Senior Manager of Content

Portland, Oregon

He/His

For Dave McFarland, arriving at Senior Manager of Content for OpenSesame in early 2020 was the culmination of a teaching, design, and video production career. Dave has a discerning eye for the highest quality educational content and diverse voices. Today, he uses his experience to assemble best-in-class elearning, empowering all types of learners across the globe to grow their skills and knowledge. “It’s my team’s job to ensure the talent and experts in our catalog truly represent the diversity of our customer base,” Dave said. “It’s incredibly important the learners and our customers see themselves reflected in our courses and material.”

Briefly describe your role.

I lead a team that brings courses into the OpenSesame catalog that are exclusively available from us. We produce content for our catalog by working with subject matter experts and elearning developers to bring in new courses that match our customers’ topic and feature needs.

How did you get into the field you’re in?

I’ve been an instructor and trainer of adult learners for — well, let’s just say a long time. I was initially a web developer and designer as a magazine art director. I was interested in teaching people new skills. That led to teaching adult learners at universities, corporations, and continuing education programs. From there, I got into online video instruction, teaching computer programming and managed an educational programming and video team. At OpenSesame, we review lots of visual footage; I bring a design eye to producing courses. 

How has your OpenSesame team maintained a sense of community through the pandemic era?

I manage folks who work remotely — even before the pandemic — and the change to a remote culture has helped them feel more included in the organization and build stronger ties with their colleagues. Being a more remote company has certainly opened up avenues for hiring. It’s a positive we are increasing our talent pool. 

In what ways have you been supported by the OpenSesame team or culture?

The company’s response to the pandemic was terrific. The leadership team acted quickly to protect everyone’s safety. We’ve all worked hard to build an inclusive and vibrant remote culture to replace the in-person office life. The new programs — morning meditation, afternoon yoga, monthly online activities, and team virtual happy hours — have energized me during these difficult times. 

What has been the best part of working in your role? 

I get to work with so many fascinating subject matter experts and creatives outside our organization. I’ve talked to folks worldwide about their work, research, and the creative process of building exciting elearning opportunities.

How has the work you do changed following 2020? 

We’ve increased our publisher quality standards. We’ve been growing diversity in the content we produce. It’s my team’s job to ensure the talent and experts in our catalog truly represent the diversity of our customer base. It’s incredibly important the learners and our customers see themselves reflected in our courses and material.

What is your favorite course in the OS catalog?

The Power of Journaling by OpenMind – I’ve learned so many great techniques to focus, embrace gratitude, and explore my thoughts, and get organized.

What is your favorite TED course?

The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown I’m a people manager. It’s okay to be vulnerable, and it’s powerful to be vulnerable. You can become more human and create deeper bonds of trust. It flips the traditional narrative. 

What is the most unique thing about working at OpenSesame?

The leadership is fantastic. They have embraced transparency, empathy, and diversity and are willing to share so much with employees. The company structure was described to me as an inverted functional pyramid. At the top are the customers, then front-line folks, and then down to leadership at the bottom. Customers drive what we do. Our support people hear and communicate the customers’ needs down the chain. The people on the team who work closely with our customers are the real value of the organization. Leadership is here to support them. 

What advice would you give to new OS hires?

Ask lots of questions, seek help and meet as many people as possible — especially across teams. We have a friendly, giving, and collaborative culture. The sooner you learn the things you don’t know by reaching out, the sooner you’ll build working relationships that match our culture.

What makes a team member successful at OpenSesame?

Initiative, inquisitiveness, and humility

What’s something people may not know about you?

I dropped out of college for a semester and was a short-order cook at a breakfast place. It was the single best training I could have received in project management, prioritization, and customer service. 

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Established in February of 1926 as National Negro History Week by historian Carter G. Woodson and Minister Jesse E. Moorland, founders of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), Black Americans nationwide were encouraged to learn more about their heritage and celebrate their achievements as a people.

National Negro History Week transitioned to Black History Month as the celebration’s popularity continued to gain momentum, particularly among black college students during the Civil Rights Movement. Black History Month was officially formalized by President Gerald Ford in 1976 “to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout history.”

Now that Black History Month is a recognized national observance, many organizations are searching for ways to celebrate and participate, and it can be a great time to kick start DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives. Here are some approaches your organization may consider for honoring Black History Month:

1. 1. Host a Black History Month event and invite a panel of DEI experts to discuss how DEI is foundational to healthy company culture.
   2. Encourage your employees to support Black-owned businesses and volunteer with local nonprofits, providing a list of suggestions and ways to participate.
   3. Organize a book club with weekly guided discussions

Facilitating a culture of on-going awareness relating to Black and BIPOC cultural dynamics beyond Black History Month is critical. Consider committing to a long-term strategy. OpenSesame can help your company make DEI part of your organization’s framework. We are committed to working with our customers and communities to use the powerful tools of training and education to help create more diverse, inclusive, and equitable environments. We invite you to check out our curated list of courses. For more information on how OpenSesame can help your organization, contact us at info@opensesame.com today.

