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August 15, 2024
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5 mins to read

The 5 best pieces of tech for workplace learning

If you’re looking to enhance your employees’ learning experiences with well-chosen tech, look no further. This article rounds up the top five pieces of tech to help your learning make an impact.
Alex Mullen
Web Content Writer

Looking to upgrade your workplace learning, and equip your people with technology that helps them excel in their careers?

In this blog, we’ll be rounding up the 5 best pieces of tech for workplace learning, and exploring how you can inject some fun and ease into your team’s learning and development.

1. Learning Management Systems

Yes, we know we’re being predictable by recommending these right at the beginning of our list – but we promise there’s a reason (several, actually) why some of the world’s most innovative, successful businesses use this technology every single day.

Here are just a few aspects of learning that an LMS can help you with:

Skills and goals

A good LMS will help your people easily visualise their career progression by allowing them to set goals, and suggesting the skills needed to achieve them. By setting these goals within your learning platform, your team can tangibly track their progress from day one.

Learners can therefore set their own hyper-personalised goals within the platform, or choose from a predefined list – and managers can cheer them along as they progress.

Compliance

Of course not the most glamorous aspect of learning, but a necessity for protecting your company and its people. For as long as compliance training has been around, people have been trying to make it more interesting; it’s a fairly well-documented sentiment that compliance training is traditionally dry and boring.

A good LMS can liven up this less-than-exciting task for a few reasons:

Visualising the issue

Using engaging visuals and a compelling story, you can turn a meaningless compliance course into an entertaining, engrossing narrative – with relatable characters, a story arc, and an impactful lesson to take away. An LMS helps you craft your compliance courses in a colourful, memorable way so that your learners stay engaged.

Microlearning

Microlearning (the practice of splitting up larger pieces of information into smaller, bite-sized chunks) is proven to be an effective way to digest – and most importantly, remember – information. Brandon Hall Group found that organisations using microlearning reported a 50% increase in employee engagement, and a 17% increase in job satisfaction.

Adding a sense of achievement

The final pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, certificates are a great way for learners to demonstrate what they know and really drive home that sense of reward.

Providing certificates might seem like a relatively small deal to some, but it’s actually inextricably linked to a sense of motivation for learners. This study found that when certification is removed from elearning, completion rates are almost halved. That’s a very large percentage of your workforce that are ending up non-compliant or never even looking at the course in the first place.

So how do certificates work?

With the certification feature, everyone can keep on top of their assigned learning - from managers through to end users. Admins have complete oversight over training, and learners can stay up-to-date by viewing an easy-to-read table of all their assignments.

Once it’s completed, that’s when the certificate comes in. Learners can export their certification statement as a PDF, which will show what they’re compliant in and the date they completed it. Nicely tying up the entire learning experience, certificates provide a final sense of completion for learners.

2. Learning Experience Platforms

While an LMS is traditionally focused on certificates and completions, an LXP is much more concerned with the experience of the individual learners (hence, “learning experience platform.”) At its core, the LXP is built on social learning theory.  

Social learning

Social learning, a theory that emphasises learning through social interactions, is an incredibly effective way to retain information. This is because it mirrors the real-world situations we encounter every day.

However, a good LMS (like, for example, Thrive) will have a social learning component baked in along with the administrative functionality, so your learners can use the platform exactly like they use social media. With features such as shares, likes and comments, a social-led LMS makes collaborative learning feel like second nature.

3. VR or AR

Although a relatively pricey piece of tech, Virtual or augmented reality is an exciting way to create an immersive and engaging learning experience – particularly for remote learners.

As pointed out in our blog “Is the Apple Vision Pro the answer to the remote worker learning gap?” from last year:

“One of the key areas in which the Apple Vision Pro could make a significant impact is remote learning. The device can offer virtual classrooms and interactive learning modules that enable remote workers to engage in immersive educational experiences. By leveraging AR technology, users can visualise complex concepts, manipulate virtual objects, and participate in interactive simulations that are no longer physically constrained to a workplace.”

If you’re looking for something that is specifically workplace-learning-focused, VR technologies like Strivr and Mursion provide immersive training experiences with workplace learning in mind.

