Adaptability Is Key To The Success Of L&D Programs

Learn how five organizations dealt with the impact of Covid-19

The last year has thrown HR teams into disarray. Organizations went from working in an office and solving problems in the meeting room to working remotely and communicating over Zoom, literally overnight, which has had a major impact on the way we work and learn. Gone are face-to-face training seminars, which have been replaced with webinars and e-learning. These dramatic changes and disruptions have had a unique impact on organizations and industries.
 

What we’ve learned above anything else is the critical importance of adaptability, including technology, processes, workflows and employees themselves. As much of the world regains control over the Covid-19 pandemic, what remains is the need to maintain adaptability, which will allow organizations of all sizes and across all sectors to handle whatever might happen next.

Below, we will take a look at how five organizations dealt with the impact of Covid-19, and how adaptability was the key to their survival and success.

Etex Building Performance Tackled Learning and Communication Remotely

When the UK went into national lockdown, the majority of Etex Building Performance’s employees were furloughed. Etex Building Performance is a manufacturer that builds and sells plasterboard. Lockdown was, of course, a very confusing and worrying time for many employees, who were suddenly left at home not knowing what would happen to their roles. Etex was already using a learning management system (LMS), but at the start of the pandemic they rebranded their LMS as the “Learning & Communication Hub.”

Without access to their usual worksites and Microsoft Office 365 integration, LMS logins were reset to allow remote access from personal devices, providing a much-needed lifeline for furloughed employees looking to access training, support from their managers and internal news and updates. The new communications hub comprised news, CEO updates, wellbeing advice and fun quizzes, along with a forum and chat box to maintain communication throughout the furlough period. These LMS adaptations led to a staggering 284% increase in system usage, with course completion rates more than doubling at the height of the UK’s lockdown as employees sought ways to stay skilled and connected.

AFL Coaches Association Pivoted to Online Learning Amid Covid-19

The Australian Football League Coaches Association needed a way to deliver mental health training and support to their extended network of 500 Australian Rules community football clubs, 5,000 coaches and 50,000 children and their families. The Tackle Your Feelings program needed to be delivered within a tight timeframe, and needed to integrate with the main AFL learning management system.

The initial plan was to adopt a blended learning program comprising both face-to-face events and online learning. However, Covid-19 meant that the program had to be temporarily delivered entirely online. The adaptability of their LMS enabled them to integrate virtual face-to-face sessions into the program, meaning that engagement sessions between program participants, facilitators and psychologists flowed just as well as the planned in-person sessions. In fact, the online sessions worked so well that the AFL Coaches Association may now be able to spread the program further than they initially intended.

The Met Office Delivers its First Remote Exams

The Met Office has a wide variety of use cases, from training employees to external learners in the oil and gas industry to university students. Their primary use case, though, is their degree-standard learning program to train the next generation of weather forecasters and meteorologists. 

The Met Office’s exams would normally take place in person, but in summer 2020, they delivered their first-ever remote exams owing to Covid-19. Choosing an adaptable LMS has proved vital in the pandemic’s turbulent times, with instructors providing Microsoft Teams links for live online sessions, as well as creating interactive activities with an H5P plugin. This seamless switch to online learning has prompted a two-fold increase in unique site logins since the start of the pandemic.

The ISTD Switches to Online Assessment

For many years, student teachers across Europe have submitted their work to the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) in the form of paper-based portfolios posted to London. Assessors would then convene in London four times a year to mark the work. Additionally, examinations were traditionally conducted in person, with examiners watching teachers deliver lessons in person.

However, Covid-19 prompted a major change. The ISTD rapidly pivoted to online exams and assessment, where dance teachers recorded or live streamed lessons and uploaded them to an online platform for marking. Their adaptable LMS supported the integration of an end-to-end video sharing solution, giving ISTD the freedom to innovate within the volatile pandemic environment, as well as saving $20,000 in assessors’ travel costs alone each year.

BaptistCare’s Extended Enterprise LMS Supported Learners Throughout the Pandemic

BaptistCare’s LMS is used to train employees, students and volunteers who support the organization’s mission to serve and care for the elderly population. Access to content libraries, microlearning and face-to-face seminars are vital for delivering learning across and outside the organization. 

However, when Covid-19 struck, face-to-face learning had to be reduced, and replaced with equivalent live webinars. On top of this, BaptistCare was able to quickly develop and roll out new Covid-19 course material within days, not months, to address the rapidly changing situation. Leadership, team and personal development workshops moved online instantaneously to support remote workers, and this new online-first blended program kept learners on track with their development despite the disruption of the pandemic.

What to Look for When Implementing Adaptable Learning

As we can see, adaptability is crucial for today’s organizations in terms of people, processes and technology. When it’s time for you to upgrade your learning technology, make sure you choose an adaptable LMS by prioritizing flexibility, not features. Avoid being locked into your vendor’s proprietary roadmap by selecting an LMS that openly grows with you and can be tailored to your own unique requirements. This will not only immediately save you time and money, successfully responding to the unexpected will likely define whether your business survives or thrives in the new world ahead of us. 

Author Bio

Lars Hyland is a respected thought leader in the fields of HR and learning technology and the Chief Learning Officer of Totara. Lars has over 30 years’ experience working with a wide range of organizations to build workplace learning experiences that raise people’s performance, productivity, and engagement. Connect Lars Hyland