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Establishing and nurturing a learning culture is an ongoing process that requires long term
support (and work) from the leaders in your business. These are the people who will be
implementing and reinforcing training initiatives, so they have to care about this as much as you
do. Talk to them. Show why you care and what this change will do for the business as a whole.
People are naturally resistant to change, but you need everyone behind you to make a cultural
shift so share your passion and be prepared to convince the naysayers.

2. Make it official

If you want employees to embrace a learning culture, make training and development plans
mandatory. Learning only becomes a culture (rather than an occasional event) when it is a
standard part of working life for all employees.

3. Embrace the influencers

The social leaders in your workplace go beyond management. Think of your longstanding and
socially dominant employees as influencers. If you want buy-in across the whole business, you
would do well to get them on board. Share your plans and consider their feedback. Their
support will help you considerably, so don’t be afraid to ask for help.

4. Celebrate your training champions

It’s important to show employees who successfully complete their training that their efforts
won’t go unnoticed. You don’t need to throw a parade, but a little recognition goes a long way.
Send emails, say a few words in the office or construct an elaborate balloon arch over their
desks. It’s your call.

Another benefit worth noting here is that public recognition will encourage the wider team to
get involved in training themselves. Everyone loves a pat on the back!

5. Use feedback

It is important not just to ask for feedback, but to demonstrate that you will listen to it. Hold
regular sessions, run polls and encourage your team to be open about the negatives as well as
the positives. Training is an investment, and this is an excellent way to establish true ROI. If
something isn’t working, change it. This will ensure you and your team get the most out of the
time and money spent on learning.

6. Take advantage of the skills you develop

A huge advantage of a culture of learning for any business is the potential for growth from
within. Before looking externally for your next hire, look at the additional skills and experience
your people have gained since they joined you. You might just find your “new hire” is already
with you.

Making this approach a standard part of your hiring process will show your team that you are
serious about supporting their growth and, in turn, will cement their engagement in your
training and development initiatives.

About the Author: Tom Moore is Chief Operating Officer at iAM Learning – creators of engaging animated elearning content that improves performance and encourages professional development. The iAM Learning library features high-end animation, likeable characters and captivating stories that make even the most serious subjects appealing and unforgettable. You can access the library free for seven days with a no-obligation free trial. Visit https://www.opensesame.com/s/iam-learning now to get started!

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When it comes to professional development, traditional in-person training can be costly. 85% of dollars spent on classroom training is on delivery (instructor time, travel, rental space, etc), while switching to elearning can eliminate these costs entirely. 

eLearning also saves time by increasing the productivity of your workforce. Due to its flexibility and ability to customize, elearning demonstrates a 60% faster learning curve than instructor-led training. Allowing each learner to complete the training at their own pace means that employees can complete courses in their downtime rather than having to fit a training into their already busy schedules. eLearning also supports a geographically widespread workforce since employees can access courses wherever they are. 

OpenSesame helps companies like yours develop the world’s most developed and admired workforces. For more information on how using elearning can help you save time and money, contact us today at info@opensesame.com. 

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Except not always.  In fact, a recent article suggests that 20% of new employees either quit or are terminally disenchanted after only 45 days on the job.  

Sometimes it’s all them.  Sometimes a chronically lazy and incompetent person can trick you all the way into getting hired; it’s happened to all of us.  But it’s also possible that some of your failed hires would have actually done a bang-up job if they’d been given the right opportunities.  So if you’re wondering what you might do better to increase the likelihood that your new hires turn out to be the kind of employees you want them to be, here are a few questions you should ask yourself:

Are We Giving Our New Employees Only the Most Thankless Assignments? 

We all know new employees are hired specifically to do the things we don’t want to do anymore.  But if all of the work you’re assigning to your new employees is menial and monotonous, it won’t take long for them to lose whatever enthusiasm they had coming into the position.  

Are You Providing Sufficient Training? 

Learning takes time, and time is money.  Unfortunately, that means a lot of us tend to focus on how much money we’re wasting by allowing people to learn things.  I haven’t actually checked recently, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t offering degrees in Payroll Processing and Oil Drilling and Account Executive-ing at any of your local universities.  And what about sending them to an upcoming conference? Yes, we all know that they might get drunk at one of the vendor-sponsored parties, but they might also see your industry as an exciting one they want to become a bigger part of.    

Are You Inadvertently Forcing Them to Showcase Their Ignorance? 

Almost by definition, new employees don’t know as much as your more experienced team members.  So make sure you’re not accidentally expecting them to immediately perform at the same level as everyone else.  One innovative solution I’ve heard to make new employees feel confident and excited is to provide them an opportunity to present on a topic they know a lot about; it shows your older employees that your new hires actually do know something useful, and it shows your new hires that you appreciate their knowledge and experience.  

