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10 Effective Ways to Increase Knowledge Retention in Courses: Enhancing Learning Outcomes

We humans are easily distracted, quick to boredom and urr.... forgetful. This is a huge problem when it comes to creating courses for learners. After all, amazing things happen when your learners actually retain what they've learned.

Firstly it increases the return on investment, making the courses worth the expense. Secondly, the higher the retention of knowledge, the more those new skills are put into practise in the workplace. Thirdly, if one employee has a new skill they can teach their teammates, boosting knowledge sharing.

So check out these 10 effective methods to increasing the knowledge retention in your learners.

1. Weave in interactive elements

Ensuring your courses are interactive not only reduces boredom, but it makes learners active rather than passive in their learning. Adding quizzes, video chats, and group activities encourage learners to pay attention, use what they've just learned, and apply it in realtime. This is one reason why so many companies are using gamification tactics to improve their courses.

Not only does it encourage knowledge recall, but it's fun - and if something is fun you have a far better chance of remembering it. This is also why many training companies are taking advantage of multimedia. Remember the excitement you felt when the teacher would wheel the TV into the classroom? Elements like video, audio, VR and storytelling hold our attention for far longer, so use them in your courses.

2. Retell the story in different formats

Explaining a topic in one way only gives a very 2D view of that topic. It makes it much harder for learners to apply that topic in real world situations. Imagine a trainee surgeon only reading how to perform heart surgery before sending them to the operating theatre. *Shudder*

It's important to flesh out a topic by explaining it in different ways. Would including a chart, video, and a test be more helpful than a mere presentation? Definitely!

Another reason to retell a topic is to include all learner types you will have. Not everyone learns in the same way, so only giving them one format will be ineffective for at least 2/3 of the learners. Take into account the auditory, visual and tactile perspective when creating or adding to courses.

3. Make learning, micro

There have been many studies looking at the length of learning courses and the rate of concentration. In order to prevent cognitive overload it's important to make courses bitesized. Microlearning is highly popular in the eLearning world and focuses on small sessions covering a topic directly and using follow-up micro-courses to expand upon it. These small sessions give learners enough time to learn new information, while remaining short enough to prevent them becoming overloaded.

These microlearning courses also take advantage of multimedia, allowing learners to download, replay and save courses if they need a refresher.

This bitesize aspect of courses also translates to the design element of courses. Microlearning often looks clean and direct. If you want to create a short course, ensure the page isn't overloaded, the goal is clear, and you only say what needs to be said.

4. Include quizzes and exams throughout the courses

If learners know they are going to be tested on what they've learned, they will actively try to absorb and retain it, so they can recall it during the test. So including small, low-risk tests is highly encouraged. This can be another example of gamification as you may want to restrict access to the next level (course) until a learner reaches a certain score.

It can also be a great way of analysing your courses to see if they're perhaps too difficult, long, or unclear. If you notice a pattern of low scores, it could be the course rather than the learners' ability.

You can of course combine these elements by collecting the courses you like and creating a Learning Path.

5. Combine topics

Mixing up topics to give learners more variety, (or interleaved practise) is a great way to help learners retain information. It works by forcing their brains to recall different information and apply it to situations. After all, even an interesting topic can become stale if it's focused on too much, and learners will start to feel complacent in the fact they know information because it's the only thing they're learning.

Therefore, improve knowledge retention and introduce more skills into the mix by introducing learners to more than one topic at a time. For example, if you're teaching leadership, perhaps also include workplace conflict resolution.

6. Use stories and characters to create relatability

Storytelling has always been used to get small humans to remember things... turns out, big humans can benefit from it too! In fact, one of the myskillcamp, partners iAM Learning, prides themselves on creating animated explainer content that engages learners with its vibrancy and storytelling.

Storytelling works by making learners relate to characters and picture the specific skill being used in a scenario. By creating a relatable on-the-job situation you offer learners the chance to remember key concepts successfully.

Furthermore, storytelling, such as the kind created by iAM Learning uses video elements, which further engages learners. What can you create or buy that will do the same?

7. Encourage learners to use their newly acquired information

Apart from testing, (which we've already covered) we can encourage learners to use their newly acquired information in other ways. A great example of this is Blended Learning. After the eLearning portion of the course is complete, a video call or face-to-face meeting can be used to share what they've learned, ask follow-up questions, and role-play scenarios. This will not only encourage learners to pay attention to the previous part of the course, but it will help them recall information, build on their knowledge with others, and ask about aspects that they may not understand fully.

If not Blended Learning then perhaps give the learners a task on-the-job to perform, so they quickly put the information to use. Doing this will quickly make them masters of their new skill.

8. Create scenarios

Following on from point seven, creating scenarios that tie into real-world applications quickly show how this skill will be used in real life. Using the skill repetitively is the best way to store it in one's long-term memory, plus it helps the company ROI immediately.

Additionally, showing someone that a skill has relevancy in the real world encourages learners to take pay attention and appreciate the topic.

9. Lead them onto follow-up courses where the recent skill will be built upon

With any learner it's important to build a learning journey. Stopping after one topic will be demotivating to learners and won't establish a life-long learning culture within your company. However, following up with another course encourages learners to recall their previous knowledge and apply it to the new course. Moreover they will be motivated to pay attention to the courses they take, or they may struggle during the next one.

Build your learner journey in your LMS or learn how to build it with myskillcamp.

10. Set learning/skill goals

Increase knowledge retention by choosing courses that your learners are interested. During reviews and goal-setting periods, ask what they want to learn how how they want to progress in their career. Being motivated to learn will increase the likelihood they will retain information and progress steadily. This is also a great way to plan out a learner's journey.

Another bonus to this is that the learner will feel more motivated within their job as they are clearly being listened to and given a way to progress within the company. If it helps a learner achieve their Ikigai, it's going to improve your KPIs.

It may look like a lot of work, but if you already invest in eLearning and have a good LMS/LXP then you will find it easier to tick these boxes to create a high level of knowledge retention in your courses.

For example, myskillcamp lets companies build interactive courses and learner journeys in a user-friendly way. Furthermore, we have over 300,000 courses on our marketplace to enable companies to build upon their knowledge-base and offer more to their learners (as well as sell their courses).

If you want to see how much knowledge retention can be raised in your company then book a personalised trial with myskillcamp. It's time to improve your ROI.

Discover ten effective strategies to increase knowledge retention in courses, addressing common challenges such as distractions and forgetfulness.

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11 Easy Ways to Promote Learning in 2022: Boosting Workplace Training

As 2022 hurtles towards us, we're urged to look at our successes and our 'could be better's of 2021 when it comes to company goals. Especially that of workplace training.

Why? Well because if you read our last blog about 'The Great Resignation' (kudos if you did, have a biscuit! 🍪 ) the workforce is resigning at an alarming rate! And when 94% of employees said investment in training and development is one of the major reasons they would decide to stay in a role for longer... it's not a goal that should be overlooked.

So, here it is! The best and most definitive list of ways you can promote learning in 2022.

1) Get HR and L&D involved

As we've just covered, learning should be a top interest in businesses - so those in the L&D and HR departments should be involved in business decisions and quarterly goals. If the company leaders make learning a goal then it trickles down to managers and their teams.

