current changes but a proactive preparation for impending shifts due to new regulations and technologies.
Companies, leveraging disruptions, are strategically reassessing employee skills against future needs. Societe Generale Global Solution Center, for instance, conducted workforce planning to adapt to the evolving banking landscape, categorizing roles into sunset and emerging categories. This approach ensures clear career paths, role-specific training, and hyper-personalized learning, empowering employees to align their skills with future aspirations.
Here is a list of 12 workplace learning challenges growing organizations face that directly affect your day-to-day business affairs.
Table of Contents
1. Lack of Consistency Due to Unstandardized Learning
In large corporate organizations, achieving consistency and standardized workplace learning outcomes remains a paramount concern in employee development. The reliance on external trainers introduces challenges in verifying the universal compatibility of teaching methods and expertise. To address this issue, establishing a clear and unambiguous curriculum becomes essential.
Given the prevalence of online corporate learning, a strategic approach involves the development of standardized training modules. For instance, implementing uniform time limits and clearly defined learning objectives across all courses can foster a consistent learning experience.
This not only enhances the quality of learning but also ensures that employees, irrespective of external influences, receive uniform and standardized knowledge, contributing to a more reliable and effective learning environment. This approach helps mitigate the challenges associated with unstandardized learning, fostering a cohesive and uniform learning journey for all employees.
2. Making Business Learning Convenient and Comfortable in a Limited Time
The time is limited, and the to-do list is lengthy. Yet, every firm requires every employee to work as hard as they can when they have to stay competitive. This is why one of the most critical challenges in learning and development today is implementing a continuous corporate learning culture in a time-poor workplace.
Workplace learning takes time, and training workshops necessitate a group of employees with varying priorities, schedules, and clients in the same room, on the same day, at the same time. It’s a near-impossible task.
So, how do you go about it? Do you cross workplace learning challenges off your to-do list? That, unfortunately, is not an option. We’ve established that regular and meaningful job learning is a must, not a luxury. Instead of being overwhelmed by the pace of a digital workplace, you can use technology to make workplace learning more flexible and accessible.
The typical smartphone user looks at their gadget 150 times each day! So, because they’re already there, why not develop mobile learning management systems for on-the-go learning for an easy and user-friendly approach to dealing with workplace learning challenges?
3. Tackling a Cross-generational Workplace
It’s entirely possible to have employees from diverse generations on your team, and this is yet another aspect of workplace learning challenges faced in the industry. Much has been said about the millennial generation and how comfortable they are with online learning and development.
This approach is beneficial to them because they react well to learning approaches such as microlearning and augmented reality. You must, however, take into account senior staff. Different generations, like different cultures, have different learning methods.
To overcome this issue, you may design alternative content delivery methods for your other employees, but another option is to use your trainees as a learning asset. Millennials are excellent advocates for new training methods, able to passionately and clearly explain what they have learned (and how) to their colleagues. Consider including them in your instructional tool-set to communicate your learning objectives to the senior employees or even the freshers.
4. Handling Learning Obstacles with Automation
We’ve become accustomed to automation in other areas of consumer technology, and we may now anticipate the same learning solutions. We expect learning recommendations from the company’s learning platform, similar to those provided by Amazon and Netflix.
Channels, Topics, Recommendations, and Featured Content are among the other features meant to make it simple to locate the next module to learn. Automation technologies can be used to provide all of this learning and training content to simplify workplace learning challenges for organizations, as per 31% of L&D experts.
Automated recommendations take away the stress and worry of selecting what to learn next — one of the major disadvantages of online classes for students. These engines use the learner profile and performance to provide the most relevant courses, making it easier for companies to cover more extensive training and development scope with less effort while the employees enjoy an easy, seamless learning experience.
5. Personalized Learning Experience for Better Understanding
Employees are increasingly looking for work opportunities that include training, and they expect the training to be relevant, in their chosen format, and tailored to their learning path. Employees anticipate a comprehensive and customized learning plan focused on individual preferences that will enable them to improve their job performance and advance professionally.
A modern and efficient LMS allows team leaders to personalize their learning models according to their employees’ needs for an improved learning experience that keeps their workforce relevant, in demand, and valuable. It helps the company grow by coming to grips with workplace learning challenges.
In India, many companies are shifting towards personalized employee training through online courses or in-house learning platforms. For instance, Tata Communications developed its own digital learning platform, aiming for a consumer-grade experience.
By giving employees control over their training schedules, Tata witnessed a significant shift, with 90% of their L&D programs going digital. Similarly, Altisource revamped training content into a movie format, making it more engaging and efficient, reducing costs by $1,000 to $1,200 per group.
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6. Low Employee Engagement with Learning Models
With workers having less and less time to devote to training, 36% of L&D professionals suggest looking for new methods to increase engagement with its carefully planned training programs.
Some employees abstain from engaging with the trainers during their lessons. This behavior is due mainly to the trainee’s inability to comprehend the objectives or recognize the training’s relevance to him or her. The delivery method may be dull and monotonous, which adds to the already massive pile of workplace learning challenges.
In terms of the methods they employ to create employee engagement, a growing trend for L&D is to start thinking like marketing and communications experts. This approach is a two-fold idea that uses marketing methods to:
- Employee learning content is well-structured, and automated with suggestions and consumer-inspired engagement.
- Changes in learning models should be communicated to workers via email and other forms of internal communication.
7. Navigating the Roadblocks of Real-time Learning Use and Heavy Costs
Employees desire to learn because they need to know something to execute their jobs more effectively. According to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning Report, 49% of employees prefer to learn when they need it the most.
When IT and technical teams encounter coding issues, online platforms provide “instant assistance.” For several years, systems like GitHub, StackOverflow, and others have been delivering learning in the flow of work, thereby coping with budding workplace learning challenges in tech.