When you factor in training time and other costs, each new employee you hire actually costs twice as much as the salary you pay them.  You’re more than welcome to spend all that extra money on a never-ending stream of new, permanently disengaged employees. But personally, I’d rather have a boat.

For more information on how to engage new employees check out available courses from The Jeff Havens Company in the OpenSesame course catalog.

About the Author: Jeff Havens is a speaker, author, and business growth expert who has spoken to over 1,000 companies and associations across the Americas and Asia. The mission of his training company, The Jeff Havens Company, is to provide serious solutions in a seriously funny way through their video-based courses that tackle everything from industrial safety to corporate ethics to customer service, and all of them are as entertaining as they are educational. Jeff is a contributing writer to Fast Company, Entrepreneur, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal; and has been featured on CNBC and Fox Business. For more information, email info@jeffhavens.com, or visit JeffHavens.com.

The post Are Your New Hires Failing to Meet Expectations? It Might Not Be Entirely Their Fault appeared first on OpenSesame.

Diversity. It can mean different things to different people. One thing is for sure though, it’s a must-have for businesses these days. It’s a no-brainer that diversity brings more viewpoints and solutions into the workplace, but it also goes beyond your current workplace. Thanks to communication technologies, business interactions have become more global and more mobile every day. There is no denying diversity is crucial, but how does it really make a difference? 

• • Two-Dimensional diversity (2-D diversity): 2-D diversity is when inherited diversity (gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc) is paired with experiential diversity (having worked in a foreign country, etc). 2-D diversity creates more communication, increases innovation and leads to teams working better together to solve business problems.
  • Recruitment: According to Glassdoor, two-thirds of people polled say diversity is an important element when choosing a company. 
  • Avoid turnover: Since employees value diversity so much, if they see a lack thereof in the workplace they may choose to leave. Lack of diversity can also be linked to a hostile work environment, leading employees to quit.     
  • Capture more of the market: Organizations are more global than ever- the more diversity, the easier it is to market your company around the world to people of different backgrounds, religions, ethnicities, ages, and sexual orientations.

Making Diversity Work

So you’ve hired a diverse workforce, all is well and done, right? It looks good on paper but that’s because the measurement was easy– it was a headcount. The trickier metric of diversity is inclusion. Numerous studies have shown that diversity doesn’t always drive inclusion. In fact, there is often backlash resulting from diversity without inclusion. A CTI study found these statistics to prove the backlash by researching sponsorship of senior-level managers of different ethnicities:

“Research on sponsorship and multicultural professionals, for example, shows that although 41% of senior-level African-Americans, 20% of senior-level Asians, and 18% of senior-level Hispanics feel obligated to sponsor employees of the same gender or ethnicity as themselves (for Caucasians the number is 7%), they hesitate to take action. Sponsors of color, especially at the top, are hobbled by the perception of giving special treatment to protégés of color and the concern that protégés might not “make the grade.” The result: Just 18% of Asians, 21% of African-Americans, and 25% of Hispanics step up to sponsorship (and 27% of Caucasians).”

From this, CTI came up with a method to measure and quantify inclusiveness, leading them to discover the four main levers that drive inclusiveness:

1. 1. Inclusive leaders: This type of leader is made up of six elements. Making sure team members speak up and are heard, creating a safe space to propose ideas, empowering teams to make decisions, taking advice and actually implementing feedback, and sharing credit for team success.
   2. Allowing authenticity: Research found that 37% of African-Americans and Hispanics say “they compromise their authenticity”, while this is true of 45% of Asians surveyed.
   3. Networking and visibility: For women and people of color, getting to the top requires overcoming the hurdle of sponsorship; a senior-level exec that sees the true value in them and can pull them up the ranks with advocacy for promotions and key assignments.
   4. Clear career paths: For women, LGBTQ individuals, and people of color, it’s hard to see the next move. There are a number of reasons for this, but a couple that CTI found are that they’re simply being passed over for high-level assignments and that 45% of women have to leave the workforce to take care of children, and more.

Diversity really is more than just altering a head count. It’s the ability to allow people with unique backgrounds to feel unified, in and out of the workplace. To learn more about improving and implementing diversity in the workplace, check out the 275+ inclusion and diversity courses on OpenSesame. Also, make sure to read the full Harvard Business Review articles to learn more about how diversity can drive innovation and how it doesn’t stick without inclusion. 

About the author: Parker Abena, a summer marketing intern at OpenSesame, is a senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He looks forward to moving out to the PNW after school.

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Therefore, it should be no surprise that few businesses see the improvements promised by advocates of new technology. Last year, the New York Times ran an article,“Why the Economic Payoff From Technology Is So Elusive,” which noted that, despite an ever increasing amount of new technology and solutions designed to make us more productive, the actual rate of productivity growth from 2011 to 2015 was the lowest in 30 years!

For example, I’ve seen companies roll out Office 365 to their staff based in part on the promise of improved productivity. “It’s like having an extra 30 minutes every day!” “ROI of 150% or more!”

