Workplace Learning & Technology Trends 2020 (Part 4): Online Content Library

As weslowly come closer to the end of 2019, it’s that time of the year again to lookat what ‘was’ and what ‘will be’ in the year to come. Every year brings with ita flurry of new trends, mostly driven by emerging technologies and innovations,which transform employee training just a little bit every time.

With the global eLearning market on a growth trajectory and poised to touch $15.72 billion by the year 2021, it is up to organizations and L&D leaders to get ahead of the curve and start planning and strategizing to leverage the newer learning and learning technology trends for the coming year/s.

Over thenext few weeks, we will take a detailed and comprehensive look at what L&Dleaders must embrace and what they need to let go of in 2020 and beyond- be itin terms of eLearning, learning delivery, employee engagement, new and emergingtechnologies and more.

In Part 3of this series we explored the emergence of Learning Experience Platforms. Today, we explore the importance of Online ContentLibraries and how L&D leaders can leveragethem to reskill/ upskill the workforce.

Importance of Online Content Libraries

Theurgency for employee upskilling/ reskilling has peaked in organizations across amultitude of industries all over the world. Learning technology solutions likethe LMS and LXP are driving the effectiveness and ease of access of eLearningcontent, whereas the necessity to skill the workforce for the future is increasingly becoming business critical.

Withmore focus on the employees’ learning experiences and their professionaldevelopment, L&D professionals have more to gain from leveraging solutionsthat ensure the success of their eLearning project, and one of the few solutionsto have proven highly effective in this case are OnlineContent Libraries.

L&Dprofessionals yet find themselves struggling to choose between custom-developedeLearning courses and online content libraries. Although both options havebenefits and advantages of their own, organizations stand to gain more valuefrom leveraging an online content library to effectively skill their employees.

Theysay that ‘a good start is halfway to success’, however one of the many reasonswhy many L&D programs end up unsuccessful is because they never take off inthe first place, let alone other factors like user adoption, reception,engaging learning technology solutions; and often times a project never kicksoff due to the unavailability of training courses.

Whilecreating custom courses demands a hefty investment of cost and time forselecting vendors, planning and developing courses and testing them on yourlearning platform, an onlinecontent library is an onlinerepository of eLearning courses that have been pre-created, and areavailable online for ready usage. Such extensive libraries of eLearning coursesand videos offer a vast spectrum of training content and are designed in closeconsultation with domain specific Subject Matter Experts.

Furthermore,these content libraries are available in several formats, including text, HTMLand videos, micro-learning snippets and more. In addition, these courses are mobileoptimized and cover a multitude of topics, from hard skill, soft skills,technical knowledge to trending digital technologies.

Evidently,then, online content libraries are quite effective to kick start newer eLearningprojects.

Role of Online Content Libraries in 2020 & Beyond

Accordingto the popular news platform, The Independent, “Next global financial crisis willstrike in 2020, warns investment bank JPMorgan – sparked by automated tradingsystems.” Meanwhile, Forbes suggests, “2020s mightbe the worst decade in US history, triggered by contagion from a global creditcrisis.” Such reports clearly point towards ongoing concernsregarding an impending global economic crisis and its inevitable fallout. Moreover,it appears that 2020 is the year that crash 2.0 finally makes landfall. So,what does this mean for L&D?

Let’sface it- while improving employee engagement and productivity is still a major focus for organizations, when facingan economic crisis, the percentage of budget allotted to L&D inadvertently disappears. However, slackened budget doesn’t haveto affect your employee L&D. To a larger extent, L&D can subduethe panic by reassuring the workforce through reskilling/ upskilling initiatives.But, to function effectively under a stringent budget, L&D professionals needadopt an agile approach along with effective learning tools.

Organizationsoften turn to L&D in the face of critical business challenges, ones thatrequire urgent employee skilling. In such cases, organizations need a quickfix, with hardly any time for developing custom content. As a result, anorganization’s go-to-market will happen quickly with the help of an onlinecontent library. 

Contentlibraries don’t require extravagant budgets to buy. And, learning technologysolutions or an LMS with a built incontent library are highly effective in delivering training,where organizations can plan training initiativeswhenever they want, as the courses are readily available on several onlinemarketplaces, like Cegos, Biz Library, Udemy, LinkedIn Learning among others.

One of the greatest advantages of content libraries is the limitless availability of diverse courses, including Business Skills, Information Technology, Marketing & Innovation, Finance & Management and many more. There is something for everyone to aim for individual as well as collective development goals, along with the ability to choose diverse topics, help build the necessary skills needed for the future of work.

Moreimportantly, content libraries are a great resource not only for small andmedium businesses but also for anyone who is in need of training. Enterprises especially leverage content libraries to complement their custom eLearning programs toachieve a greater learning impact. And, equipped with an LMS with a built-in contentlibrary, organizations don’t have to worry aboutwasting time and/ or money anymore.

Takeaway

Eachyear, organizations invest millions into the L&D of employees, as it hasnow become a key business strategy to produce a future-ready workforce.ELearning has already taken over our workplaces and global organizations needto focus on offering content libraries to boost their eLearning programs.

Withthe help of online content libraries, organizations can provide widespreadtraining options for anybody and everybody in the organization by giving themthe opportunity to learn and enhance their skill sets. To get the best out of acontent library, choose the right LMS that suits your requirements and one that will enable you to achieve your learninggoals.

Next weekwe will explore the rise and rise of Mobile Learning and how L&D leaderscan leverage mobile devices to maximize training impact.

To knowmore about UpsideLMS’ built-in Content Library please visit https://www.upsidelms.com/online-content-library