Although we are living in an digital economy with new waves of technology enveloping the business world on a daily basis – from a practical perspective the gaps presented in existing systems and processes should dictate the types of technology that business invest in. As logical as this may seem, many local businesses tend to get swept away by some of the impressive tech solutions available in the market today and use the technology to dictate their training strategies. From our experience this approach can result in underutilisation of the technology, and with the same business challenges inevitably remaining.

Unfortunately most of these bleeding edge tech solutions are often not aligned with the needs of the user. Companies often love the idea of technology-driven training because it promises vast cost-savings on paper and printing, facilitation, training venues and so on. But the truth is that many users are finding the transition to technology-driven training to be very difficult. For example, many still value the opportunity to interact with a human trainer to ask questions, and find that this helps them to learn better than looking through an online FAQ. They also like to be in a setting where they can learn from their peers’ comments and questions.

We believe that electronic channels are great to support the learning process, and are also perfect for certain users who value the flexibility of learning at their own time and place. However, many users find it difficult to absorb the information and skills they’re meant to learn through intangible online materials. For them, traditional classroom approaches still have a great deal of value.

Today, the trainer isn’t a guru that dispenses all knowledge, but a facilitator who helps to direct learning.
If users have not learnt and absorbed what they need to know from their online training, it could have a massive effect on the ROI the organisation is able to get from the systems and processes it has deployed at great costs.