Presented with the new tools and features of Office 365, such as those outlined in this course by Bigger Brains offered through OpenSesame, employees will likely just use Outlook Excel just like they’ve done for years out of habit.  New tools like Planner, Teams, or Groups are overlooked. Exciting features like cloud collaboration are ignored.

This is where HR, IT, and learning and development professionals must team up to push people to embrace new tools that help them do their job in a more productive way and build new habits, not grumbling about how “the old way was better.”

Here are three tips for using training to help your organization realize the promise of new technologies:

1. Choose new tools and features carefully.  Overloading people with training on tools or features that don’t apply to their job or don’t noticeably improve productivity is a sure fire way to generate resistance amongst your team.

2. Test with early dopters first: Pick key stakeholders in important areas and involve them in the selection of new technology as well as training to use it effectively.  Their testimonials and enthusiasm will motivate the rest.

3. Keep training updated: In a world where software and cloud products are often updated monthly, it can be a real challenge keeping your training materials relevant.  Choose partners who are committed to keeping their training materials fresh.

For more information on improving the productivity and skills of business professionals, check out elearning courses by publisher Bigger Brains offered by OpenSesame.

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With a troubling overall lack of engagement and its negative impact on workforce productivity, it’s important to ask “Who in the organization is responsible for creating an engaging culture?” In a recent webcast sponsored by OpenSesame, The Conference Board analyst Amanda Popiela discusses how engagement is no longer the responsibility of the management level anymore, but a combination of leadership, managerial and employees together to create a culture of engagement.

What are employees looking for from their leaders?

Leaders at all levels have a critical role to play in creating an engaging environment at the organizational level. Employee focus groups by The Conference Board identified that employees are looking for the following from company leadership:

• • A strong sense of meaning and direction from leaders

  • Seeking out employees opinions

  • Listening to new perspectives

  • Allowing employees to make mistakes

  • Coaching teams through execution of new ideas.

Corporate engagement programs should also be created and communicated at the leadership level to engage employees through continuing education, onboarding, and training opportunities.

The manager’s role

Managers acknowledge they have a role to play in helping employees take personal responsibility for engagement. According to The DNA of Engagement report by The Conference Board, managers believe their most important thing they can do are as follows:

• • 65% of managers believe building trust is the most important thing they can do to retain employees’ engagement level

  • 48% report their role is empowering their team

  • 39% say that fostering collaboration within their team is top priority.

Managers can take specific actions to help better engage employees, such as sharing the big picture to connect employee’s work to organization’s purpose, recognize employees for their value, and communicate regularly about career goals.

The missing piece: the employees themselves

While leaders and managers have are significant in creating and maintaining a culture of engagement, we cannot underestimate the power of the employee taking personal responsibility for their own engagement. 95% of employees are aware when they begin to feel disengaged, and when disengaged, one in four employees do not actively take steps to re-engage themselves at work.

To stay engaged with their workforce, employees should regularly communicate career needs and challenges to management and leadership. Engaged employees have a positive outlook, take on new opportunities and seek new challenges, and believe it is their role and responsibility to shape the culture and workplace environment.

The bigger picture

Everyone has a role to play in building an engaged workforce. Leaders engage the workforce through corporate programs, communication of expectations, and serving as role models. Managers support employees in taking responsibility for their own engagement, create engaging teams, and serve as a trusted mentor. And employees can provide feedback through managers, and take steps to re-engage when feeling disengaged.

To learn more about the responsibility of employee engagement, watch the webinar recording from The Conference Board here.

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Prioritizing soft skills training

More than 35% of the average learning budget is tied directly or indirectly to soft skills and leadership development, with the majority being spent on content and content development. This raises some critical strategic questions on spending priorities. Now that you are spending more on content, what type of content do you need. Should it be spent on on updating internal resources, using off-the-shelf learning courses, bringing in a subject expert or creating stimulating experiences through role play and on-the-job experience?

Changing learning landscape

Werner reports that organizations that use a combination of learning methods are having a better response with learners, such as just classroom learning. Werner revealed that delivery of soft skill training in a formal, classroom environment has decreased from 65% to 47% in 2014, and expected to drop to just 40% by next year as other learning methods continue to be rated more highly by employees. While everything should not be necessarily outsourced to a third party vendor, learning programs should begin combining off-the-shelf content with traditional learning methods to respond to changing learner needs. Soft skill development is one of the top content categories where organizations are seeing better learner response and increased learner engagement and participation.

Mobile learning and employee driven learning

35% of L&D programs are currently not offering any mobile friendly courses for training. When it comes to soft skills, not having mobile access to support learners who are searching for content to fit their own work needs, this can be a missed opportunity for your organization. Offering easy to access learning content will support your learners while maximizing their soft skill development.

