It’s been said that the only constant is change, and we think that’s a good thing. Our environment—the corporate world, the marketplace, our company culture—is always evolving, so it’s crucial to be able to adapt. One major challenge your business may face as it does so, especially if it is successfully meeting goals and expanding reach, is accounting for scale. As your number of employees grows, more and more people will need to be trained, and your current training solution might not be enough. Even if you don’t need to revamp content to engage a larger audience, can the technology you have access to now accommodate large-scale growth?
Just as scale can look different within different categories of training, as we discussed in last week’s blog post, there are also three distinct ways to think about it as it relates to your LMS, learning portal, and/or performance support solutions. Each of these categories has its own considerations, and they should all be taken into account as you select the technology your organization will use to host your training solution.
3 Ways Tech and Scale Intersect
Content
First, we’ll examine content scaling—the increased scope of content that learners need to access and absorb as an organization grows. Customization is increasingly important to today’s learners, and a one-size-fits-all training method often won’t promote enough engagement and interest. The best learning allows the trainee to see how the material directly affects them, their best interests, and their day-to-day tasks in the workforce. However, this can be challenging to accomplish as the number of employees using the training grows. And even if the content in the elearning program is ready to support the organization’s capacity, the technology behind it must be able to handle it as well.
Your LMS or portal support must be able to deliver a wide variety of file types and modalities (such as video playback), but good performance support is more than just files. Content needs vary from organization to organization, and further growth and development within the company require different levels of technological support. For instance, our learning portal can accommodate blended solutions, incorporating support for both digital media and traditional instructor-led training. The portal can utilize scheduled events to structure the time, pace, and path of the learner’s experience with the training, which can all help personalize the learning experience at any organizational scale.
Audience
Our second scale category refers to the scope of those the training will reach. To account for your extended enterprise—that is, the possibility of making your training resources available to audiences outside your immediate workforce, you must account for a learner experience that can engage all of these audiences. Aside from the obvious learner group, your employees, you may wish to expand your training to include any of the following:
- Sales partners
- Vendors
- Consultants
- Customers
- Other external stakeholders
Incorporating an extended enterprise into your training strategy has many benefits (including reduced risk, a strengthened brand, and improved business processes) so it’s a worthy aspect to focus on as you think about your company and scale. Your performance support solution, and the technology behind it, should allow for all its audiences to reach and engage with it.
User Experience
The final scale category we’ll touch on is user experience (UX) and its specific considerations that impact a project’s scope and capacity. Depending on the size of the audience, the depth of content, and its industry’s requirements, some UX features must be accommodated for in support of a training solution. Because the modern workplace (and those involved with it) favor on-demand learning, technology must account for learners accessing information when and where they need it most. This, of course, brings us to the rise of training on mobile devices such as phones or tablets and the need for a responsive UX that can accommodate different screen sizes. Furthermore, because some workplaces cannot always guarantee an internet connection, an offline modality may be necessary to keep the learning experience streamlined and effective.
How Do We Fit In?
At AllenComm, we like to think toward the future, and this means accounting for future growth through our training technology solutions. Our learning technology is award-winning and tailored to deliver the best elearning experience possible to our clients and their audiences. Through our flexible architecture, we take scale into account as we build a partnership that can meet your needs now and adapt to future change as well. Since we don’t charge for extra users, our solutions can allow for growth within your organization without additional budget restraints.
Questions about our technology? Want to learn more about how we account for scale? Don’t hesitate to contact us! Be sure to check back next week for more discussion on scale and how our courseware process works for scale with our clients.
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