Real Time Technology Means Today’s Training Differs From Yesterday’s

Today’s fast paced world needs massive amounts of training ‘’in the moment,’’ particularly in the digital world.
Many company learning and development departments have started responding with the needs of immediate learning by creating small amounts of learning, called micro learning. 
According to Pierce Ivory, Marketing Director of Advance Systems, this approach is critical for ‘’just in time’’ training. For many companies this is standard operational procedure.
But, according to Ivory, there are many more options available to help employees improve their skills or learn new skills.
Moving Training into Today’s Real Time World: Deloitte’s 2017 survey of Corporate Learning revealed that companies are now very concerned about improving employee careers and transforming corporate learning. Learning technology is finally moving forward as traditional learning management systems are replaced or complemented with numerous technologies used in content, distribution, videos and mobile usage.
An important point of concern for both employees and companies is the idea that humans will likely live for 100 years.  This means that humans can expect to work for 60 years. Most of us grew up with the assumption that a career consisted of learning the skills for a career, working during the career period, and, then retiring for the remainder of life. This is now changing to a growing need for continuous learning during our career(s) because of the fast pace of technology and the increased demands of change in order to accelerate productivity and profits.
The future for both companies and employees is change and change must be frequent.  Continuous learning is and will be, more critical to business success. Digital organizations are at the forefront of change as these companies demand that their learning and development departments deliver learning that is always available and that this availability includes a wide range of mobile programs.
These companies are demanding ‘’real-time’’ learning. This type of learning is more than one instance of training/learning and must be available ‘’when needed, as needed’’.
Real-time training/learning is a live, real-time working environment that provides learning as it is needed.  This allows employees instant availability to learn by connecting to needed information in order to accomplish tasks at the exact moment it is needed. This is, in reality, a ‘’productivity’’ platform that is always on and available to all employees. For example, an employee is putting together a new process for his team.  He needs to know how to do one simple task.  Rather than sitting through days of training for the entire process, he simply goes on-line and looks up the solution he needs. Learning time? About three minutes, as compared to the old-style learning of 24-40 hours.
According to the 2017 Deloitte Insight on Learning and Careers, ‘’ Virtually all CEOs (90 percent) believe their company is facing disruptive change driven by digital technologies, and 70 percent say their organization does not have the skills to adapt. This doubt reflects the fact that skills are becoming obsolete at an accelerating rate. Software engineers must now redevelop skills every 12–18 months. Professionals in marketing, sales, manufacturing, law, accounting, and finance report similar demands.’’
Solutions for Real Time Training: One of the possible ‘’instant’’ solutions is the advent of low cost or free, high-quality continuous learnings that are offered to both employees and companies. For example, the Deloitte Insight survey recommends ‘’Khan Academy, Udacity, Udemy, Coursera’’ and many others are available online instantly.
Additionally, many progressive companies are utilizing real-time learning that is delivered digitally by employees and shared with other employees. GE recently shared data on their creation of ‘’Brilliant U, an online learning platform that offers employee-driven learning across the company.  Thirty percent of GE employees developed content and shared it with their peers during the first year of Brilliant U.’’
Many other companies are actively looking for available new learning tools at all levels of technology for all levels of their employees. Their goal is to provide a first-class learning experience which promotes learning for the full 60 years of careers and the resultant 60 years of career learnings.
Additionally, as continual movement across organizations becomes standard, organizations are providing employees’ opportunities to adapt through ‘’intelligent assistance.’’ One of the primary companies leading the way is AT&T. They state that they ‘’ have invested $250 million for employees’ education and development programs for approximately 14,000 employees with a focus on continuous career development (learning).’’
AT&T’s stated that they believe they have a ‘’fundamental obligation to reskill their workforce and expects that this group will change roles every four years.’’ They add that ‘’continual learning will benefit the company and the employees as they learn new skills and advance their careers.’’
Technology is driving continual change; as technology drives the future of work, businesses must look further into the future to determine increased real-time learning strategies. Technology will be of no value if employees cannot quickly learn to utilize the new technology. Doing so results in improved employee productivity which results in business success.
Productivity in Real Time: Productivity is the ‘’holy grail’’ of U.S. business and companies now understand that an increased focus on improving their workforce results in greater productivity which results in greater profitability.
Real time learning can provide the needed training for increased knowledge and productivity. Those companies who create environments in which employees can continually learn are rewarding themselves and their employees. Employees are more valuable when they learn new skills and/or refresh their current skills.  Even better, when employees also have access to data and decisions are backed accordingly, they can easily perform higher level tasks.  And those tasks have improved accuracy, quality and time to complete as they quickly move forward to other tasks.
Real time learning is here to stay and we will soon forget the old style lengthy learning processes that were time consuming and often non-beneficial. As we move forward to probable lengthened careers, we can look forward to real time learning as it helps our careers, keeps us on the path of career progression and helps avoid the boredom we once experienced in a repetitive task environment. Life is good and we’re glad to be in this area of continual technology and real time learning.