2) Encourage event attendance

This is one that I (Alicja, writing this article, breaking the 4th wall to give you a personal anecdote) experienced personally and worked a treat. At the beginning of the year, encourage your team to look up events that would be beneficial to them.

In workplace terms, this is similar to when the teacher would roll in the TV. You're still doing work, but it's different and therefore, exciting! Team members can send their managers a list of events that would be beneficial to their development. If approved, they can attend, take notes, schedule demos, and relay important information to the team.

3) "What do you want to learn"?

Seems obvious, but thinking back to your years of work life, how often have you been asked this? Probably not often. If a course is seen as purely for the company's benefit, an employee won't be excited to take it. So as well as these mandated training courses, take the time to discover what the employees want to learn. Make your employees motivated to pick up new skills.

4) HOW do learners want to learn (how do they learn the best?)

In the same vein, how do your learners want to learn? If your company is set in their ways of delivering courses, you may want to shake up how courses are delivered. Perhaps blended learning, eLearning, or another popular way of teaching new skills would be a welcomed change.

Moreover, how do your learners pick up and retain information? Whether it's auditory, visual or tactical learning, there's a way to adapt their preference to every training course you set. We advise asking and running the following questionnaire to assess each learner - therefore making your courses in 2022 better suited to those taking them.

5) Career progression

When we start 2022 we'll all inevitably be asked about our yearly goals and what we want to achieve in the year ahead. Promote learning by asking each employee what they would like to learn in order to obtain their new goals. Career progression is a great motivator, so linking learning to tangible results will certainly increase course engagement.

However, it's important to remember that if a learner completes their chosen course(s) they need to be rewarded for their dedication. Career progression, wage raise or new opportunities will be expected. ;)

6) Dedicate time to learn

Myskillcamp has this in place and it's proving to be a successful way to promote learning. You see, it's difficult to change the perception of learning from 'something that takes you away from work' to 'something that makes work easier'. Changing this is as simple as blocking off half an hour - an hour a week in everyone's calendar to dedicate to learning. You could set a series of new training courses, enable people to attend workshops, webinars, read business books etc. The simplest way to change the perception of training, is to do so from the top down.

7) Praise those who learn

Those who take time to learn new skills and complete courses need to be rewarded so that the action is repeated. Moreover, courses that are company-wide can be gamified by giving those who complete the course first/with the highest score, a prize. Whether it's a badge, coupon, extra time off, or a Christmas bonus; praising those who take the time to complete courses is a great way to encourage others to do the same.

8) Upgrade the training

Similar to asking learners how they want to learn, it may be time to look at what training your company currently offers. This is especially true if your employees are working from home, or if you hire remote workers. ELearning courses that make use of gamification, video, audio and quizzes will help to boost motivation and performance. Not to mention make it easier for HR and L&D teams to measure performance.

9) Keep learning resources in one place

When we have to scour a website or the company's intranet to find what we're looking for, we soon get frustrated and give up. So if your employees have to search around for courses, they will meet the same fate. That's why a great way to promote learning is to keep all the courses in one place. No more hidden files, broken links, or empty folders. If you don't have a learning management system (or if your current one has limitations) this can be difficult to achieve, especially if your courses have multimedia elements.

If you're interested in keeping all your courses, training files and analytics in one place, feel free to check out how myskillcamp's platform can help achieve this.

10) Measure your successes

As we've just covered, if you're in L&D or HR, promoting learning to employees is important... however, if you really want your training plans to have longevity and backing, they need to be agreed with and promoted by the heads of department and higher. It's only with their backing do they help you promote your training, and it's only with c-suite onboard that you get the necessary funding.

You can do this by correctly measuring ROI. Measuring satisfaction, learning, behavioural changes and performance, with a mixture of quantitive and qualitative methods, will help you prove that the courses are returning the initial investment. While also letting you know how to improve your training courses in the future.

If you're not sure how to measure the success of your training courses, we're here to help. Myskillcamp has a past webinar (now on YouTube) explaining how to measure your courses' success. Watch now.

11) The final piece of the puzzle

You may have noticed that throughout this article we've subtly mentioned how myskillcamp will help with course creation, curation, storage and analytics. - It was very subtle though so you may not have noticed...

Well, if you're looking for a helping hand, we're here for you. Check out how myskillcamp can help and even get a walkthrough of our platform at a time that suits you.

But enough of the self-promotion, time to promote your training courses! We're cheering for you!

Learn 11 practical and easy-to-implement ways to promote learning and enhance workplace training in 2022, driving employee growth and organizational success.

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22 eLearning Predictions for 2022: Trends and Insights

More money is pouring into this industry each year, tech is improving, and we're online more than ever. So with a whole lot of research and looking at trends apparent within myskillcamp - here are the predictions we have for 2022...

1. Learning with analytics

L&D and HR will rely on analytics to see the success of courses and trends of learners. With analytics becoming simpler to understand and easier to access, they will be used more often and with greater effect.

2. Independent learning

Courses are moving online and home working is still prevalent, this means companies will step away from scheduling time for learners to take specific courses. Instead companies will give learners the freedom to learn in their own time.

3. Employee suggestions

People are realising the advantage of learning new skills to make themselves more employable. They also realise that mentioning courses to their managers will make them look 'proactive' and may result in them getting these courses for free. Therefore, employees will suggest courses to their employers (rather of the other way around).

4. L&D managers will be part of business decisions

Training is no longer an afterthought. Whether its new software, new ways of working, or hiring new employees en mass; learning and onboarding is going to be a business goal, meaning L&D will be common place in board meetings.

5. Language courses becoming more popular

Language courses became more popular in 2020 as people had more free time. This trend will rise sharply again as hiring is no longer restricted to an office's location. Similarly, as travel is still somewhat restricted, the motivation to learn languages to 'prepare for the future' will be persistant.

6. An increase in multimedia courses like video and audio

An ongoing trend that will continue to rise in popularity due to the need to take courses on mobile rather than desktop.

7. More LXPs entering the market

The eLearning industry is becoming more profitable, leading to new companies emerging in the marketplace. Similarly, with the need for personalisation increasing for both courses and platforms, these new companies will be LXPs rather than LMS' (as LXPs allow for more personalisation).

8. AI will be used to predict user behaviour.

By interpreting data and reports made from completed courses, AI will make recommendations to companies and learners. For example, suggesting follow-up courses and ideas for new courses.

9. Increased need to ensure course quality

French LMS’ will quickly and effectively become Qualiopi certified, this will lead to more countries looking for similar ways to ensure course quality. Therefore course creators should stay alert for new qualifications emerging.

10. Preference for microlearning

Shorter, bite-size courses that can be picked up and set aside at any time, will continue to rise in popularity, especially as courses that require small yet frequent learning (such as langage courses) remain popular.

11. Mobile-first learning

Big data shows that we are turning to our mobiles for more and more. Similarly, studies show that Gen Z prefer to use phones over tablets and desktop devices leading to training being taken on mobile.

12. Downloadable courses

For courses that are not 'mobile-first', creators will ensure the courses are at least small enough and downloadable so they’re easier to learn and review on the go. This will bridge the gap between desktop courses and mobile courses.