There’s even research that finds a positive link between VR training and soft skills retention: PwC found that 40% of VR learners saw an improvement in confidence when compared to classroom-based learners.

4. Digital tablets

Digital tablets are a great way to marry the experience of hand-writing notes with the convenience of said notes being digitally accessible. It’s been proven that writing notes by hand helps you retain information – but that doesn’t mean you have to forgo all of the benefits of modern technology.

A digital tablet (like an iPad or a ReMarkable) brings note-taking into the future.

Here are just a couple of the benefits of making notes on a digital tablet:

Convenience

The biggest benefit of using digital tablets as a part of your workplace learning strategy is convenience. Instead of having to carry around a huge unwieldy notebook, your learners can do everything from one, simple, slick device. As an added bonus most digital tablets sync with desktop and mobile devices, meaning they can access their notes from anywhere.

Inclusivity meets sustainability

Many learners – neurodivergent and neurotypical alike – are better able to process information when occupying their hands with something, be it a fidget toy or a doodle in a notebook. Digital tablets allow them to do the latter without wasting any paper, meaning they can delete anything that doesn’t matter but come away retaining the most important information.

Tip! When choosing a learning platform, make sure to look out for one that works across multiple devices – that way your people can get all the benefits of their LMS from wherever they're working, on whatever device they’re using.

5. Artificial intelligence (AI)

We’re sure you’ve never heard of this before!

In all seriousness, the capabilities (and drawbacks) of Large Language Models and AI more broadly have been widely publicised. It seems like every week a new debate is sparked, a new lawsuit announced, a new revelatory but slightly scary application is unveiled.

In our opinion when it comes to AI and workplace learning, it’s all about knowing exactly how and when to use it. AI Large Language Models can be an incredible, convenient and fun addition to your strategy – providing they are used ethically, and not applied to tasks better suited to a uniquely human perspective.

Here are just a few ways that you can use AI in workplace learning:

AI-powered learning platforms

AI can be a game-changing tool when applied within a learning platform. Take Sana Labs’ AI Learning Platform – or Thrive’s AI Content Authoring Tool, which has the ability to save L&D departments hours and hours that would ordinarily be poured into creating content.

With the use of simple prompts, Thrive’s AI Authoring Tool auto-generates fresh and engaging content on any topic at the click of a button.

Research

How many times have you spent hours poring over various Google Scholar articles, bravely venturing into Page 10 of the search results, and scouring every last corner of the internet for the information you desperately need?

One of AI’s best applications within workplace learning is research. It’s amazing how much time can be saved by using Large Language Models like Bing AI and Chat GPT instead of Google. This is because these models are able to scour the web for an extremely specific query and help you find exactly what you’re looking for, rather than you having to do that work yourself.

To quote our article from 2023, “5 ways to use ChatGPT for workplace learning”:

“The google journey goes :

Search > click link > read content

Whereas ChatGPT allows users to :

Search > read simplified  content

One step less! This means if you want quick information on something like Kirkpatrick's 4 Levels of Evaluation or on social learning theory, you can grab that really quickly in the flow of work, rather than going through articles and ending up down a 4 hour YouTube rabbit hole on how the Earth is actually the shape of a rugby ball.”

And of course, Chat GPT and other models like it have evolved so much in the almost two years since that article was published, but the above point still very much rings true – perhaps even more so now. Simplifying search with AI is a huge game-changer for L&D practitioners.

Virtual mentoring

This is a bit of a controversial topic, and one we touched on in our article “Is LinkedIn’s AI coach up to the task?

Some would argue that coaching and mentoring is a uniquely human practice; one that can’t be ceded to an artificial intelligence model. Others see it simply as an element of a modernised coaching practice, rather than the entire thing.

One effective use of this technology is leveraging a model like Synthesia to create an AI avatar of yourself, which can then deliver personalised feedback. This approach saves time while ensuring your employees still receive the tailored feedback they deserve.

More Stories

See all

See Thrive in action

Explore what impact Thrive could make for your team and your learners today.

