E-learning is forever changing the way corporations learn and grow. As technologies and capabilities around data delivery and how educators engage people online improve with every passing year, it becomes clearer that online learning and development programs will dominate most corporate development programs in the very near future.

In a snapshot, it’s hard to miss how many companies are riding the L&D trends 2021 and the preceding years since the rise of the digital age has brought upon us. 90% of corporations now use e-learning for their employee development programs, a huge uptick from just 4% back in 1995.

For any executive or business owner that wants to stay relevant in these fast-changing times, learning and development are crucial. It determines whether our teams will continue growing—hence leading to company growth in the process—or get left behind. With that, we need to know where corporate L&D is heading and how we should be adapting to these changes. Here are some unmistakable trends in corporate learning and how companies should respond accordingly.

Video-dominated Content

One of the biggest emerging trends in training and development 2021 has affirmed is the power of video content. It’s not a secret that people love watching videos. People watch over 4 billion videos on Facebook daily. So if any company wants to create a learning and development program for their teams that will truly engage with them, video is the way to go. 

How to implement: Using video content in a learning and development strategy can go two ways. A company can sign their staff up to pre-existing courses that might align with skills training needs or develop their own training materials. Both have their pros and cons and choosing one or the other really depends on whether there are existing programs that align with your development roadmap. Some companies take the route of using a heterogeneous mixture of both.

Analytics and Automations

When measuring L&D success, analytics and data are of great importance. Most learning management systems provide a system that collects data and presents it on a dashboard. The numbers matter, even in e-learning. Some numbers that people in charge of training and development should look into include completion rates, learner performance, learner ratings and feedback, manager ratings, and course completion. 

In the future of learning and development 2021and beyond, automation will also be another learning management feature that will continue to be a necessity. Applying computer learning to LMS allows for features like recommendation lists, test delivery, certification logging, notifications and reminders on unfinished courses, and many others. 

How to implement: Your company should look into using a learning management system that provides analytics and automations to help save significant time having to manage staff learning progress. By using a platform like NeoCoder, a company can also start using learning development systems in their recruitment and succession planning activities as well. 

Mobile-friendly Learning

The future of training and development in the workplace is starting to look a whole lot smaller, meaning people are switching to watching videos, taking assessments, and completing courses on their mobile phones. Mobile learning could grow to over $78.5 billion in value by 2025, and that only indicates that e-learning should start shrinking down for the average phone screen. 

How to implement: Ensure that all your materials fit into a large screen. This also means that any learning and development tool your company starts to use must have a mobile-responsive website or mobile app. 

On-demand Formats

A big challenge to any learning experience is dealing with information overload. Educators and staff development personnel can curb this by allowing for on-demand formats. Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, the world started to see the staggering effects of Zoom fatigue on people’s physical, mental, and social health. On-demand training programs help ease that overwhelm.

How to implement: Design your learning programs to come in bite-sized pieces. Video training materials can range from anywhere between ten to twenty minutes long. But avoid having content that can go on for more than an hour. It also helps to provide people with other formats of content consumption to help break the monotony. The most common variations of video training are an audiobook version or transcribed notes.

Conclusion: An Emphasis on User Experience

Many of the highest paying college majors have to do with improving humans’ interactions with technology. It’s unlikely that the workplace will ever go back to a technology-deprived environment and so the user experience is of great importance. User experience is the practice of determining whether a system’s design connects with the user intuitively. 

It’s difficult to undermine the importance of user experience in any digital platform or tool, and e-learning and development are no different. When setting up and running corporate learning and development programs, try to see it from your employee’s eyes as much as possible. The more that we cater to the experience, the more that people will continue growing. As a result, the company will grow with them.