Revolutionize Employee Upskilling: Strategies for Delivering Impactful Learning Experiences

A study by Gallup stated that 48% of American workers would switch to a new job if offered skills training opportunities, and 65% of workers believe employer-provided upskilling is very important when evaluating a potential new job. 

Amidst a fierce talent war, employee upskilling is imperative to accelerate workforce, reduce employee turnover, and to see increased productivity. Creating a company culture with continuous learning and upskilling not only helps with employee retention, it helps current employees reduce the skills gap, build new skills, and improves workforce needs.

“There’s a war [for] talent,” said Tom Alstein, global OD leader at Deloitte, at a Salesforce panel discussion in 2022. “And if you don’t invest in their learning, they will not even think about working for you.”

However, upskilling employees at scale can be challenging, especially when it comes to ensuring the learning experience is effective and engaging. 

A good learning experience improves knowledge retention and serves as a stepping stone toward career growth opportunities. Govind Srinivasan, Global L&D Leader Conduent, shares in an insightful conversation with Disprz Vice President & Business Head – Kiran Dev how they give importance to the learning experience in their organization. He adds that once employees come into the learning ecosystem, it is crucial to offer an integrated learning experience to hook learners by giving them what they want” Check out the full conversation below:

Boost Employee Upskilling: Strategies for Delivering Impactful Learning Experiences

Did you know that learners forget an average of 50% of information within just one hour of learning it? And within 24 hours, that number jumps to 70% (Source – Indegene)?

These startling statistics demonstrate the impact of delivering ineffective training sessions. Hence it is crucial to invest efforts in engaging employees in immersive learning experiences that they remember and implement on the job. 

Below we’ve compiled a few strategies to improve the upskilling training experience that will help employees not only retain what they’ve learned but also apply it to their work, driving real results for your organization: 

1. Blended learning: a dynamic approach to optimizing employee training and upskilling 

Blended learning, also widely recognized as hybrid learning, is a powerful and effective approach for delivering impactful and immersive employee upskilling experiences. You can seamlessly collaborate the human interaction of synchronous learning (classroom/live sessions) with the self-paced flexibility of asynchronous learning to give the learners the best of both worlds.

This effective approach helps in optimizing upskilling training in the following ways:

Improve flexibility: Blended learning offers current employees the flexibility to learn at their own pace. The employee can revisit the courses till they grasp a concept thoroughly. Moreover, they can choose the format that best suits their learning needs, for instance, some learners would like to watch videos, while some might like to listen to a podcast. This also increases employee satisfaction with the training program. 

Increase knowledge retention: Blended learning enables employees to learn a new concept in a face-to-face setting and then reinforce it by taking assessments on a digital learning platform. So employees get an opportunity to apply their new skills and knowledge through practice exercises. 

Boost engagement: The freedom to learn independently at their preferred time as well as attend interactive learning sessions, surely helps in driving employee engagement. This increases engagement and can lead to better learning outcomes, increased productivity, and a happier workforce.    

2. Experiential learning: create an interactive skilling environment 

Experiential learning can play a catalyst in delivering an immersive learning experience and ensure the active participation of the employees in their learning and development process. It provides hands-on experience that helps employees grasp information better. 

It gives employees room to practice and incorporate the acquired skill sets in a real-world situation. For instance to reinforce training on handling dissatisfied customers requesting refunds, the manager conducts mock call sessions with each support executive. The manager plays the role of an irate customer, while the executive applies techniques taught in training to an escalated situation. Role-play doubles the retention of training information and allows for performance improvement suggestions from managers and L&D professionals.

3. Personalization: Key for tapping into employee interest 

77% of L&D professionals feel that personalized learning is vital to employee engagement. (Source – America Learning Media)

Personalization has the power to deliver meaningful experiences and level up employee upskilling.  Personalized learning allows the company to eliminate unnecessary information and provide specific skills training based on the needs of each individual employee. Now, employees can learn new skills or build on existing skills that are relevant to them and their career progression needs.

Let’s see how, with the help of  an example:

Instead of providing a generic course on closing deals, the L&D professional created a personalized training program for two struggling sales reps on their pain points. One received email templates for following up with prospective customers, while the other received negotiation recordings from top performers to build on his skill gaps. This helped both the sales reps in addressing the skill gaps to close the deals successfully.  

Thus, personalized learning helps boost engagement, captures interest, and enhances knowledge retention by tailoring training to employees’ unique needs, interests, and skill gaps. 

How to Choose the Right Learning Experience Technology for your organization

A Learning Experience Platform, popularly known as LXP, plays a significant role in offering dynamic learning experiences. However, it is crucial to make an informed decision while choosing an LXP: 

Opt for an LXP that enables you to: 

• Address your skilling requirements by providing visibility into skilling trend assists you in creating  personalized learning experiences for your workforce
• Track and improves learners’ skill readiness with AI-based recommendations
• Assess skilling progress through skill score and role score analytics 
• Slice and dice learning insights as per your business’s unique learning needs 

Disprz LXP is a fantastic example of one such holistic solution that provides all of the above and much more to elevate employees’ learning experience in your organization. It is an end-to-end skilling suite that enables you to identify the skill gap and provide the right employee upskilling experience to improve employee performance and set them up for success. Check out how Disprz LXP can help you move beyond basic learning and take a skill-driven approach to unlock the employee’s full potential and prepare them for the next role.