Conclusion

Nurturing employees soft skills is changing to be a more prominent priority as organizations rely more on these skills in today’s business environment. Traditional methods of in-house training and internally produced content is not necessarily the most effective way to deliver soft skills training anymore. Employees being able to access their own training quickly and on devices that readily available to them is producing a faster turnaround time and expediting training initiatives for employers.

To learn more about how you can develop your organization’s soft skills, watch the webinar recording here.

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Align training with organization goals to establish a successful learning program. According to a Brandon Hall group study, 70% of companies that tie training to goals see an increase in profits. But, how can an organization actually do this?

The first step is to examine your core values and strategic goals and map core competencies for employees. In other words, based on core values and goals, are there any skills that all employees should have? For instance, Zappos has a strong inherent culture of providing excellent customer service; their mantra is even “Powered by Service.” To meet this goal, all employees undergo an intense customer service training program that includes shadowing experienced customer service representatives and learning best practices. Additionally, are there any skills that specific teams need?

Once you identify what skills are needed, you can start selecting content based on these core competencies that will achieve organization goals. For example, if your organization has the goal of providing excellent customer service, you might have an internal objective of responding to all support requests within 24 hours. In order to achieve this goal, relevant teams should have customer service training and communication skills. When browsing for content that can accomplish this, you might select courses like Excellence in Customer Service or Communicating on the Phone.

2. What metrics will you use to measure success?

Define the expectations for your training program for various stakeholders. What does your training audience expect? What does management expect? These metrics should be a combination of both quantitative and qualitative points. For example, quantitative metrics would include sales performance change and the effect on company turnover. Qualitative metrics would include learner response to courses and whether they feel that they apply training to their work. Creating metrics to evaluate your training program will help you determine whether your program is actually accomplishing its goals and will also help with measuring ROI.

3. What resources do you need for training?

Delve deep into answering this question to set a strong foundation for your program. Go beyond the financial considerations! Understand what IT resources you will need. Do you need to allocate workstations just for training? Do you have adequate IT support in the event that courses don’t work?

Consider what communication platforms your organization has and how you can leverage them to promote training. For instance, does your organization have Slack or another internal communication platform? If so, consider creating a channel on it for training purposes and regularly post updates and questions to gather feedback. If your organization has an intranet, would you be able to post learning updates on an already existing page or a new one? Determine who will be responsible for communications.

Identify what additional budget you may have for promoting elearning. For example, you may want to run a contest to incentivize learners by rewarding the department with the greatest participation. You may want to also motivate learners through prizes depending on your organization’s culture. By identifying what resources you have before beginning training, you can maximize these opportunities to create a successful learning program.

Creating a successful training program requires preparation. Answering these three questions can help you determine the objectives of your program, justify the program to those controlling budget and resources in your organization, as well as maximize your resources to increase learner utilization. You will be also be able to create a dialogue at your organization about what a successful learning program looks like. Naturally, the next step is developing your training program! As the leading provider of elearning courses, OpenSesame offers flexible options to maximize your budget, over 20,000 off-the-shelf courses, and compatibility with every LMS.

The post Top Three Questions to Ask Before Setting up Your L&D Program appeared first on OpenSesame.

However, the majority of organizations do not support mobile learning. In Brandon Hall Group’s Mobile Learning 2016 survey, 35% of organizations responded that “there is limited access to learning material via web browsers only”, while 25% of organizations responded that “there is no mobile interaction with learning at this time”.

Ignoring mobile as a critical element of your eLearning strategy will limit the accessibility of your learning content and will subject learners to a poor learner experience. Missed opportunities such as these will ultimately lead to poor L&D results, which is why it’s time to start seriously considering a mobile learning strategy.

Mobile Adoption: No Signs of Slowing Down

According to Pew Research, 77% of Americans now own a smartphone. Recent research by Google has also found that nearly 40% of people search only on a smartphone in an average day as they look to meet immediate needs. This adds up to an average smartphone usage of 170 minutes per day. As a result of this shift, more Google searches are happening on smartphones than computers. Similarly, KPCB reports that 87% of millennials say their smartphone never leaves their side.

These stats demonstrate humanity’s growing dependence on mobile devices (especially among millennials). As a result, a mobile experience isn’t something new that learners would have to adapt to – rather, introducing mobile learning is simply making learning easier and more accessible.

In addition to improving the accessibility of training materials, mobile learning also helps to:

• Encourage learning on-the-go

• Facilitate learning at the point of need

• Improve social learning effectiveness

• Increase learner adoption and engagement

Mobile is Becoming a Global L&D Priority

Owing to the many benefits listed above, organizations are finally starting to prioritize mobile learning. Brandon Hall Group survey data shows that 57% of organizations said that they did not yet have a formal mobile learning strategy in place, but that they were working on one.

The global market for mobile learning also appears to be experiencing fast growth. According to Ambient Insight’s 2014-2019 Worldwide Mobile Learning Market Forecast, the worldwide market for mobile learning products and services reached $8.4 billion in 2014. The forecast also anticipates that revenues will reach $14.5 billion by 2019.

