How mentoring can enhance corporate e-Learning?

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With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, a majority of businesses have embraced online learning platforms. Corporate e-Learning is one such enhanced form of online learning used to equip employees with new knowledge and upskill them so that they can swiftly make a transition to new technology or workflow.

Corporate e-Learning allows you to move away from conventional classroom methods of training, which are quite expensive. Thus, your staff sitting in different locations throughout the globe can review what they have learned via an e-Learning platform quickly and easily — whenever they want.

The popularity of corporate e-Learning is growing so rapidly that it is estimated that the market for corporate e-Learning would expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11% between 2020 and 2024.

Despite its relative success so far, corporate e-Learning is not a panacea for talent development since it comes with its own constraints.

In this article, we will explore:

Why do companies opt for corporate e-Learning solutions?
What are the best practices used in corporate e-Learning that make it stand out?
What are the various challenges that plague corporate e-Learning?
How can a mentorship program be used in conjunction with a corporate e-Learning solution in order to enhance the skills of employees?

Also Read: How do I start a mentoring program at work?

Why do companies opt for corporate e-Learning solutions?

Organizations are always on the lookout for different ways to improve their employees’ productivity. In line with this, there is always a need for training existing staff on emerging business trends, practices, and products.

This is where a corporate e-Learning solution comes into picture. Corporate e-Learning acts as an icebreaker for employees with the world away from their current job role. This learning style is always a go for personal development and the employees are able to use that knowledge to stay up to date about the job market.

Not surprisingly the market share for corporate e-Learning is projected to climb to USD 37.80 billion between the years 2020 and 2025, and the industry’s development pace is likely to accelerate at a CAGR of 13% over this time period.

What are the best practices used in corporate e-Learning that make it stand out?

There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to training through e-Learning programs. Hence, an effective e-Learning solution is one that is designed to suit the interests and requirements of the learners as well as the organization’s broader structure, resources, and expectations. Here are some of the best practices used in corporate e-Learning to enhance knowledge transfer and retention.

Setting Learning Objectives: Set learning goals aligned with the intended learning outcomes in the corporate e-Learning program.
Customization: The incorporation of essential information that is more relevant and suited to the company’s services or products will do wonders for employee productivity.
Smart LMS: Utilize a company-specific LMS platform for e-Learning program monitoring, administration, documentation, and reporting.
Utilize Forums: A forum is integral to all course activities and forums with a large number of students suggest that the e-Learning course is quite popular.
Build a Culture of Feedback: A culture of feedback is a vital component of an e-Learning toolset. Here, learners can monitor their performance improvement and focus on problem areas. You can use this incredible tool to generate questions for your e-Learning courses and allow students to take the course to get the required feedback.
Assigning a Mentor to Address Concerns in Learning: You can assign a mentor to the participants of the e-Learning training program using a platform to understand how well the participants of the e-Learning training have understood the concepts. This can be useful as not all employees will be comfortable sharing the problems they are facing with e-Learning course modules through online feedback questions. They will be more comfortable talking to a person about hurdles they are facing in an e-Learning training program.

Also Read: Mentoring In The Workplace: Importance & Benefits

What are the various challenges that plague corporate e-Learning?

e-Learning will surely play a part in the future of professional growth, but there are also apparent obstacles that prevent it from achieving its maximum potential.

Here are some contemporary difficulties that plague corporate e-Learning systems:

Inability to improve business performance: Continuous Professional Education (CPE) credits are often used by modern professionals to create a case for promotion. Rather than concentrating on the business profits to be achieved, L&D professionals focus more on KPIs, such as the total number of CPE credits employees have earned. The achievement of credits has its own merits but a whole focus on credits without aligning credits with business accomplishments may not help a company to grow.
Relevancy. e-Learning systems provide a wide range of training courses; however, this might be overwhelming for a workforce who are browsing the courses without learning much from them. This happens when the corporate training is irrelevant to their day-to-day activities. Applying knowledge to real-world circumstances increases one’s concentration and motivation to study. And despite the fact that psychologist Edwin Locke demonstrated the efficacy of brief feedback loops in 1968 with his theory of motivation, it is still not extensively used in corporate training. Oftentimes, modern professionals acquire knowledge that is not immediately relevant to their position, and consequently, their learning suffers.
Information retention: Studying only to gain the CPE credit may not help learners as they will forget most of what they have learned, just like first-year college students, who forget sixty percent of what they learned in high school. In the late 19th century, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted experimental investigations of memory, resulting in his discovery of ‘The Forgetting Curve.’ He discovered that within just six days, we forget 75% of newly acquired knowledge if we don’t put it to use.
Poor Involvement: Many employees are less engaged with the resources or material involved. They would rather get knowledge from their contemporaries or advance professionally with the aid of mentors.
Furthermore, mentorship is an often-overlooked component of e-Learning techniques for employees. Many companies are yet to discover how to include mentorship in corporate e-Learning programs, which plays a crucial role in learning and growing almost any skill.