13. Learning apps rather than websites

As smaller courses, video courses and mobile-first courses become popular, learners will turn to apps rather than websites. This means eLearning companies will start producing apps.

14. Curation rather than creation

It's faster to use information that already exists then creating it from scratch. Curating courses from professionals will also lead to better training for your learners and will be cheaper.

15. Off the shelf courses

As more companies obtain more courses (either created or curated) they will develop catalogues that learners can browse at their leisure. They will be stored in their intranet or on their LXPs.

16. Learner journeys will become common

Thousands of courses are available and AI will get to know you as a learner. This means longterm learner journeys made up of micro, multimedia courses will be common in 2022.

17. More gamification - but simpler

Gamification works, that's no secret. But gamification doesn't need to be complicated. As courses get smaller, and we go mobile-first, gamification will boil down to scoreboards and posting successes on social media.

18. More communication

As home working and lockdowns continue, learners will continue to need social interaction to remain motivated. This will lead to managers and trainers using video and chat functions on courses and learning platforms.

19. Management courses with a virtual component

Management courses have always been popular, but now so many teams are working remotely, management courses that are geared towards dealing with remote teams will become popular.

20. Internal Mentors and Coaches becoming more common in the workplace

Those that remained in the company during 2020 will have far more experience than new hires. As well as personalised onboarding, mentors and coaches will be a common practise to ensure new employees are trained properly.

21. Social learning

One of the oldest forms of learning, but with a 2022 twist. Social learning this year will be virtual, but will allow for collaborative teamwork. Practise business cases, video conferencing tools and collaborative software allows social learning to prosper.

22. Extern training

Expect an increase of companies training their externs in 2022. This will help to boost productivity and brand identity now more aspects of companies are online rather than in store. Suppliers, 3rd party companies, stakeholders and vendors will receive training.

Agree with our predictions or disagree entirely, share our blog to social media and let us know by tagging @myskillcamp.

Discover the top predictions for the eLearning industry in 2022, providing insights into the latest trends and advancements, based on research and analysis within myskillcamp.

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5 Ways eLearning Can Enhance Marketing Skills: Insights from DigitalME

Guest Blog - Written by Ross Jenkins, Company Director at DigitalME

Over the past 20 years, learning has been reshaping thanks to new technologies such as broadband, cloud computing, and more recently, virtual reality. These technologies have opened the doors to innovate our way of learning. Thanks to that, we’ve been able to be more efficient in our jobs and in fulfilling our desires for accomplishment.

Breaking the barriers

eLearning has come to break the barriers traditional learning was confined by. For example, it allows you to learn at your own pace and style, rather than having to adapt to a schedule. It also allows us to break distance barriers by enrolling in courses created by experts from thousands of miles away. That’s part of the reason why the eLearning system has been adopted by many universities around the world (even before the pandemic started).

And this is just the beginning. According to some predictions, the future awaiting learning and education goes beyond our current comprehension. Just imagine being able to use a device that lets you download special some special skills that you only see in rare cases. For example, having the possibility to learn Steve Jobs’ leadership or Elon Musk’s analytical thinking. Undeniably, the future is something that you have only witnessed in movies or science fiction books. It’s a little fascinating and scary at the same time.

How to gain new skills with eLearning

But placing ourselves in the present, there are many things you can gain through eLearning that might not make you the next Steve Jobs (who knows?), but they will make your marketing life more efficient. Let’s see how eLearning helps you gain some marketing skills from the point of view of a digital marketer:

1. Defining your goals faster

When you want to gain some new marketing skills you’ll have many options at your disposal at the same time: a course offered by a prestigious university, the training offered by a marketing expert, and the courses imparted by a professor. All of them promise to be the perfect choice for every beginner and experienced marketer, but are they?

By starting your eLearning journey you get to respond to the questions every marketing student has during their learning period: “What is the purpose of my desire to learn marketing?” “What do I wish to learn?” and the more crucial one: “Is it something that I get to learn by taking a 4-year bachelor’s degree or is it something that I can learn from a 2 hours tutorial on YouTube?” Having so many options at your disposal allows you to get an answer faster since you will have more options for discerning what you want to achieve.

2. Learning from experts around the world

By taking some online educational programs, you’ll be able to learn from very experienced people not only from your country but around the world. This will make your learning experience not only more complete but more culturally enriched. Also, you’ll have more chances to find a mentor/teacher that adapts better to your learning needs. There are many specialised marketing professionals sharing their knowledge through eLearning and their courses/training are not as expensive. Many of which you can find on myskillcamp.

3. Learning from here and there

eLearning also gives you the opportunity to acquire knowledge from multiple sources. For example, you can enroll in a course related to a specific marketing matter such as Social media campaigns, or Google ads. Then you could complement that course with some tutorials from other sources such as YouTube. For example, tutorials on “how to manage Facebook campaigns” or “how to optimize my Google ads campaigns”.

4. Getting a remote Job

eLearning also opens you the doors to get some online jobs. There are hundreds of people looking to get some very specific tasks done that don’t even require a marketing degree or certification. For example, google ads specialists, social media managers, or email copywriters. You can learn to perform some of these tasks by taking some online courses and even watching some tutorials. Then you can advertise your services on a freelance platform such as Upwork or Fiverr. This undeniably will expand your marketing skills, since you’ll be practicing what you’ve learned.

5. Expanding your current knowledge (upskilling)

Those who are already digital marketers or who have worked on the subject can expand their knowledge by taking digital training. This is very beneficial for both those who are working independently (as freelancers), or for a company. eLearning also allows you to stay up-to-date on your already-acquired skills. This can be beneficial to software skills since the software is constantly evolving, and previously learned skills can become obsolete. We Digital Marketers need to be evolving ourselves to keep delivering relevant solutions.

The eLearning era

eLearning is a great choice for those that want to start learning something new or for those that just need to polish their current skills. During my career, I’ve gotten to know highly valuable people that have forged their marketing careers only through eLearning. Some of them are very successful freelancers on Upwork. You would think they come from the most prestigious universities in the world but they don’t, some of them forged their knowledge by taking some courses offered by Coursera or Udemy - both available in one place, myskillcamp. eLearning is, without a doubt, something that is revolutionising our way of learning by bringing knowledge to all places and reducing the educational gap between the countries.

In DigitalME, we believe in eLearning as an agent of change. Many of the services we provide rely on eLearning as a service. We help you to better understand the tools we use through webinars and knowledge base articles. Also, we provide tutorials on every subject related to Digital Universe.

Similarly, myskillcamp offers over 30,000 expertly-created courses in a wide range of business-related topics; sales, leadership, soft skills, and other sought after skills needed by business professionals. All of which are created by providers like Coursera, Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, Bookboon and more. Check out the platform.


Explore five ways eLearning can provide new marketing skills, as shared by Ross Jenkins, Company Director at DigitalME, in a guest blog post.

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5 Ways to Personalize Onboarding with Myskillcamp: Enhancing the Onboarding Experience

Hey there campers! Did you know that all our users can suggest new features for the myskillcamp platform?

Well, you spoke and we listened:

Awesome myskillcamp user: "I would like to be able to route a learner to different module suites depending on the score obtained in a questionnaire".

