Organizations' competence requirements are changing rapidly. Traditional ways of organizing trainings can be expensive, time-consuming and difficult to scale. Digital learning platforms offer a solution: they make it possible to deliver trainings to large audiences in a cost-effective and impactful way.
In this blog post, we will look at why scalability matters in training, how learning platforms make it possible, and how Vuolearning can help you build scalable online learning programs.
Scalability means being able to increase the number of participants without compromising the quality of training or driving up costs. This is particularly important for:
Scalability makes learning more flexible and efficient, for both the learner and for the organization. Without scalability, training can easily become a bottleneck that slows down development and increases costs.
Learning platforms make it possible to share training content anytime and anywhere. Learners can study whenever and wherever it suits them. Training can be distributed to large groups, reused indefinitely without extra effort, and delivered simultaneously to learners around the world.
In traditional classroom-based training, pulling large groups away from daily work at the same time can be difficult. With digital learning, everyone can progress at their own pace and when it suits their schedule - and there is no need to find a common time that suits everyone or reserve a physical space.
When the trainings are in digital form, updating them is quick and simple. Content stays up to date without major effort.
Training with traditional methods, such as classroom training, often requires instructors' time and traveling, venue rentals, printed materials, and scheduling. Learning platforms eliminate most of these costs.
Digital trainings do not require physical spaces, so the trainings can be studied wherever, without the need to reserve rooms or travel. Learners can also study at their own pace, which reduces absences and dropouts. Additionally, once a digital training has been created, it can be reused endlessly.
Digital learning platforms save time in administrative work and optimize instructors' time. Notifications, reminders, reports, and certificate management can all be automated on a learning platform. Supervisors can see at a glance who have for example completed a mandatory training or who has the required certificates. The content is created once and stays continuously available. Same training does not have to be repeated for different groups, so the instructors can focus on planning and improving the training materials and supporting learners.
Analytics tools in learning platforms make it easier to use the training resources wisely. Data shows where the learners struggle most, allowing you to target support where it's needed. For example, if analytics indicate that a certain course or a topic causes challenges, the instructors can offer extra support in that area.
Learning platforms make it possible to offer personalized learning experiences for large audiences. You can create role-specific learning paths, materials for different skill levels, or tests that recommend content for the learner based on their level.
Improve training scalability with a digital learning platform.
Start by clarifying what skills you want to develop and who the training is for. The goal could be for example that all the customer service agents can use a new CRM system efficiently.
Create courses using templates. This way, you can produce new trainings quickly for different target groups without starting from scratch each time. You can also share the course template for all the organization's content creators, for example if you want to utilize a standard form for collecting course feedback.
Break the training into small, independent modules. This allows you to reuse material across multiple training programs, speeds up the content updating process, and makes it easier to tailor the trainings for example for different roles or skill levels. Shorter courses and sections are also more easily digestible and fit more naturally into a workday.
Interactive tasks and quizzes support learning and give you data on how well the course is performing. Automatically graded tasks and self-assessments also save the instructor's time compared to manual evaluations.
Tasks, videos, images, and discussions increase engagement and improve learning outcomes. Keep the course production high-quality but light-weight: images can be searched for in free image banks, possible videos can be short.
The training should work seamlessly on all devices (mobile, tablet, and desktop) and be easy to use.
Take advantage of the platform's automations for content sharing, sending reminders, and tracking progress. For example, a new employee can automatically receive access to the right onboarding materials on their first day. You can also schedule reminder emails to be sent for approaching target schedules and receive automatic reports of course completions and awaiting requests to your email.
Monitor learners' progress, completions, and feedback to identify improvement areas and continuously improve the content. For example, if many learners struggle with a certain task, you can revise the content or offer additional support.
Collect feedback from course participants and analyze learning analytics. Update the course content based on these. Regular updates keep the content relevant and information up to date.
Scalability enables organizations to develop skills across the entire workforce. Digital learning platforms offer a flexible, cost-effective, and impactful way to deliver scalable training that adapts to the learners' needs and the organization's goal. When the trainings are built modularly, supported by automation and analytics provided by the learning platform, and the training content is updated regularly, learning becomes scalable and effective.