Every workplace can be a place for continuous learning

Although companies in various industries have been working hard to achieve digital transformation in the past few years, covid-19 has accelerated this cross-industry transformation. The pace of development of new technologies requires employers to continuously retrain their employees to keep up with the times. If employees are to be prepared for future work, the organization must become a place of learning.

World Economic Forum Published an estimate indicating that technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) may replace 75 million jobs by 2022, but may also create 133 million new roles, a study by the IBM Institute for Business Value predicts Up to 120 million workers Due to the increasing shift to and acceptance of automation and artificial intelligence, personnel in the world’s 12 largest economies may need to be retrained in the next three years. Retraining and labor preparation on this scale requires a fundamental paradigm shift. In order for employers to thrive in this new digital field and stay one step ahead of their competitors, they need to invest in the continuous education of their employees. In turn, employees need to be encouraged and willing to continue to learn to make progress at work.

Although employers are beginning to recognize their role in retraining and upgrading employee skills, they are not trained educators. In order for the workplace to successfully double as a place of higher education, employers need to establish strong partnerships with higher education providers, provide flexible courses and adopt innovative technologies to help these working adult students achieve the next step in their careers.

We found that the following three techniques can help busy adult learners succeed:

Virtual assistant. For those who are working and studying, time is a precious resource. Working students have no time to be put on hold or handed over to support staff to find answers to their management questions.

Virtual assistants in the online higher education environment can help students in various fields, from the admission process to course updates to the deadline for submission of assignments. They should also be designed to record interactions, create insights, capture analysis, and provide a more personalized experience every time a student participates.

Many of us have begun to rely on virtual assistants such as Alexa or Google Home to save our time and make our lives easier. It makes sense to expand their use to help promote continuous learning.

Predictive analysis. Predictive analytics is a powerful tool that helps adult learners persevere by using the interaction between machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other technologies to help predict student success in the course. It allows higher education institutions to identify learners who are struggling to complete assignments and may be at risk of dropping out, so that consultants, professors, and other support systems can intervene as early as possible to provide students with one-to-one support. For employers working with higher education providers, this is a powerful tool to ensure that their employees complete their investment plans as planned.

These relatively simple pushes are important. Life can and often hinders the education of working adults. They may deal with family or other priorities at home, so reminding and providing support can go a long way in helping students achieve their educational goals.

Gamification technology. Gamification places game mechanics (such as points systems and tracking, achievement levels, rewards, and prizes) in a non-gaming environment. It has become a part of our daily lives, involving many industries, such as fitness class rankings and airline frequent flyer programs. Studies have shown that game strategies will stimulate users’ consistent and long-term participation.For example, a Study in Finland It was found that the simple gamification strategy of awarding badges to students in tertiary computer science courses had a positive effect-most students said that trying to get badges increased their motivation.

Higher education must accept and invest in gamification technologies to help promote good student behavior and promote learning success.

Online learning can make student participation challenging. Even before the pandemic hit and all courses were moved online, online teaching was censored for its inability to maintain student engagement and progress. Adding these challenges to the additional responsibilities of adult learners, such as working and caring for children, makes participation more challenging. Gamification is a way to help motivate adult learners and instill a sense of responsibility and participation. It is a great attempt to learn online for new students of this type of teaching, helping them to complete online homework more easily and promoting them Complete necessary tasks, such as reading the syllabus or logging in to the message board.

Use technology to manage your training and benefits

If your employer offers tuition assistance or a reimbursement plan as an allowance, it may have some kind of education management platform to manage back-end operations such as benefit payments and plan verification. But these platforms are often clumsy. Employers move between multiple interfaces to obtain information about employee education progress and expenditures, and employees have to figure out which items their tuition assistance benefits cover.Cooperate with organizations that provide simple and easy-to-use platforms, such as Labor advantage, Because tuition assistance programs may help encourage employees to take advantage of tuition benefits and make it easier for employers to better track their return on investment in these programs.

Work, a place of higher education

As with any technology, the most important thing is to keep the end user in mind. A busy working adult is different from the 18-year-old who has just graduated from high school and is about to spend four years on campus. Training and retraining programs for adult workers should be flexible, accessible and attractive. With the right technology and education partners, every employer can become a place for higher education, helping their employees achieve professional and economic mobility, while staying one step ahead of the competition through a well-trained workforce.

For more information, please visit Labor fringe.

This content is produced by Strategic Education. It was not written by the editors of MIT Technology Review.