As many companies took to remote work in the first half of 2020, learning and development got sidelined. Without company trainers or in-person sessions, it became less important in the face of other business obstacles amidst a global recession.
On the other hand, companies know that automated learning and development enables employees to learn anytime, anywhere, and on any device, all while having their progress tracked.
In fact, to boost morale, some companies encouraged their employees to go on a walk every day and meet a 10,000-step daily goal. The winning team wins a prize by the end, encouraging teamwork and helping employees practice moderate physical exercise while working from home.
Instructor-led training is costly, time-consuming, and is quickly forgotten. It can be difficult for HR teams to measure the effectiveness of training and development especially when it’s conducted on a weekend every couple of months.
While instructor-led training can be inspirational, it can just be that: only inspirational. According to the forgetting curve hypothesis (which refers to the strength of human memory and time it takes to lose information), humans can typically forget half of what they learned just days or weeks after they learn it.
So, while going attending an instructor-led training session can be great for employee morale, it may not really be effective. When newly-fed information is not re-practiced or re-affirmed, it will quickly be forgotten – driving the case further against traditional instructor-led training.
On the other hand, the learning curve showcases that the more someone performs a task, the better they get at it. Hence, the more you practice, the better you become as you get more experience: the same goes for company training.
However, it can be costly to train employees regularly, and it can be ineffective if the training is about different subjects and topics every time. Employees will not retain the information, and it will go to waste. It would also be boring to repeat the same training over-and-over again.
How AI is changing the game
Companies can have a complete and automated learning and development journey by leveraging artificial intelligence to support their business goals. Here’s how.
1. Enabling continuous learning
With AI-powered learning platforms, employees can practice bite-sized information for 5-10 minutes every day, which does not affect their work during office hours. This is fully automated, and with AI, learners will receive personalized advice and suggestions to help them improve according to their own pace.
This enables employees to easily track their learning, revise, and eventually master topics overtime. With AI-enabled microlearning, employees can:
– Spend as little as 5 to 10 minutes daily to complete one microlearning module out of a course
– Read relevant and specific chunks of information that do not disrupt the flow of work
– Access a complete overview of their performance through stats and reports
– Keep track of their progress
– Complete practice exercises and surpass challenges to reinforce the information they learned
– Review what they learned over time
– Achieve lifelong learning
– Practice and quiz themselves
2. Automating learning transfer
Instructor-led training can be very vague, or would only provide a general overview, while some employees would need more specific training.
With AI learning and development solutions, employees can ask questions and receive specific answers, and they would complete coursework that is relevant to their department and work. This will help employees learn transferable skills that can be applied in the workplace, improving the entire organization’s productivity and efficiency.
Recent studies have also proven that you are more likely to retain information by studying small chunks of content daily rather than spending one full day of learning.
AI-powered learning can:
– Assess the progress of employees
– Improve productivity
– Provide measurable results in the workplace
– Enable employees to develop good habits over time
3. Predicting learner performance through historical data
Like humans, artificial intelligence learns with time, but it doesn’t forget and has the added advantage of predicting the future more accurately than us. By analyzing the performance of learners over time, AI solutions can help managers put more achievable goals for their teams.
This provides facilitated workforce planning, with measurable learning and development ROI. With a culture of continuous improvement, companies will see performance gains.
4. Increasing engagement
Technology can be accessed immediately. With AI-enabled chatbots, learners can ask any question to a chatbot and receive their answers immediately. This helps speed up employee upskilling as they apply learning outcomes immediately.
Some tools also apply gamification aspects that help drive higher engagement. Some elements of engagement that can be applied include:
– Missions
– Personalized reminders
– Multiplayer challenges
– Leaderboards
Concluding notes
As AI becomes a more crucial element of education today, its applications in learning and development can increase productivity, reduce costs, improve employee morale, and much more. With the advent of remote work, employers can offer more flexible modes of learning and development that are measurable and transferable into the workplace.
To discover how AI is reforming other industries, read more on our blog
Want to integrate AI into your business? Get in touch