Companies that can create this sort of learning environment can experience significant gains. Employees may “learn it immediately” since training and evaluations are part of their everyday routine.
Learning is also costly due to facilitation, equipment, and venue rental. Learning budgets are often small, even though learning demands are usually high. When a limited budget also needs to include travel and software expenditures, it adds to workplace learning challenges.
Companies can utilize a cost-effective, high-performing LMS in this situation. For example, when training a large number of people, a learning management system for corporates makes a tremendous difference in how far your budget can extend. Short content portions interspersed with feedback activities, for example, can save development expenses, while webinars can cut down on travel and time costs.
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8. Inability to Quantify Learning
Difficulty measuring L&D results is yet among the major learning challenges faced by organizations when it comes to workplace training. Often, it is challenging to track employee training and the effectiveness of L&D programs and to determine their impact on business. The challenge arises from a lack of proper evaluation methods and metrics to measure the success of training initiatives.
When corporate online learning programs are not evaluated correctly, assessing their impact on employee performance, productivity, and business outcomes becomes challenging. Without proper evaluation, it is impossible to determine the ROI of the training program, making it challenging to justify the cost of the training program to stakeholders.
To overcome this challenge, organizations must develop an effective evaluation strategy that aligns with the organization’s goals and objectives. It involves identifying the key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to the training program and measuring the impact of the training program against these KPIs. Organizations can use various methods, such as surveys, assessments, and interviews, to gather data and feedback from employees and managers to evaluate the effectiveness of the training program.
By measuring the impact of training programs accurately, organizations can justify the investment in training and development, identify areas of improvement, and optimize their learning and development programs to achieve better results.
9. Absence of Leadership Buy-in
Lack of leadership buy-in refers to the situation where managers or executives in an organization do not prioritize or support workplace learning initiatives. This can act as one of the significant learning challenges to the success of workplace L&D programs. Without leadership support, employees may not see the value of learning and development, resulting in low participation rates and poor engagement.
Leadership support is crucial for creating a culture of learning within an organization. When leaders champion learning and development, employees are more likely to view it as important and worthwhile. Leaders can also help incentivize employees to participate in training programs and provide the necessary resources to support these initiatives.
Workplace learning may become fragmented, inconsistent, or underfunded when there is a lack of leadership support. This can result in ineffective training programs and a lack of accountability for learning outcomes. To overcome this challenge, it is essential for learning and development professionals to engage with senior leadership and demonstrate the benefits of workplace learning for the organization.
Organizations can foster a learning culture and drive positive business outcomes by building a business case for learning and involving leadership in designing and implementing training programs.
10. Resistance to Change
Resistance to change is one of the common workplace learning challenges. Employees may feel comfortable with existing training methods and may be hesitant to adopt new technologies or approaches to learning. This resistance can stem from a variety of factors, including fear of change, lack of understanding or buy-in, and concerns about workload or job security.
Resistance to change can slow down or even derail training initiatives, making it difficult to achieve learning objectives and improve business outcomes. To overcome this challenge, it is important to clearly communicate the benefits of new training programs and technologies, involve employees in the planning and implementation process, and provide adequate training and support to ensure a smooth transition.
11. Technology Integration Roadblocks
Embracing cutting-edge learning technologies is essential, but the challenge lies in seamlessly integrating them into your existing framework. The process of implementation demands precision to avoid disruptions and ensure a smooth transition to modern learning platforms, such as advanced Learning Management Systems (LMS) and eLearning tools.
The success of technology integration directly influences how well these innovations align with your organizational goals and fit into your current systems. It’s crucial to ensure that the chosen technologies not only meet the specific needs of your organization but also seamlessly complement your existing technological infrastructure. A thorough understanding of your objectives and workflows is essential to guarantee a harmonious integration process.
In essence, navigating technology integration challenges is about tailor-fitting advancements to your unique organizational landscape, fostering a seamless and efficient learning experience for your team. This requires strategic planning, collaboration with your IT teams, and a keen eye on the alignment of technology adoption with your learning and development objectives.
12. Scalability Issues
As your organization experiences growth and an expanding workforce, the challenge emerges in seamlessly adapting learning programs to meet the evolving needs of a larger and more diverse team. This involves ensuring that your learning initiatives remain effective and relevant in the face of organizational expansion.
The impact of successfully addressing scalability challenges is paramount, ensuring that your learning initiatives can grow with your organization without sacrificing quality or accessibility. It’s imperative to strike a balance, where learning programs remain impactful and accessible to an expanding workforce, maintaining high standards even as the organization scales up.
In essence, tackling scalability issues is about creating a learning ecosystem that evolves alongside your organization, providing a consistent and high-quality learning experience for every member of your growing team. This requires strategic planning, adaptability in learning program design, and a commitment to maintaining accessibility and excellence as your organization expands.
No Matter the Struggle, Learning Must Go On!
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, manager, or leader, tackling workplace learning challenges is often uppermost on your mind. Finding the time and resources needed to develop, organize and implement training programs can be difficult for growing companies. This may cause the quality of essential training programs to suffer. The results of poorly executed training can be costly to clients — in both dollars and reputation.
Some of the workplace learning challenges described above have been a long-standing source of frustration for L&D. Nonetheless, you can tackle these challenges with consistency, logic, adaptability, and constant employee engagement in the process.
And the majority of the solutions may be implemented with the help of an excellent LMS. Well, which of these is a hindrance to effective training in your organization?
If you’re looking for an efficient LMS that can help you navigate the workplace learning challenges in your organization for enhanced business performance, don’t forget to get in touch with our experts at PlayAblo, for all things learning.
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