So, we discussed it and agreed it’s a great idea with many use cases... So we adapted our onboarding. And here's what we have:

Our improved onboarding system can now be used to assess each person when they first arrive on the platform, and based on their response/score/goals they move through a certain learning path decided on by their manager. Simply put, a business can ensure each person's first course results in a personalised learner journey.

Those creating the onboarding courses can choose any number of multimedia options myskillcamp offers to assess each person, and set them on the right path. Whether it's a quiz, video, audio course, or a mixture, the person building the courses can use what's needed to effectively assess each person when they start onboarding.

Similarly, we ensured these onboarding courses must be completed before people can access the rest of the platform... meaning this process can't be skipped or answered half-heartedly.

So now you know what we’ve created, we decided to show you some use cases, just in case you want to see how you can use our new onboarding process...

Language Courses

A training organisation specialising in languages wants to use our onboarding process to assess each learner's current language level. When the onboarding is complete/a score is obtained, this organisation allows the learner access to a learning space based on their needs.

So a learner with an A1 level of French starts with courses covering the basics, whereas a learner with a C2 level of Spanish starts courses covering much more advanced topics.


Employee Onboarding

A company welcoming new hires wants to ensure they understand the culture, organisation, and morals to increase their productivity levels from the get go. To do this, they use the myskillcamp platform to upload an introductory video with a follow-up quiz. Once new hires have watched the video and scored over 80% on the quiz can they access other courses.


Skill Level

New hires are joining a company but the company wants to check their current knowledge level in certain processes before they set them follow-up courses. For example, data protection, sales training, Customer care... Are these new hires well-versed, new to the subject, or at an intermediate level? Finding out with onboarding will save time and give the new hires a personalised process that'll be appreciated.


Career Goals

The L&D managers of a company want to know the career growth goals of their fellow employees in other departments. This company starts using myskillcamp to give each employee an onboarding audio file to explain the goal of the L&D team, followed by a quiz to learn the career growth path each person would like to take. From this information, each person can start taking courses that move them closer to their desired goal.


Partner Training

A learning organisation wants to train their external contacts (trainers, suppliers, wholesalers, stakeholders etc) on the various processes they have. These partners are onboarded by taking a series of 'how-to' videos before taking an overall quiz. Once the partners have understood the processes, they are allowed to progress on the platform

There are endless use cases for this onboarding update, so ask yourself, how can it be used in your business?

Why it works for learners

This kind of personalised onboarding and learner journey doesn't just make sense on a business level (as it saves time and money it would take to train each learner from a beginner level), but it works for the learners in several different ways.

  • They start learning at the right level and can progress when (and only when) they complete the course.
  • They feel their training is personal to their development because the first step is to assess their current level - so the company cares about their training
  • Managers can take into consideration the goals and career progression opportunities of the learner and add that into the learner path.

Want to get started with myskillcamp and introduce your learners to a personalised learning experience? Sign up for a free trial, and start your onboarding processes today.

Discover five ways to personalize the onboarding experience using Myskillcamp's platform, ensuring a seamless and tailored onboarding process for new hires.

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5.5 'Must-Haves' for a Successful Coach: Enhancing Training Career

If you're looking to make your training career more successful then there are two main subjects to think about; the learners, and the courses.

As we're often asked about this, we decided to create a list to help trainers organise what they need and show the solutions on offer to help them achieve success quicker.

1. Create a business hub

Fewer than 24% of coaches can sustain themselves on their coaching career alone, this is because it's not enough to be a coach, you have to have a coaching business. A way to get started is having a business hub, a place where all your content exists, where you can be reached, where you can communicate with your learners.

Having a website or a good Learning eXperience Platform (LXP) can help you achieve this. Firstly, it helps you be found quicker, and present yourself as a legitimate trainer. Secondly, with all your courses being on the same site, it increases the likelihood a learner will stay on the site for longer and take more than one course. Thirdly, if a learner runs into an issue they will be able to easily contact you - making the process as easy as possible is key.

For example, our LXP lists a trainer's courses in one location, enables chat and presents the trainer's bio clearly. Plus any extra courses can be imported or created onsite - making it an easy to use site to control.

2. Give an authentic experience

The days of a trainer presenting solely in an office setting are finished. This means you can work from anywhere, (hooray!) but it also means you have to find another way of providing an authentic learning experience.

Start with thinking about the courses you offer, are they the best type of learning on the market? Does it include blended learning, e learning, gamification and multimedia? Including these types of courses help to keep learners engaged for longer, and appeals to all learner types. Think about it; would you rather offer text-heavy courses or ones that include audio, video, and quizzes?

There are many tools for creating multimedia courses, check out our top picks. Similarly, all multimedia is accepted on our platform, which may be easier than importing them onto your website.

3. Engage with your learners

Think about what happens during and after your existing courses, is there a way for learners to see their progress, or for you to monitor how they're finding your courses? Being able to see progress they will feel more motivated to continue and improve. Similarly, you will be able to suggest more courses and discover gaps in their knowledge - creating an opportunity for you.

To do this, create a scoring system that both you and your learners can see, coupled with an active chat functionality. It doesn't have to be elaborate, but being able to offer support when a learner is struggling or looking for new content will be a huge benefit. If creating something like this leaves you baffled, no need to worry, myskillcamp can offer you this functionality as part of the package.

4. Monitor your courses

All courses that you offer will need to be refreshed for one reason or another, perhaps the information has changed, perhaps a point you made could be clearer, maybe you notice the course isn't as popular as you thought it would be. To change a course should be a matter of reuploading (or if you're a member of myskillcamp, you can edit on the platform).

To know if a course needs to be changed is another matter, you can systematically review your courses, or can opt for your learners to do it for you. Implementing a reviewing system or a comment section per course is highly effective for spotting areas of improvement - as well as seeing what people want to learn next. Third party reviewing platforms can be used or integrated with your website. Alternatively, this is another process that is included with myskillcamp. Each course has a review and comment section.

5. Diversify the content you offer

As well as monitoring existing courses, it's a good idea to continually add new offerings. Courses that follow-on from each other, and some new topics, give learners options to stay on your site. It also makes your business hub look well-established. You can then promote new courses online so more people will see it's on your site.

However, if you're teaching as well, you may find it difficult to create new courses regularly. If you were thinking of signing up to myskillcamp then you will be able to supplement your existing courses by accessing our marketplace. We have over 300,000 courses in over 18 languages that can help you fill in the gaps you may have in your learner journey. These courses will be added to your company's site so your learners won't have to go elsewhere, and many of the courses on the marketplace are free.

5.5. Add to your learner base & income

Okay, so this isn't a 'must have', but it's a 'pretty nice to have as well'. If you did decide to sign up to myskillcamp you can also sell your own courses on our marketplace. This means you can earn extra money on top of your monthly earnings, and have your courses seen by more learners.

So on top of your own personalised business hub, analytics, multimedia-enabled courses, chat and review section - you can also sell your courses with us.

If you would rather go it alone, then we hope our list of 'must have's were helpful and you build a successful training career. If you'd like to speed up the process then reach out to us, we're here to help, and can offer you a 30 day free trial to our site > book your trial today.

Discover the key elements for success as a coach in the training industry, focusing on learners and courses, and gaining practical tips for career advancement.

