4 corporate elearning trends to help you get ahead in 2023
5 minute read
Following worldwide unpredictability and instability, it has become apparent that L&D is crucial for staying ahead of changes. However, what lies ahead? We surveyed L&D professionals and leaders to uncover businesses’ needs and wants from L&D. Discover the 4 corporate elearning trends that will help you achieve success in 2023.
New ways of working, technology and elearning trends
As digital fatigue sets in and we see the gradual return of face-to-face, it’s clear that further change to elearning courses is on its way. Organizations are continuing to change what they need from employees, whilst people are wanting different things from their employers. With 85% of L&D professionals reporting an increase in requests for digital learning, it’s clear that businesses need to rethink their development strategy, and L&D have a key role to play.
Data & findings
We surveyed over 130 L&D professionals and leaders, who provided unique insights through in-depth interviews and surveys, and collected data from over 10 industry research papers, to narrow down the biggest corporate elearning trends for 2023.
4 corporate elearning trends to watch in 2023
Years of rapid change within the elearning industry have offered lots of new L&D insights. Here are 4 corporate elearning trends we expect to see going to the next level in the coming year – dive in so you can get ahead of the curve.
Want to get even more of a headstart on your peers? The State of Digital Learning Report gives you access to not only corporate elearning trends, but expert insights and interviews as well as practical downloads and resources to help you succeed.
1. Blended learning becomes even more flexible
The demand for short and flexible learning content is at an all time high. Employees want access to the learning they need to do their job effectively.
With 44% of L&D leaders stating that self-paced blended learning worked best in their organization, L&D teams are moving from one-off training events to continuous learning using a variety of methods. Digital blends mixing VILTS, webinars, mobile learning and elearning have continued to stay the norm post-pandemic for online learning.
“With the increase in the demand for creating content for different roles at a fast pace, we need to work in an agile manner by minimizing the number of projects/resources we create, eliminating unnecessary work and seeking to create one size for all whenever possible. This requires more reliance on the use of branching in digital content design.”
Lila Warren, Global Head of Retail Academy, Pret a Manger
2. Measuring what matters
As hybrid working and blended learning become the new norm, an increasing number of L&D professionals are beginning to focus their attention on spending time reassessing their approach to measurement. With 20% of L&D professionals highlighting the importance of demonstrating value by measuring what counts when it comes to elearning
To measure purposeful impact, look for signals of change, be strategic about what you measure, consider measurements from the start and step out of an order taking role. Measuring what matters will allow L&D professionals to more effectively demonstrate value.
“Prior to designing a training and learning solution, let’s have the conversation about the intention. Let’s have a conversation about the purpose. And then let’s define what purpose fulfilled look like. If we can define what purpose fulfilled looks like, we can measure the extent to which purpose was fulfilled.”
Kevin M Yates, L&D Detective
3. Creating meaningful elearning experiences
It’s vital that L&D teams are creating corporate elearning which enables and accelerates relevant skills development, whilst creating experiences that are engaging, motivating, and meaningful.
The key is to focus on creating elearning experiences that change behaviors and benefits the organization. To achieve this, creating personalized, interactive experiences which are people-centered is crucial, whilst ensuring that you are respecting the learner’s time by avoiding content overload.
2023 is the year of execution:
- Enabling and accelerating relevant skills development
- Measuring what matters, and
- Creating experiences that are engaging, motivating, and meaningful (we don’t have to be dry and boring to be seriously evidence-based).
“Create experiences that are engaging, motivating, and meaningful (we don’t have to be dry and boring to be seriously evidence-based).”
Zsolt Olah, Senior Learning Technologist at Amazon
4. Doubling down on experts creating content
With L&D teams already feeling overwhelmed, successful L&D teams are looking to expand their authoring capabilities to keep up with demand.
More and more L&D teams are looking for new ways to take control of the learning content backlog and scale up when demand requires without relying on external agencies or off-the-shelf content. For 44% of L&D professionals, that means turning to their internal experts to support learning content creation at scale.
L&D teams need to focus on building the necessary capabilities, workflows, and culture to create engaging and impactful learning experiences.
“As always, it’s looking at what you need to achieve and what skills, capabilities and technologies will help you to get there. When is Artificial Intelligence (AI) output good enough, and when do you need more specific, human input? How can you transform your SMEs into creators? One example is employee-generated learning and content approaches. It’s time to double-down on these and develop co-creation workflows to help deliver impactful organization-specific learning.”
Cheryl Clemons, CEO, StoryTagger
Corporate elearning trends in summary
In 2023, our ways of working will keep developing and evolving. Ensure you stay ahead with these 4 key corporate elearning trends to create value for your business and employees:
- Focus on blended learning
- Measure what matters
- Create meaningful elearning experiences
- Double down on experts creating content
Whichever online learning trends you decide to focus on, put people at the center of your learning experiences.
Putting it into action
If you want to find out more about how top L&D experts are implementing these strategies, watch our panel webinar to get ready for the year ahead.
‘Eager to explore strategies and best practices that your expert peers are implementing this year?’ Access the State of Digital Learning Report where you can tap into the minds of your L&D peers and learning experts, compare approaches, and get prepared for the year ahead.