Thankfully, new developments in learning technology are making it easier than ever to deliver mobile learning content. In particular, a state-of-the-art learning management system (LMS) can help to facilitate a smoother, more effective learner experience. For example, the Docebo mobile app allows learners to learn on-the-go, ask questions for subject matter experts, and access learning content at the point of need.

Mobile eLearning Content – What’s Most Effective?

According to the aforementioned Brandon Hall Group Mobile Learning 2016 survey, some of the most effective mobile learning types of content include:

• Videos (27% say videos are highly effective via mobile)

• Virtual classrooms (16% say virtual classrooms are highly effective via mobile)

• Performance support (15% say performance support is highly effective via mobile)

Of course, the effectiveness of your learning content will vary between audiences, so it’s always a good idea to provide wide variety of learning content formats, topics, and types. More importantly, ensure your learning content is optimized for mobile devices by breaking it down into more digestible pieces (e.g., microlearning content), keeping file sizes small, and adding interactive elements.

Learn more about the rise of mobile learning in Docebo’s free report, Leveraging the Natural Synergy of Mobile Learning and MIcrolearning in eLearning. Download it today!

About the Author: Victoria Hoffman is a Content Specialist at Docebo. She is a graduate of University of Toronto’s Semiotics & Communication Theory Program and has 5+ years of experience in digital marketing. She enjoys writing and is always looking for a good book recommendation.

The post Mobile Learning is On the Rise – Is Your Organization Ready? appeared first on OpenSesame.

Establishing a good user experience means your course is much more likely to yield positive student experiences and excellent business results for your clients. So how do you go about creating the best possible user experience for your eLearning course?

1. Design For All Devices

Once upon a time, we all worked on desktop computers. Not anymore. Your clients will want to access your course anytime, anywhere. This means making your course website and software responsive to all devices, allowing clients to catch up with tutorials and course tasks via their smartphones and tablets as well as their computers.

2. Get the Right Support

The development of user experience is a field in itself and it may well be that you don’t have experience of it. If this is the case, never fear. There are a host of user experience professionals out there. Hire a freelancer or appoint a permanent member of staff by posting an ad on a job board.

3. Don’t Underestimate the Visuals

Formatting your course is of the utmost importance to user experience. You should create uncluttered pages with plenty of white space. Text should be succinct and divided by snappy titles. Images and video can also go a long way to improving the user experience. The brain processes image and video thousands of times faster than text. Including these visuals throughout your course will add variety and also allow students to assimilate material more quickly.

4. Be Clear in Your Course Description

A big part of user experience is making sure a product or service meets expectations. Therefore, it’s important to establish the right expectations with your clients. Work on your course description so it is clear and accurate and clients understand what they can expect to gain from it.

5. Provide Course Preparation Support

Getting to grips with new software can take time for the less technologically savvy. Help your clients to hit the ground running by providing course preparation support. Students on any eLearning course should be familiar with any software they need to use, know how to contact their tutors and be able to locate resources before the course begins. You could conduct this support through online tutorials, question and answer sessions or a simple course preparation document.

6. Encourage Peer Interaction

Working on an eLearning course, students can miss out on the benefits of peer communication.  Interaction with fellow-learners can provide support and an opportunity to share ideas and perspectives. Open up these possibilities to your eLearning clients by building a forum into your software. Alternatively, set up a Facebook group for the exchange of thoughts and resources.

Put time into developing your course user experience to create the best learning platform for your clients. And remember, happy and successful students are more likely to recommend your course to others, driving revenue and increasing brand authority.

Martha is a passionate blogger who enjoys writing about employee training, marketing and anything that helps small businesses grow.

The post How to Create the Best User Experience in Your eLearning Course appeared first on OpenSesame.

The Solution? eLearning.

How does an organization solve this issue? Invest in eLearning technology to enable sales representatives with outstanding business skills.

With eLearning courses, employees are empowered with the necessary skills to perform successful sales endeavors. In fact, eLearning has resulted in companies experiencing an 18% increase employee engagement. An engaged workforce makes for a more productive and overall happier staff, which makes employees more interested in the growth and success of the company. With nearly 25% of people reporting they left their job due to lack of training, online learning can boost job satisfaction and engagement which in return improves the overall health of your organization.

Also, when implementing  eLearning courses, the sales representatives are able to complete the courses at their own pace, which is a less time-consuming option than in-person group training. Organizations that invest in eLearning are able to cut training costs by 50% and cut training time by 60%.

Getting Started

Online learning companies can help fill skill gaps in sales training. OpenSesame provides over 6,000 business skills courses that go over all the details, steps, and processes included in landing a c-level sale. From courses on phone skills and techniques on how to organize the perfect presentation, to implementing successful research and analysis. Or, check our sales course recommendations on the OpenSesame blog, so your employees can gain the skills they’ll need to land those deals that ensure your company’s future growth.

