According to a recent report from Gartner, a top priority for HR departments in 2022 is building critical skills and competencies for their employees.
This makes perfect sense. Learning and development (L&D) teams, which were already in a process of transition prior to the pandemic, understand they must adapt to meet the needs of a remote workforce and to connect people in new ways. The ability to make this connection hinges on creating mutually beneficial learner experiences—experiences that are engaging and rewarding.
While offering these experiences will be critical for organizations looking to attract and retain top talent during what’s been called the “great resignation,” the need extends beyond that. Training and development is also critical in terms of upskilling and reskilling your workforce to ensure performance and compliance requirements are met, especially in high-stakes industries like healthcare.
While longer, self-service learning courses serve their purpose, there is an increased need and demand for shorter, more targeted content, especially when it comes to ensuring what is learned during informational courses is retained and applied in the field. In fact, a recent EdSurge article discusses the need for shorter bursts of information, delivered digitally and when it’s most needed. “Rather than our traditional conception of ‘training’ as a time-out from everyday work to a visit to a classroom, on-the-job learning is increasingly about access to just-in-time, job-relevant content—often via a laptop or a smartphone, whether at a desk or on a manufacturing shop floor,” writes Sean Gallagher.
That’s where microlearning—bite-sized knowledge designed to engage learners and reinforce job-critical knowledge—comes into play.
Backed by clinical trials conducted at Harvard Medical School, microlearning technology (more specifically, the technology powered by Qstream) is quick, easy, and relevant to each individual learner, confirming that key concepts are mastered with minimal disruption to the flow of work. Moreover, using analytics, you can find and focus on the skills and topic areas where knowledge gaps exist.
How can organizations get the most out of a powerful microlearning tool in the context of their organization’s unique learning technology ecosystem? By creating a more closely integrated learner experience using complementary SaaS solutions. Before we explore this, let’s take a step back and review the current integration challenges that exist in the L&D space.
Related: What is LMS integration?
The challenges that exist around integrations in L&D today
It’s completely understandable that organizations opt for best-in-breed HR solutions when building their tech ecosystem. However, over time, these siloed solutions become burdensome, both for IT teams—who are tasked with building, implementing, and managing the integrations—and for employees, who must log into multiple systems and manage a running list of passwords. A recent survey from Sapient Insights Group shows that these issues are only getting worse: The average organization now deploys over 16 HR solutions, up from 10 in 2020.
This current state of learning has left employees frustrated and disengaged, leaving them less likely to embrace the material and retain it.
At the same time, integrations so sophisticated that most consumers don’t even realize when they’re occurring are being used in everyday activities outside of the workplace, whether it’s shopping, booking travel, or calling a company’s customer service team.
What if your L&D team could deliver these powerful,consumer-level experiences and, in doing so, drive the next generation of individualized learning?
Why integrating your HR tech stack is the solution
By seamlessly integrating the learning ecosystem, L&D teams can use the right mix of technologies to build the best individualized learning experience for employees. Additionally, this level of automation increases efficiencies across the organization and reinvigorates existing legacy systems.
Other benefits realized include the seamless flow of data across platforms, which creates one source of truth, and lower IT costs—not to mention less headaches from managing clunky integrations. Additionally, increased access to real-time information helps learning teams assess program performance, enables managers to identify coaching opportunities and gives leaders the ability to tie learning to business outcomes.
Introducing Qstream Connect
Qstream Connect, powered by Workato, achieves all of the above. Our powerful integration-as-a-service solution eliminates the obstacle of burdensome integration and allows for a frictionless, soft landing of our microlearning technology into existing HR tech stacks.
When microlearning is combined with traditional courses in the LMS, programs are more engaging and impactful.
What’s possible with Qstream Connect?
Here are just a few innovative ways that our customers leverage Qstream Connect:
- Receive short, meaningful, individualized microlearning sessions through common collaboration and communication tools, like Slack or Microsoft Teams.
- Integrate learning and talent management systems with individualized microlearning sessions to support knowledge reinforcement, confirmation, and long-term retention of key skills and concepts.
- Welcome new employees with individualized microlearning triggers by an HR system of record as part of new hire onboarding activities.
- Deliver individualized microlearning to sales and field professionals through the CRM tools they use on an everyday basis.
Individualized learning that’s integrated into the systems employees use frequently has the power to revolutionize how people learn in business environments. This is particularly important in the context of an increasingly remote workforce, where companies are learning to rely on technology to inspire the performance of their teams.
Creating cohesive learning environments drive employee and organizational performance in a fast-paced, increasingly digital age. But are they the secret sauce to overcoming the talent shortage? Only time will tell. For now, I can safely say they are a big piece of that pie. Still, any way you slice it, the future is bright for organizations that embrace the power of integrations, especially across their learning tech stacks.