Also Read: How Mentoring Can Have a Positive Impact on Mental Health

How incorporating mentors in e-Learning can prove to be beneficial for the learners?

Corporate businesses have come to the realization that even if learners have access to all of the corporate learning materials through various devices, learners still require the help of mentors in order to figure out where they may be going wrong. Here are a few additional points which prove that mentorship enhances the learning ability and boosts productivity as well.

Overcoming geographical limitation: With the rising availability of internet connections and mentoring platforms, including a mentor in e-Learning may have a tremendously positive effect on the learning impact. Frequently, location and time restrictions prevent learners from benefiting from face-to-face mentorship. But with the online tools employees can take advantage of the mentoring relationship. The digital medium permits the maintenance of a log or record of every interaction between the mentor and the mentee, which is kept confidential.
Helping to establish objectives: Mentoring platforms such as Mentoring Complete allow mentors to ask icebreaker questions to mentees and establish course objectives together. The mentor can give support in the most beneficial manner for the learners. Mentors may pose the following questions to learners, which help in setting learning objectives:
– Why are you taking up the corporate e-Learning program and what are you expecting from it?
– What do you believe will be the most challenging aspects of the session?
– Do you have an objective in mind to build a base for your sessions?
– How do you expect a mentor can assist you in reaching your desired learning outcomes?
By learning their ambitions, abilities, and shortcomings, mentors may choose how best to use their experience, allowing protégés to benefit the most from the connection.
Provide learners with direction and feedback: As the course develops, mentors may monitor the progress of mentees and suggest a different perspective. For example, they may send mentees a message before a major task is due to remind them of the approaching deadline. If learners seem to be slipping behind, they may assist them in regaining their footing.
A smart way to encourage mentor and mentee relationships with an emphasis on learners’ success is by giving feedback with a personal touch in it, this will reflect that the mentors are walking an extra mile for mentees. And this creates a comfort zone for mentees so that they can share their projects with an intention of getting unbiased feedback. This also improves the trainee’s performance in addition to strengthening the mentor-mentee relationship.
Throughout this corporate e-Learning program, the mentor may act as a guide to ensure mentees remain motivated throughout the training program rather than providing hands-on intense coaching on the concepts related to the e-Learning program.

How to set up mentoring in your corporate e-Learning programs?

You deliver the e-Learning course along with mentoring programs to your employees with a 70:20:10 model. Morgan McCall, Robert Eichinger, and Michael Lombardo designed the 70:20:10 learning framework by polling over 200 CEOs about their learning philosophies. The 70:20:10 model has weathered the test of time and is still often used to determine the optimal balance for staff training.

According to the poll, learning should come from several sources.

70% from working on challenging tasks and gaining experience from them.
20% of the learning takes place in a social setting or amongst peers. This is achieved via mentorship, feedback, and professional ties.
10% from training and courses, delivered through training sessions.

Conclusion

Your corporate e-Learning program can be made more effective and employees’ productivity can be boosted by using it in conjunction with mentoring programs through a platform such as Mentoring Complete.

The process of mentoring is advantageous for learners since they have the opportunity to connect with mentoring experts and seek their assistance. Mentoring Complete dashboard offers a space where mentors and mentees can start a relationship as per the best matching percentage. The best aspect being, it is an Artificial Intelligence-based platform that can match mentors with mentees automatically just on the basis of a matching form.

If you want to run a corporate e-Learning training program effectively and see the desired learning outcome, using a mentoring platform may be the right choice. With mentors on board, it becomes easy to assess your employees’ perspective about your learning materials and their learning challenges. Above all, mentors can share advice, offer encouragement and be a trusted advisor for your mentees, which can help them to achieve continued growth and development.