For many organizations, the pandemic cemented remote work as the new norm. Employee training and development programs have largely been included in the shift from in-person to remote working environments, and it’s a good thing, considering boosting employee knowledge, productivity, and morale has arguably never been more important.
Like other facets of remote work, online employee training and development programs have introduced some benefits, such as greater accessibility, flexibility, and convenience. Still, the nature of in-person, hands-on learning with real, live instructors remains uniquely effective. Without an adequate alternative, newly virtual employee training programs are apt to suffer.
Today’s Realities Demand a New Approach to Learning
With all of the changes and challenges brought on by the pandemic, employees require the tools and knowledge they need to succeed now more than ever. Given the overwhelming and ever-growing amount of information available online, employees also require clear pathways for discovering relevant content quickly. The rapidly accelerating pace of business and technology innovation, coupled with the number of organizations with strapped resources, requires ‘in-the-flow’ learning. In other words, the ability to learn and train anywhere, at any time — even in the middle of a project or task.
Organizations can no longer rely on employee training that involves passively watching a four-hour video or attending a live one-week conference. While these modalities are invaluable for in-depth and lively discussions, they are simply not realistic in our new remote and hybrid working reality, at least for the time being. Instead, organizations must individually empower their employees to seek answers and move forward with learning while they work.
Interactive learning, propelled by artificial intelligence (AI) and recent advancements in natural language processing (NLP) in particular, is a crucial approach for organizations striving to thoughtfully adapt their employee training and development programs. For example, AI and NLP technology can provide a fast and intuitive process for continuously finding solutions to problems and exploring new pathways of content discovery.
Unlike legacy search platforms, AI and NLP technology can offer organizations the ability to incorporate question-and-answer semantic search engines into their training and development programs. This enables employees to input questions in conversational, natural language and retrieves relevant, contextual answers instantly from a vast library of learning content.
AI and NLP Technology Deliver Key Training and Development Benefits
Thankfully, AI technology is no longer reserved solely for organizations with ample resources and deep domain expertise. Cloud-enabled solutions have democratized AI capabilities significantly in recent years, giving any organization access to AI tools via cloud vendors such as AWS, GCP, and Azure. Each of these platforms provides tooling that allows your organization to use the latest in NLP and other types of AI-related technology. By leveraging cloud-enabled AI solutions in an effort to spur interactive learning and optimize online training programs, organizations can benefit employees as they:
- Receive fast, contextually relevant answers to specific questions they pose, allowing employees to resume their work with minimal delay or interruption. This eliminates the need to waste time skimming through chapters of text or pages of learning modules.
- Search large volumes of information in complete sentences vs. keywords, as if they were posing questions to a real, live teacher or expert, as opposed to a computer.
- Access virtual learning pathways that enable them to easily find information that’s most relevant to them. At the same time employees break from established search and learning patterns and navigate new pathways of content discovery, organizations can better understand the specific skills employees are looking to refine and what they need to succeed.
- Improve skill sets by building on existing knowledge. With NLP, employees are equipped to leverage new and emerging topics and technologies as needed, instead of being required to revisit training they’re already well-versed on.
- Learn in quick bursts of knowledge, helping employees keep immediate projects moving forward without being required to miss concentrated work time.
- Benefit from machine-generated captions for audio and video learning experiences that lack them.
The Future Requires Interactive Learning While in the Flow of Work
The changes brought on by the pandemic are far from over. However, the use of AI and NLP technology can help organizations shape how their employees train and develop as our hybrid and remote work environments evolve. As the use of AI to support and augment the workforce increases, both technologies will play a critical role in employee training and education.
An interactive approach to learning that combines intuitive, self-guided, virtual instruction with live, online training will be paramount as organizations continue to navigate this transition. By embracing interactive learning and corresponding technologies, organizations and their employees can learn, improve, and innovate while in the flow of work. This will be a true game-changer for both businesses and knowledge workers today and in the future.