A Bluevolt study of cross-industry distributors reports that 81% of respondents said they witnessed a substantial increase in sales with online training. The time to invest in elearning is now.

The post How to Equip Sales Reps With the Necessary Business Skills to Land C-Level Buyers appeared first on OpenSesame.

Josh Bersin, founder and Principal of Bersin by Deloitte, draws the following observation from this issue:

“We are living longer, jobs are changing faster than ever, and automation is impinging on our work lives more every day. If we can’t look things up, learn quickly, and find a way to develop new skills at work, most of us would prefer to change jobs, rather than stay in a company that doesn’t let us reinvent ourselves over time.”

Learner experience – the experience of a person’s learning interactions – is more important than ever. Not focusing on providing a well-optimized learner experience could impact employee retention, which, in turn, can impact your organization’s overall success.

Here are three ways you can improve your learner experience with learning technology.

1. Accommodate learner needs

Learner needs are constantly evolving. For instance, employees are increasingly becoming more mobile-dependent. An influx of millennials into the workforce means employee knowledge gaps are growing. Similarly, learners face a number of costly distractions at work, and it is believed that the average human attention span has become shorter than that of a goldfish.

Although new technology is partially responsible for the way learner needs have evolved, it can also help to accommodate these needs. Your learning management system should deliver learning content with expedience, efficiency, and effortlessness. This means that it should include features that accommodate mobile learning, microlearning, gamification, offline learning, and so on. If you ignore your learners’ needs within the learner experience, the effectiveness of your L&D programs will suffer.

2. Tailor the learner experience with personalization

A large reason why online corporate training is ineffective is because it’s irrelevant to what learners want (and need) to learn in order to progress in their career or advance their skills in a particular role. Another way to improve the learner experience is to ensure that learning is tailored for each individual learner’s specific skills and competencies.

Fortunately, learning technology allows organizations to leverage learner data to generate insights that can fuel learning personalization. Personalization has proven to be effective – recent data by Brandon Hall Group shows 93% of companies agree that personalized learning helps employees reach their goals more efficiently.

Get started with learning personalization by investing in the right technology, establishing a competency framework, and tagging your learning content so it’s organized for personalization purposes.

3. Don’t underestimate the importance of user experience

User experience (UX) is closely related to learner experience – if UX is the overall experience of a person using a machine (e.g., a computer application), then learner experience is the overall experience of a person and their learning interactions (formal, informal, and experiential).

Brandon Hall Group’s Learning Technology 2017 survey found that 51% of respondents cited a “poor user experience” as a barrier to satisfaction with their learning technology, proving that many organizations understand that their current learning technology simply is not conducive to effective learning.

When it comes to learner experience, great eLearning content is essential, but it’s only the start – invest in learning technology that will allow you to provide a great experience so learners are motivated to learn and more engaged with your training programs.

Did you know that OpenSesame integrates with the Docebo LMS? Start your 14-day free trial today and start improving your learner experience!

About the Author: Victoria Hoffman is a Content Specialist at Docebo. She is a graduate of University of Toronto’s Semiotics & Communication Theory Program and has 5+ years of experience in digital marketing. She enjoys writing and is always looking for a good book recommendation.

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The question is: how have these changes impacted learner needs?

In an infographic entitled ‘Meet the Modern Learner’, Bersin by Deloitte presents a number of statistics that outline how online training is colliding with learners’ jobs, behaviors, habits, and preferences. They come to the conclusion that today’s learner is overwhelmed, distracted, and impatient.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these needs to better understand how learning programs must evolve in order to increase effectiveness.

No time to learn

It’s estimated that workers spend only 1% of the average workweek (37 minutes) on their employers’ training. Similarly, a recent survey found that knowledge workers spend 41% of their time on activities that offer little personal satisfaction.

Employees are clearly overwhelmed in their daily tasks and, as a result, are not placing the necessary emphasis on personal learning and development. They feel that there aren’t enough hours in a day to spend on learning initiatives.

Fortunately, learning technology (like a state-of-the-art learning management system) has opened up a number of capabilities that make corporate training more efficient for learners. For example, microlearning content (which involves producing bite-sized pieces of learning content) can allow learners to quickly and easily consume new information.

Thin patience

According to Statistics Brain, the average human attention span in 2015 was estimated to be 8.25 seconds – that’s shorter than the attention span of a goldfish (which is believed to be 9 seconds). Statistics Brain also reports that the average length watched of a single online video is only 2.7 minutes.

Learners simply don’t have the patience or the attention span necessary to engage with training. This is hugely problematic – lack of engagement can impact knowledge retention and learning motivation.

The more your learners have to sit through irrelevant and unengaging training sessions, the less effective your training will be. Consider introducing a personalized learning strategy to increase relevance. Similarly, centralizing your content in an LMS and will improve its accessibility and allow your learners to access materials at the point-of-need.