August 15, 2024
|
5 mins to read

The 5 best pieces of tech for workplace learning

If you’re looking to enhance your employees’ learning experiences with well-chosen tech, look no further. This article rounds up the top five pieces of tech to help your learning make an impact.
Alex Mullen
Web Content Writer

Looking to upgrade your workplace learning, and equip your people with technology that helps them excel in their careers?

In this blog, we’ll be rounding up the 5 best pieces of tech for workplace learning, and exploring how you can inject some fun and ease into your team’s learning and development.

1. Learning Management Systems

Yes, we know we’re being predictable by recommending these right at the beginning of our list – but we promise there’s a reason (several, actually) why some of the world’s most innovative, successful businesses use this technology every single day.

Here are just a few aspects of learning that an LMS can help you with:

Skills and goals

A good LMS will help your people easily visualise their career progression by allowing them to set goals, and suggesting the skills needed to achieve them. By setting these goals within your learning platform, your team can tangibly track their progress from day one.

Learners can therefore set their own hyper-personalised goals within the platform, or choose from a predefined list – and managers can cheer them along as they progress.

Compliance

Of course not the most glamorous aspect of learning, but a necessity for protecting your company and its people. For as long as compliance training has been around, people have been trying to make it more interesting; it’s a fairly well-documented sentiment that compliance training is traditionally dry and boring.

A good LMS can liven up this less-than-exciting task for a few reasons:

Visualising the issue

Using engaging visuals and a compelling story, you can turn a meaningless compliance course into an entertaining, engrossing narrative – with relatable characters, a story arc, and an impactful lesson to take away. An LMS helps you craft your compliance courses in a colourful, memorable way so that your learners stay engaged.

Microlearning

Microlearning (the practice of splitting up larger pieces of information into smaller, bite-sized chunks) is proven to be an effective way to digest – and most importantly, remember – information. Brandon Hall Group found that organisations using microlearning reported a 50% increase in employee engagement, and a 17% increase in job satisfaction.

Adding a sense of achievement

The final pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, certificates are a great way for learners to demonstrate what they know and really drive home that sense of reward.

Providing certificates might seem like a relatively small deal to some, but it’s actually inextricably linked to a sense of motivation for learners. This study found that when certification is removed from elearning, completion rates are almost halved. That’s a very large percentage of your workforce that are ending up non-compliant or never even looking at the course in the first place.

So how do certificates work?

With the certification feature, everyone can keep on top of their assigned learning - from managers through to end users. Admins have complete oversight over training, and learners can stay up-to-date by viewing an easy-to-read table of all their assignments.

Once it’s completed, that’s when the certificate comes in. Learners can export their certification statement as a PDF, which will show what they’re compliant in and the date they completed it. Nicely tying up the entire learning experience, certificates provide a final sense of completion for learners.

2. Learning Experience Platforms

While an LMS is traditionally focused on certificates and completions, an LXP is much more concerned with the experience of the individual learners (hence, “learning experience platform.”) At its core, the LXP is built on social learning theory.  

Social learning

Social learning, a theory that emphasises learning through social interactions, is an incredibly effective way to retain information. This is because it mirrors the real-world situations we encounter every day.

However, a good LMS (like, for example, Thrive) will have a social learning component baked in along with the administrative functionality, so your learners can use the platform exactly like they use social media. With features such as shares, likes and comments, a social-led LMS makes collaborative learning feel like second nature.

3. VR or AR

Although a relatively pricey piece of tech, Virtual or augmented reality is an exciting way to create an immersive and engaging learning experience – particularly for remote learners.

As pointed out in our blog “Is the Apple Vision Pro the answer to the remote worker learning gap?” from last year:

“One of the key areas in which the Apple Vision Pro could make a significant impact is remote learning. The device can offer virtual classrooms and interactive learning modules that enable remote workers to engage in immersive educational experiences. By leveraging AR technology, users can visualise complex concepts, manipulate virtual objects, and participate in interactive simulations that are no longer physically constrained to a workplace.”

If you’re looking for something that is specifically workplace-learning-focused, VR technologies like Strivr and Mursion provide immersive training experiences with workplace learning in mind.

