The future trend of workforce learning is speed. Speed to adapt. Speed to ensure our teams, staff and customers are safe. But most importantly speed in making sure our workforce have the right capabilities and alignment to the goals and orientation of our company. The Covid-19 pandemic forced remote workforces to grow. Those in essential industries have been stretched thin and working harder then ever. We see three reasons why speed to receiving the right job related answers is so important: 

1. We can’t wait for people to complete or take courses to learn the skills they need. They need answers to their questions immediately.

For the past decade we’ve seen the change in workplace learning, the slow transition from classroom and team synchronous learning to on-demand learning that can be experienced by team members and customers as needed. However, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the best workplace learning systems focused on recommending the right curriculum for each specific role and enabling certification by completing a curricula. But in 2020, Covid struck with few companies having an official work from home policy with more than a third capable of at home work hit like a freight train: Companies and the existing learning systems they relied on were unprepared to effectively provide the resources to let remote workers get on and do their job. Also, those still going to work, such as in essential industries were stretched thin and asked to do more while getting less support from others. Existing learning management systems (LMSs) and learning experience management systems (LXPs) assumed some amount of “watercooler” or job site discussions to assist in informally and formally getting employees up to speed. There always has been a big constraint over directly asking others for help or answers to specific questions. This is why systems like Feathercap, an employee answer platform are useful. For example, Feathercap enables employees to receive the exact right answer to any work questions provided as they do their job. 

2. There is good and great existing job specific learning content out there. But it contains answers which no one has time to search for. Many of the answers are not there.

We all want to be able to ask our peers or boss any question we have for doing our job as the need arises. However, reality is different. No one wants to tax their boss or peers for risk of looking incapable. Further, there are certainly not enough subject matter experts and instructional designers or enough time for everyone to go through all that content even if it was affordable and available. For today’s workforce, they must have answers at their fingertips drawn from not only existing courses and curricula, but most importantly pulled from the day to day conversations and documentation created by the respected rank and file staff, peers and those who came before them. In fact, according to Josh Bersin starting back in 2017, 83% of internal training have been using these internally generated documents and content for staff  job skills training. 

3. We need real-time feedback and reporting on how its going with our remote workers and on-site workforce. Specifically are they getting what they need to do their jobs?

Working today is tough. Conducting workplace learning is even tougher. Companies are either cutting staff, asking existing at-work staff to work harder with less oversight.

We can’t wait to both provide the precise answer a worker needs to do their job and determine if they are getting what they need. Unfortunately, traditional workforce learning has been turned on its head and so all those existing LMSs, LXPs though great for providing curriculums for set leadership, compliance or future careers; lack in  delivering highly personalized answers based on that employee’s job, questions asked and specific experience in the role. Really, a hybrid of what existing learning systems offer and knowledge management rolled into one. This means instant answers for those who feel constrained to bug their peer or boss one more time via slack or instant messenger as they work at home or find a peer or supervisor they can ask at work. It would be great to show in real-time how employees are doing to management by measuring the level of curiosity, the questions they ask and most importantly the progress they are making in their role. 

This is exactly what we do at Feathercap, we are able to measure the curiosity of teams by understanding all the questions asked, answers given and what was useful to them.

More about the Feathercap employee answer platform:

We give everyone exactly the answers they need to do their job and keep moving. 

We built Feathercap to deeply understand your content and every user so they get the right answers to their important questions without interruption. This helps us predict who will succeed, needs help or needs attention and for employees who should be promoted. Our clients tell us this makes for happier, more engaged, better employees and customers.

For more on Feathercap: 

https://feathercap.net