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8 Techno-Pedagogical Tools to Digitize Your Training Courses: Enhancing Digital Learning

Today, there are a multitude of tools available to facilitate your training courses in Blended Learning, Full Digital or even face-to-face. The (non-exhaustive) list of software mentioned below will give you an overview of what exists, to help you better understand the digital transformation of your training courses.

8 digital tools to choose from

1 -Powtoon

It ensures the production of small animated videos that can be easily shared and integrated into your training module. Best of all, it's integrated into myskillcamp as a partner, making video creations simpler.

2 - Vyond (formerly GoAnimate)

It is a video creation tool. A real online editing studio, it allows you to create professional animated videos in a simple and fun way. The tool also has an extremely rich and varied library of pre-designed scenes, characters, objects and sets.

3 - Genially

It's a simple to use and quite complete tool. The free version will allow you to create attractive and dynamic presentations. Of course, the most interesting templates are accessible with the Premium version.

4 - Pitchy

A rather well thought-out tool for 'dynamising' content as a whole, in particular thanks to the zoom and transparency effects on the slides. The free version offers online sharing so that all your employees can view your presentation.

5 - Emaze

The tool is well designed and intuitive. It offers varied and attractive templates as well as stylish slide shows. The free version allows you to create up to 3 presentations.

6 - Wooclap

It is the essential tool for running your courses and training sessions. Instead of fighting the use of smartphones or the deconcentration they can sometimes cause, it transforms them into a learning tool: an interactive voting system that allows you to create questionnaires (MCQ, open questions), polls, matching exercises, etc.

7 - Royal Business

It's a fun and engaging web interface that allows you to create quizzes in a few minutes to test knowledge among peers.

8 - Manual.to

This is a content creator to dynamise instruction manuals by adding images, videos or short explanations to desacralise complex notions. These manuals are easily shared and accessible as they can be transmitted as QR code or URLs.

A gold mine of content and tools available on myskillcamp

As you can see in this article, we have listed 8 different tools, but there are many more! Digital opens the door to thousands of opportunities to provide the most dynamic and relevant learning experience possible. But sometimes the choice can be a difficult one, especially when you're embarking on Digital Learning.

To make things easier for you, did you know that the myskillcamp platform allows you to centralise all your learning content (both internal and external) and access the best creative tools you need through our application marketplace. Save precious time by logging in to ONE interface, with just one email address.

To find out more, don't hesitate to visit our website and if you would like a demo, contact a member of the Team by making an appointment right here.

Explore a curated list of eight techno-pedagogical tools that can facilitate and enhance your training courses, whether in blended learning, fully digital, or face-to-face formats.

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9 Tips to Create Better Digital Training Courses: Enhancing Course Quality

When creating digital training courses, the key thing to do is focus on the needs analysis (why do we need training and who will be the learners). However, I always wondered if there’s a checklist to use to make sure we go in the right direction.

…Well there is one now! Keep reading to discover my 9 tips for creating better digital training:

  • 3 tips at the beginning of the training,
  • 3 tips throughout the training,
  • and 3 tips at the end of the training.

At the beginning of the training

Before the learner starts learning, it’s critical to give them the motivation to take a course. Here are three actions that’ll help you make training appealing.


1. A short and catchy description

When you want to buy something online and you stumble across a seemingly good product. You want to know more about it so you try to read the description. But then you get frustrated as you notice that there’s no detailed information about the product's features.


When it comes to training designs, it’s kind of the same. A description should allow the learners to have a better understanding of the training’s content but also to know what are the outputs of the training.

For this, there is nothing better than specifying learning objectives, designed by Bloom’s taxonomy.


We must be careful that learning objectives are realistic. If the training course only contains a two minute video, it’s not realistic to expect learners to agree with far-fetched learning objectives. One course does not an expert make…

2. An attractive cover image

When you’re on YouTube, what makes you click on a video instead of another? There is obviously the title, but it’s not the only element!

The cover image is an image that would catch the attention and give a lot of information about your training. A good cover image would imply the training is good too.

A cover image by GoodHabitz (partner of myskillcamp): it’s simple, yet colourful, catchy and neat.


But no stress, it’s not necessary to master Photoshop to design appealing cover images. Using Canva with all its templates would allow you to create beautiful images in less than 15 minutes!

Therefore, taking a simple photo on Pexels or Unsplash won't be sufficient!

3. A video teaser

The best way to know if a new movie would please us, is to watch the trailer (which is basically a teaser)!

Using this technique may improve learners’ interest.

One partner that we love for this at myskillcamp is Kokoroe. At the beginning of each Kokoroe course, you’ll find a small 30 second video teaser.

One scene of a video teaser from a training about Intercultural Management from Kokoroe

And it’s pretty efficient because many times, learners want to know more and continue the course.

To quickly create video teasers, Lumen 5 or Canva would probably be the best tools with their numerous templates available.

Throughout the training

After the learners have started the course, it’s key to keep them engaged throughout the learning experience. Here are three tips that will help you.


4. A balanced and clear structure

One driver that we have as human beings is that we like to have a feeling of progression. If learners don’t feel like they are progressing, they are more likely to give up.

That’s why having a clear structure in your digital training course is important. Couple this with using micro-learning concepts so the progression is quick and easy to quantify.

To structure your training course, use our Learning Plan to ensure you cover all relevant topics and you make it seamless for learners.


5. Learning activities that fit the 2D feedback rule

Learning activities (quiz, projects…) are key so your learners are more active in their journey. I think we all know that.

Feedback here is differentiated and detailed in this course about GDPR

I want to insist on what I called the 2D principle when it comes to feedback in learning activities:

  • Differentiated: it’s key to let each learner know if they succeeded or not in the learning activities. For instance, if the learner has a correct answer to a quiz or not. Many times, we don’t know and that’s frustrating!
  • Detailed: A common frustration when following a digital training course is to be wrong for a learning activity but it’s not possible to see where the mistakes are and how I can prevent from doing them again. That’s why it's key to give detailed feedback with links to dive deep for instance.

6. Diversity in content format

The common belief is that we all have a learning style. However, that's not 100% true. What we have is learning strategies. Also as a learning designer, our responsibility is to stimulate learners so they can use their learning strategies. Therefore, they can memorise the content easily (you can check out this video if you want to know more).

One way to do so is to diversify the format of the content you have so you keep the learners’ attention throughout the learning journey. To do so, use the power of learning curation to quickly find diversified pieces of content.


At the end of the training

7. A questionnaire to assess reaction

You’ve spent a lot of time designing a training course. But it’s key to assess how the learners have reacted to this training. What will they remember from the training? What did they like the most from the training?

It’s time to ask them so you can actually measure quantitative measurements like course satisfaction which is the first level of the Kirkpatrick model.

But you will be able to gather qualitative insight too, so you can improve future courses.

A simple questionnaire on Google Forms would be perfect. But guess what? You don’t really have to do anything for that because we provide you with a template you can use at the end of each of your courses!


8. A key take away

Following a course is great, then the next step is to actually make something out of it. So learners have to use what they’ve learned. For that, it depends on each individual. However, one way to make it easier for the learners as a learning designer is to give them something they can refer to after the training.