There’s even research that finds a positive link between VR training and soft skills retention: PwC found that 40% of VR learners saw an improvement in confidence when compared to classroom-based learners.

4. Digital tablets

Digital tablets are a great way to marry the experience of hand-writing notes with the convenience of said notes being digitally accessible. It’s been proven that writing notes by hand helps you retain information – but that doesn’t mean you have to forgo all of the benefits of modern technology.

A digital tablet (like an iPad or a ReMarkable) brings note-taking into the future.

Here are just a couple of the benefits of making notes on a digital tablet:

Convenience

The biggest benefit of using digital tablets as a part of your workplace learning strategy is convenience. Instead of having to carry around a huge unwieldy notebook, your learners can do everything from one, simple, slick device. As an added bonus most digital tablets sync with desktop and mobile devices, meaning they can access their notes from anywhere.

Inclusivity meets sustainability

Many learners – neurodivergent and neurotypical alike – are better able to process information when occupying their hands with something, be it a fidget toy or a doodle in a notebook. Digital tablets allow them to do the latter without wasting any paper, meaning they can delete anything that doesn’t matter but come away retaining the most important information.

Tip! When choosing a learning platform, make sure to look out for one that works across multiple devices – that way your people can get all the benefits of their LMS from wherever they're working, on whatever device they’re using.

5. Artificial intelligence (AI)

We’re sure you’ve never heard of this before!

In all seriousness, the capabilities (and drawbacks) of Large Language Models and AI more broadly have been widely publicised. It seems like every week a new debate is sparked, a new lawsuit announced, a new revelatory but slightly scary application is unveiled.

In our opinion when it comes to AI and workplace learning, it’s all about knowing exactly how and when to use it. AI Large Language Models can be an incredible, convenient and fun addition to your strategy – providing they are used ethically, and not applied to tasks better suited to a uniquely human perspective.

Here are just a few ways that you can use AI in workplace learning:

AI-powered learning platforms

AI can be a game-changing tool when applied within a learning platform. Take Sana Labs’ AI Learning Platform – or Thrive’s AI Content Authoring Tool, which has the ability to save L&D departments hours and hours that would ordinarily be poured into creating content.

With the use of simple prompts, Thrive’s AI Authoring Tool auto-generates fresh and engaging content on any topic at the click of a button.

Research

How many times have you spent hours poring over various Google Scholar articles, bravely venturing into Page 10 of the search results, and scouring every last corner of the internet for the information you desperately need?

One of AI’s best applications within workplace learning is research. It’s amazing how much time can be saved by using Large Language Models like Bing AI and Chat GPT instead of Google. This is because these models are able to scour the web for an extremely specific query and help you find exactly what you’re looking for, rather than you having to do that work yourself.

To quote our article from 2023, “5 ways to use ChatGPT for workplace learning”:

“The google journey goes :

Search > click link > read content

Whereas ChatGPT allows users to :

Search > read simplified  content

One step less! This means if you want quick information on something like Kirkpatrick's 4 Levels of Evaluation or on social learning theory, you can grab that really quickly in the flow of work, rather than going through articles and ending up down a 4 hour YouTube rabbit hole on how the Earth is actually the shape of a rugby ball.”

And of course, Chat GPT and other models like it have evolved so much in the almost two years since that article was published, but the above point still very much rings true – perhaps even more so now. Simplifying search with AI is a huge game-changer for L&D practitioners.

Virtual mentoring

This is a bit of a controversial topic, and one we touched on in our article “Is LinkedIn’s AI coach up to the task?

Some would argue that coaching and mentoring is a uniquely human practice; one that can’t be ceded to an artificial intelligence model. Others see it simply as an element of a modernised coaching practice, rather than the entire thing.

One effective use of this technology is leveraging a model like Synthesia to create an AI avatar of yourself, which can then deliver personalised feedback. This approach saves time while ensuring your employees still receive the tailored feedback they deserve.

More Stories

See all

See Thrive in action

Explore what impact Thrive could make for your team and your learners today.