Constant distractions

Think about your own workflow at work – odds are, you feel like you’re spending a good chunk of your day checking your email (not to mention those Slack notifications that are driving you off the wall). Well, you’re not crazy – there are numbers to back you up.

Statistics Brain also reports that the average office worker checks their email inbox 30 times in an hour. Similarly, it’s estimated that the average employee is interrupted 56 times per day, which can cost up to two hours of daily productive time. If you do the math, that can add up to over 500 hours over the course of a year – yikes.

Next-gen learning technology should be able to support learning practices such as gamification and personalization which can help to cut through the noise and increase learner motivation and engagement.

Millennial influx

In 2015, millennials officially surpassed Gen Xers as the largest generation in the US labor force. However, 63% of millennials feel that their current employer is not fully developing their leadership skills.

Investing in the development in younger workers is key for increasing employee retention and the ability to hire leadership from within. It’s also key for filling organizational knowledge gaps that form as baby boomers retire. 

Meeting millennial learner needs is, once again, a question of content accessibility. Learning content must be mobile accessible, and access to the expertise of peer mentors should also be encouraged. As such, it’s important that your learning content facilitates social learning.

Meet tomorrow’s leader

The items listed above are just a few ways in which learner needs have evolved over the past few years. As long as technology continues to evolve, learner needs will continue to evolve. It’s important to have people, processes, and tools in place to keep up with these needs so your learners can continue to develop and bring success to your organization.

Learn more about meeting learner needs in Docebo’s free whitepaper, Tapping Into the Power of Personalized Learning.

About the Author: Victoria Hoffman is a Content Specialist at Docebo. She is a graduate of University of Toronto’s Semiotics & Communication Theory Program and has 5+ years of experience in digital marketing. She enjoys writing and is always looking for a good book recommendation.

The post 4 Things L&D Professionals Need to Know About Modern Learners appeared first on OpenSesame.

As a result, with a little bit of focus and a little bit of the capability to search online for the things that we need, we are able to become overnight experts ourselves. Content and platform — these are two of the elements we need to be able to learn the things we want to learn, or, in a business context, the things we need to learn in order to do our jobs, and to do our jobs better on an ongoing basis.

Mobile and microlearning play out in our daily lives

So how does this all relate to eLearning and content? Well, how we learn at home is actually not that different from how we learn in a business or enterprise context. We want to execute a required or desired function, and we want to do it well. And we need two things in order to be able to do that effectively: the content that is actually relevant to our job function, and the platform that enables us to absorb that content and apply it effectively.

This is where two evolving aspects of eLearning factor into the game: mobile learning and microlearning.

Let’s deal with each one independently first.

It’s no secret that mobile learning has been a huge element of eLearning in recent years. Right in line with the 70:20:10 philosophy that submits effective learning has three essential components — namely, experiential, social, and traditional (i.e. classroom-based and instructor-led) — mobile learning acknowledges that learners need information delivered to them on the job and right at the point of need.

It used to be accepted that learners could absorb all of the required knowledge in the classroom in advance of actually exercising the function of their jobs. No longer is this the case. Classroom knowledge retention is actually rather low. Learners, of course, need to learn key essentials of their job requirements from lessons provided in advance of actually engaging in their roles. But according to the 70:20:10 approach, they’ll only retain a small part of classroom knowledge, and what they will retain is what they have learned on the job, through experience.

Leverage already adopted tools

Now let’s move that forward and look at the learning landscape we have right now. Learners are used to learning with their devices, be they smartphones or tablets, in hand. These represent natural opportunities to get information right to the learner, right at the point of need.

Hypothetical, but let’s imagine an individual in manufacturing, at the plant-floor level, dealing with a perceived health and safety threat. Once upon a time, that worker would have to dive into the depths of their memory to recall a classroom lesson that related to the immediate threat. In the new model, the employee need only visit his or her mobile device, find the relevant application or lesson, and determine what to do in that immediate circumstance.

Desktop computers, textbooks, and instructors used to be far from us. Now, the essence of what we need is accessible right in our pockets, courtesy of our devices.

And it just begins there. Microlearning supports mobile learning in an enormous way. If you aren’t familiar, microlearning is a way of delivering essential learning content to learners in small, bite-sized components. Think of the recipes you learn on Facebook that are provided in under 60 seconds. That’s only one way of providing microlearning content effectively. And think of how that can be delivered. It can be on a bus or subway ride. It can be at any time of the day. It can be on the job, at the point of need.

So, obviously, mobile learning and microlearning have a natural synergy. They’re natural bedfellows — something I explored in a recent report. And they’re both elements that need to be leveraged in any LMS and content arrangement that you are using in order to maximize learning and development potential.

About the Author: Paul Leavoy is a Senior Content Manager at Docebo and writes about the biggest themes in learning and development. A longstanding journalist with over a decade of experience writing on business, environment, and sustainability, Paul has been writing and developing content in the cloud software space for over seven years.

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