Creating a key take away that the learner can save or print at the end of the training with the main key topics covered during the course is the way to go.

One myskillcamp partner is giving key take-aways at the end of each of its training sessions, XOS. The design is simple but it’s something that you can go back to easily without taking the whole training again.


9. A certificate to show success

Once the learners have completed training, one good way to praise them is to generate a certificate they can add to their collection. It can be quite tricky because it’s something you want to automate so you don’t spend one day per week creating certifications.

With the myskillcamp authoring tool you can actually personalise certificates for each course and it’s a lot quicker.

Do what I say, and what I do too :P

I will apply one of the tips mentioned in this article by giving you a key take away that you can save. This is so you can keep it near when designing your future digital training courses!

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Discover nine valuable tips for creating better digital training courses, focusing on needs analysis, learner engagement, and course design.

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Considering and Implementing Blended Learning: Rethinking Learning Approaches

Written by myskillcamp's Training Partner, Upskill

The health crisis we’ve had to cope with has forced us to rethink our way of learning. Finding new approaches has been necessary and digitalisation is now an evidence, even for lifelong learning. Today, plenty of tools and digital solutions help us to provide high quality distance learning and to make face-to-face training far more engaging. Digital technology is a must for both learning styles.

But will digitalisation still be a key theme after the pandemic? What is the real impact on the sector? Unow, an actor in digital corporate learning, has recently conducted a survey on many companies in order to gather their perception of the evolution of corporate learning. 91% of the respondents think that the lockdown and the pandemic will have a long-term impact on digitalisation in learning. For most companies, there’s no turning back. On the contrary, it’s important to continue and integrate digitalisation in the evolution of their workers, for example through blended learning (19% of the respondents).

ISTF also conducted such a survey which reports that 89% of the companies want to continue using distance learning or blended learning, even after the health crisis. A trend confirmed by a study carried out by the CNFPT which reveals that while only 6% of the provided in-company training were blended-learning training before the Covid-19 crisis, this rate increases to reach 74% in 2020.

Even if digital training is more and more successful, face-to-face training remains an interesting option since many learners and teachers still think that some approaches cannot be replaced by fully digital programs.

At Upskill, we also believe that digital learning cannot be used for any topic. It could for example be far more difficult to talk about and experiment non-verbal communication during a digital training session than by face-to-face learning.

Blended learning, a mix of digital and face-to-face learning, is thus a good compromise if you want to take advantage of both methods.


How to implement blended learning

At Upskill, we base the creation of each blended course on the same method, inspired by Constructive alignment.

Creating a reassuring environment

First of all, creating good blending courses needs a positive and reassuring environment as it can be difficult for some people to become acquainted with a digital platform or to have to learn on one’s own.

The 3 conditions for such an environment are :

  • Ensuring that every student feels responsible for their own learning,
  • Ensuring that every student becomes autonomous,
  • Working by learning objectives.

Establishing clear objectives

Establishing clear goals and objectives is an important part of the job, even before setting up the method to reach them.

In order to identify these objectives, we invite you to refer to Bloom’s Taxonomy. This classification includes six levels of learning, each level being built on a foundation of the previous ones.

Choosing the right method

Obviously, the chosen method and the learning activities are highly dependent on the learning objective.

We start with defining what it is intended students should learn (our objectives), and align teaching activities to those objectives. Depending on the chosen activities, we’ll be able to determine which method best suits : digital or face-to-face learning. That’s often where blended learning appears particularly appropriate since it allows you to mix digital and face-to-face activities.

8 évènements d’apprentissage de Pulmay & Leclerq (2008) will help you to validate the definition of your learning activities.

Assessing

Always remember that assessing your learning program will help you to improve and optimise. Also bear in mind that the best assessment is the one that evaluates each level of your educational programs. Don’t hesitate to refer to the new version of the Kirkpatrick Model.

Following these 4 steps will help you ensure that your blended learning program is efficient, qualitative and offers the advantages of both digital and face-to-face learning.

To read more about why Blended Learning works, check out this blog.

Explore the importance of blended learning as a result of the health crisis, necessitating new learning approaches and strategies to adapt to changing circumstances.

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Creating Effective Learning Paths for Your Team: Guiding Skill Development

Learning new skills to progress a career is commonplace, but so is getting lost and unmotivated when you have a lot of courses to work through. Building learning paths to ensure that doesn't happen to your employees/learners is a great way to give them support and structure, while still letting them self-direct their studies.

Myskillcamp is here to explain what learning paths are, why they're useful, and how to build them yourself.

What is a learning Path

A learning path is a sequence of courses that teach a particular skill in a step-by-step manner. They can cover any skill and (when built using an LMS/LXP) include multimedia. With the help of intuitive platforms they can adjusted per learner, can include analytics, and use courses from those outside your business.


Why they're useful

More engaging - Unlike a single course, a learning path fully engages the learner with multimedia and allows them to fully immerse themselves in the topic that - with the help of multiple courses - can tackle a subject from various angles. For example, if you wanted an employee to learn conflict resolution, having multiple video examples, followed by a discussion, then a quiz (aka learning path) would be more effective than a single course.

Shorter sessions - microlearning is a popular course structure as it focuses on dispensing a lot of information in small, bite-sized pieces. If you build learning paths with bitesized courses you can keep learners' attention while still teaching a topic in-depth. This type of learning is used by Duolingo and other language-learning platforms.

Suits all learners - It's no secret that there are different types of learners. Some are tactical, some are visual, others are auditory. Having a learning path means you can add a plethora of courses to suit everyone. This is especially useful if you want to make a pathway for a team rather than just one learner. With myskillcamp for example, you can use quizzes, discussions, events, certification and media to create courses. Meaning course creators can pick and mix what they include in their learning paths.

Suits all departments - Alike the previous point, the way we learn/what we learn can also depend on the department we're in. A platform or program may be used by the whole company, but the parts used can differ by department. Take excel as a basic example; most companies would like their employees to have a grasp on excel but the way an accountant would use excel can be vastly different to how HR would use it. By creating learning paths you can tweak the courses per department to suit their needs. This is much easier than creating separate courses and allows all employees to learn a subject in-depth.

Transition skills to long-term memory - Ever taken a test after cramming the night before only to completely forget what you learned as soon as you leave the exam hall? That's short-term memory for you! Learning something once isn't enough to transition it to your longterm memory. For that transition to happen a person needs repetition. Having a series of courses can help you achieve this, and turn knowledge into a skill.

Learn from professionals - Good LMS'/LXPs will have courses available to you from training providers. After all, you can't be an expert in every subject, nor how to create engaging courses. If you lack the time and/or know-how, you can rely on professional content. Our content providers offer courses that are popular, thoroughly tested, and in-depth. Whether you want your employees to take language courses with Global Exam, business courses with LinkedIn Learning, or Corporate Learning with Bookboon, you can take the courses you like and build learning paths full of professional content.

How to create effective learning paths

So it's pretty clear why learning paths work, but how are they created? This may be slightly different depending on the LMS/LXP you have, but we will show you how you can create effective learning paths on our platform, myskillcamp.

You'll be able to create courses and learning paths if you're a training manager or course creator. Simply access the 'I Create' section when you log in.

