Why the time to switch to cloud-based training is now

Let’s play two truths and a lie.

• “I want to be a good business partner and internal thought leader at my company.”

• “I need to make sure our training dollar is spent right.”

• “I guess I’ll need to have the participants in the program do a lengthy final assessment.”

We’ll take each of these in turn. First, as a leader in corporate learning, human resources, training and development of human capital management or talent, you want to be a good business partner and a thought leader at your company. That is most certainly a truth, and your desire to be of service to your colleagues is a valuable one.

Next, you have the responsibility of stewarding a budget that your company has made available to upskill employees for a business impact, whether to assist with employee retention, talent acquisition, operations efficiency, brand image, quality output, and even to meet CSR goals. These training are intangible, so you must look to other metrics to ensure your training dollar gets the return you need. Strike two, this is most definitely a truth and one that’s paramount for your success at your organization.

Lastly, now that your training program is coming to an end, you think to yourself: “I’ve just asked my colleagues to take time out of their schedules to complete this, and especially with the added stress of COVID-19 and our business being on edge, I can’t believe I need to ask them now to take even more time just to assess their skills. That’s got to take a long time”.

Well, you found it! Statement number three is the lie.

In many conversations with HR, L&D, and Talent leaders like you, we often hear the question: “and then at the end, we do another assessment, right?”

Wrong!

With a completely virtual, cloud-based solution, training results, activity, engagement, and utilization are measurable up-to-the-minute. Your program’s data has been tracked from minute one, and your learners have been progressing since the start. There is no need for a final assessment of skills because you have seen their learning tracking throughout the program. You have been able to see that, as more and more companies have moved from a face to face classroom model of training to the cloud, your employees have accustomed themselves to not just working from home, but learning from home as well.

Corporate training has moved from the classroom to the cloud. And the trends show that this isn’t a temporary replacement. With uncertainty about the length of restrictions and cumbersome workplace safety protocols, many leading companies have extended the ability of their employees to work remotely indefinitely.

This isn’t just a new reality that we have to grudgingly accept, as if we really wanted to go to the concert but instead had to watch the live stream at home.

No – instead, cloud-based training can perform better than in-person training across several metrics that are important to your business. As HR and L&D become more and more the cultural barriers of organizations and lead the charge for employee morale and engagement on top of implementing training, moving from the classroom to the cloud can increase the return you see since at face value it is cheaper to study online and the cost of each learning hour can decrease when cloud access increases.

You have been inundated with free online training offers, so much so that it may have caused you to take a step back from it all. Yet, acting now to make the switch in a big way from the classroom to the cloud in your organization, means that you are staying ahead of the curve. You can ensure your colleagues who need it can benefit from the innovation that is happening right now in the learning space. Rather than time wasted with stagnate training plans, use cloud-based solutions now to empower your people to succeed in an economy where cloud connectivity knows no borders. You’ll be surprised at how ready your people are for the change.