From there you click on 'my learning paths' then create! You can personalise all aspects of the path, from description, to skills learned, and of course, the courses included. You can drag and drop courses, create new courses, import courses, and pick courses from the myskillcamp marketplace.

Access the learning paths you create at any time to edit (you can tweak any aspect of the path based on your learners' scores and feedback), check analytics, duplicate or delete. And if you get stuck, a dedicated member of the myskillcamp Customer Success Team will be on hand to help.

Start creating learning paths

Learning paths can only be created effectively with an LMS/LXP platform, as it offers scalability and help centres. If you don't have a platform that offers learning path creation, or you've reached the limit of what your LMS can do for you, reach out to us for a free personalised trial.

You can start creating, importing and downloading courses straight away and build learning paths with us on your very own training hub.

Learn how to build effective learning paths for your team to ensure efficient skill development and prevent learners from getting lost or demotivated.

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Creating Engaging Audio Courses: Enhancing Knowledge Retention

Audio courses are a great way to gain greater retention of knowledge in your users and whether you want to exclusively use them to create a course or want to use audio to supplement other eLearning elements, you will want to create something that's high quality and interesting.

After all, look at the huge boom of podcasting and audiobooks over the last five years or so, people want to listen to topics that interest them - and unlike other forms of media, audio can be accessed and engaged with on the go. A great example of audio courses is that of Duolingo. As well as the app and website offering written and quiz-based courses, they offer podcasts for those who want to learn on the go.

So let's dive in to how you can create audio courses that really work.

Have a conversation, not a monologue

Remember that boring teacher at school that would spend the hour talking at you. You may remember the teacher but we bet you don't remember even one thing they said! It's the same with audio learning. Keep it conversational, light and inviting. Lots of audio lessons invite guests, or have more than one speaker to achieve this. Similarly, ensure you're covering topics, and using terminology that fit the listeners; If you overestimate their knowledge level and use jargon you will lose listeners. Instead, move at an achievable pace while adding words of encouragement per audio lesson. For example, 'if you're a returning listener, props for your motivation'.

Don't take on the world

When you have an idea for a great piece of audio it's easy to take on everything yourself, this is the best way to become overwhelmed and start putting off future audio work. Know that outsourcing opportunities are open to you. Do you need a copywriter to help with your script? A voiceover artist to read the script? Maybe an editor to put the audio together and add background audio?

Keep background audio in a supporting role

Background music helps to create emotion, immersion and set the scene...when it's applied correctly. Make sure your background music doesn't steal the show by being too loud, mismatching the pace of the script, or contains vocals. A good rule of thumb is thinking, 'could I listen to this music while I was working?' We humans only have a finite amount of things we can focus on at once, so don't overwhelm your listeners.

Set the right mood

The intro, outro and break music should align with the course. A good trick to achieve this is by identifying words that you want your course to convey and find music that matches those words. Many courses choose classical music, or upbeat ambient music. Try editing a course with different music to see which music fits the course.

Another important element to choosing music is ensuring what you choose is royalty free. So no Beyoncé, sorry. Otherwise your audio course will be removed and you may receive a fine.

Add audio to other eLearning elements

You may want to create a stand-alone audio course, but remember that sometimes, the audio you made can be added in multiple places. For example, is there a particular written course, chart or graph that learners often struggle to comprehend? Add audio elements to guide learners through it. After all, you can always link to your audio catalogue after this, increasing the amount of listeners you have simply and effectively. Similarly, can you offer audio versions of courses for the visually impaired? Increasing your inclusivity is a wonderful thing to be known for.

Have an LMS that supports audio and has authoring tools

Hosting audio courses on your website can be a pain and will often become overlooked by your learners. Similarly, many LMS' don't allow audio or have authoring tools allowing you to upload and place audio where you need it. So it's important to ensure you have an LMS that has this capability. An example is myskillcamp.


You can see that audio can be added as a standalone course as well as added to other courses. You should also have the ability to add audio courses to a learner's journey as myskillcamp does. After all, if you go to the effort of creating great audio courses, ensure they're being hosted correctly. You can book a demo of our LMS and even us to supplement your existing LMS.

Source the right audio equipment

To create audio you'll need the right equipment, a microphone, recording software and editing software may be needed (unless you want to outsource some of these processes of course). However, there's no need to buy the most elaborate versions on the market, or sign up to expensive software. Remember earlier when we stated how popular podcasting and audiobooks had become? Well, with popularity comes many companies looking to gain market share by offering cheaper, simpler, all-in-one solutions to audio creators. Horray!

Want to find the software and equipment that'll get the job done, without costing an arm and a leg? Check out our follow-up blog - The ultimate list of software, tools and equipment for audio courses.

From royalty free music to recording and editing, you'll find everything you need.

Learn how to create engaging audio courses that enhance knowledge retention and provide a valuable learning experience for your users.

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Defining Adaptive Learning: A Comprehensive Overview

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Digital Learning at a Turning Point: Evolution and Impact

Written by : Olivier Clinckart for Planet Business

Teleworking was already in existence before the outbreak of the coronavirus, but it has become almost the norm in the last year. Companies have therefore had to adapt the training they offer to their employees.

The demand for such training quickly increased, with a clear preference for training catalogues, available in several languages and accessible at any time. However, as time went on, companies realised that making catalogues available to employees tended to be counterproductive. Indeed, faced with a catalogue containing between 10,000 and 15,000 training courses, how best to guide employees for whom the needs of one do not necessarily correspond to those of the other? Hence the importance of curating the content, i.e. pre-selecting it,

"Making training catalogues available to employees can be counterproductive. The company must select what is relevant." - Kevin Tillier, CEO of myskillcamp

Towards blended learning

Another trend that has developed is the creation of pathways. The company wishes to establish a business path during which the employee will move from one training course to another in order to draw on the relevant elements for his or her learning at each stage. It should be noted that the content of the course in question can also come from external sources: Youtube, Vimeo, blog articles, podcasts, etc. The important thing in this approach is that each company can centralise this content, aggregate it and filter it correctly for its employees when they connect to the platform. In this way, the approach is much more constructive and motivating for the learner, in the use of a tool that offers him or her a selection of hand-picked content from the outset. It is true that digitisation still raises fears and represents a substantial budget.

However, by necessity, face-to-face training budgets have been redirected to e-learning training budgets. This obstacle having been overcome, it has prompted companies to make a greater commitment to this area, with a desire to move towards hybrid or blended learning modes in the future, i.e. mixed learning made up of face-to-face (or video-conference) training linked to e-learning.

Gain insights into the evolution and impact of digital learning, particularly in the context of remote work and the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Discovering Blended Learning: Unlocking its Benefits

Blended Learning is becoming hugely popular, not only because of the necessity of online courses due to the lockdown, but due to the complimentary nature online courses can bring to traditional education.

Blended Learning or hybrid-education combines 'classroom' and online education, to create a superior learning process for both learners and trainers. Seeing as it's more dynamic and customisable, it's able to reach students of varying learning styles.

Types of Blended Learning

There are many different types to consider, depending on the learning set-up, the learners, the availability of the trainers and so on... let’s go through the options.

Rotation Model - When learners in a single department are taught predominantly at work but are given online work at the trainer's discretion. Used when a single course must be quickly learned and implemented.

Flex Model - Similar to rotation but the exchange between face-to-face learning is more fluid. Usually the breakdown is more 50/50. This style is used when a course must be taught but doesn't have a set deadline, or the topic concerns software.

A la carte Model - A more relaxed approach where the learners choose whether to take a course online or face-to-face. This model usually concerns multiple courses, so it makes sense to put more responsibility on the learners.

Virtual Model - This model relies more heavily on online learning but the learners are still expected to have some face-to-face teaching. This model is used most often, especially now as learners are not expected in the office each day. Video is a large component of this model.

Benefits of Blending

The benefits are far reaching for both the learners and trainers.

Accounting for and accountability on everyone - With blended learning, all learning styles are accounted for and you have the opportunity to get the best work out of each learner. Similarly, with the face-to-face expectation, and the analytics often available with online courses, each person's learning is monitored. There's no 'sitting at the back of class' option with an online course.

Trends and feedback - It can be difficult to know if your face-to-face teaching methods are the best they can be. With the addition of online learning you'll be able to view is learners are finding courses too difficult, archaic, or boring. You'll then have honest feedback to change up courses and make them better.

Save money and time - Online courses are cheaper to run and save a lot of time for the trainers. This means that small businesses can teach their employees as well as a large company. it also means a face-paced office doesn't have to miss out on training staff.

Personalisation and accessibility - Being able to shape a course around each learner, offer one-to-one feedback and give them advice on courses to take next is the great benefit of having an online component. Similarly, it invites staff that may be remote working/oversees to take courses and get the same level of attention as those who can come into an office setting.

Engagement - Being able to offer multimedia courses as well as face-to-face settings can create higher engagement rates. Elements like video, eBooks, podcasts, quizzes, and Gamification can be a lot more interesting than a speech or long-form content.

Commitments

As much as you may want to roll out your first Blended Learning course, it's important to remember the commitment required from both your learners and those who will be teaching the courses. Firstly, trainers must be ready to teach in this style and have a clear understanding of what they need to do in this environment. Are they ready to look at analytics, can they give feedback online to each learner? Will they edit courses based on feedback?

Similarly, learners must know what is expected of them. If they are not ready to proactively take courses and turn up to the face-to-face portion of the courses then Blended Learning won't be a success. Companies must take the time to show the learners the LMS, explain how it works and what is expected from them and the benefits it offers.

Resources you can use

Blended Learning requires video software. There is a lot out there but it's important to choose one that suits the needs of the trainer rather than the software that offers the most bells and whistles.

Google Classroom, YouTube, Zoom, Whereby and Microsoft Teams are some of the most used and trusted.

In terms of LMS, you'll want to be able to create multimedia courses, have analytics at your disposal, be able to edit courses, and talk to learners. Myskillcamp offers all of these features in an easy to use software.

If you wanted to try out this software for free, with no commitment, then book a demo. It will even be personalised to your needs.

Dive into the concept of Blended Learning, exploring its rising popularity and the unique advantages it offers by combining online courses with traditional learning methods.

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Download the Brochure: Management Adaptive Learning Path

This on the shelf learning path, ready to be deployed in any LMS in SCORM format, allows Training Managers, Human Resources and Learning and Development Managers to instantly deploy training experiences that will adapt to learners in real time.

Your learners gain time by only following the resources needed for their own upskilling and you save about 2 months of pedagogical design by learning path.

During this training, you will learn to:

  • Comprehend the management fundamentals and understand today's challenges to adapt your style and navigate with success in the current professional environment.
  • Create and manage impacting teams, encourage employee performance and favor a healthy and collaborative working environment.
  • Enhance your communication skills by interacting effectively with your team and by learning coaching techniques to support and develop your talents, contributing to their professional fulfillment.

This full and innovative path will allow you to explore management fundamentals, while discussing today's challenges and best practices to build impactful teams.

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Download the Program: Cybersecurity Adaptive Learning Path

This on the shelf learning path, ready to be deployed in any LMS in SCORM format, allows Training Managers, Human Resources and Learning and Development Managers to instantly deploy training experiences that will adapt to learners in real time.

Your learners gain time by only following the resources needed for their own upskilling and you save about 2 months of pedagogical design by learning path.

During this training, you will learn to:

  • Identify, prevent and manage cyberthreats, while developing secured navigation practices and by protecting devices, data and communication.
  • Adapt better cybersecurity practices, to establish a solid and resilient organisation culture towards cyberattacks and emergent threats.
  • Use strategies to anticipate, detect and effectively manage cybersecurity incidents, minimising risks and potential consequences for the organisation.

This training path suggests a full and practical approach to understand and manage various aspects of cybersecurity.

Adaptive Learning
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Ensuring Successful Onboarding with Training: Maximizing New Hire Integration

By now, we all know that onboarding is essential. It helps new hires feel welcome, introduces them to the values and goals of the company, and helps them get to grips with their role in the business.

But as cultures change and life moves away from the traditional methods of onboarding, so must we evolve.

Onboarding in a changing world

In 2020, onboarding has changed a lot, - actually, a lot has changed a lot! Introducing new hires with a handshake and a lunchtime introductory meeting is harder when handshakes are unsafe and restaurants are closed! In many cases, new hires may not have seen their colleagues face-to-face for a while.

But even before Covid, workplaces have become too busy and fast-paced for many people to be onboarded properly. Leading to new hires feeling lost and increasing turnover.

Using training courses for onboarding

These changes have lead to onboarding-innovation. Many companies are now using training courses to onboard new hires as they can cover everything from goals, role-related information, hierarchy, IT... anything a manager deems important. Also since many companies have an LMS, creating a training course or two for new hires seems like a simple addition.

Using online training as a form of onboarding is greatly effective as new hires can refresh their memory at any time by retaking or revisiting the courses at a later date. It also caters to new hires who don't find the 'learning while doing' / tactile approach effective. Those who learn in a visual or auditory way now have an easier way to learn - while those who are tactile can move onto doing the task after the course anyway.

Enriching your training courses

Since the amount of courses you need are growing an important question to ask is whether you have the capacity for it. Can your existing LMS (if you have one) offer what you need in terms of amount of courses, ability to edit courses, adding multimedia, and ensuring new hires take all the courses they need? How do you ensure your new hires communicate with you if they are struggling to understand the courses you've set for them?

Myskillcamp was recently at the eLearning Expo in Paris, giving demos of the new myskillcard and the Joint Executive Program. In addition, CEO Kevin Tillier also gave a seminar about 'Successful onboarding and the integration of a new employee through training' showing how myskillcamp can enrich companies' training courses.

Just so you don't feel left out, here's what was covered:

  • The different kinds of training you can use with myskillcamp, not just blogs and whitepapers, but video, podcasts, e-books, quizzes and all of which can be edited easily on the myskillcamp platform.
  • How myskillcamp has comment sections, chat functions and reviews so all employees (especially new hires) can interact easily.
  • Analytics on each course, so management can see each employee's progress and score.
Analytics of courses
  • The ability to build a training path, so new hires can take a personalised training journey that ensures they have everything they need to get started in their role.
  • All employees can access more courses from the company (or from myskillcamp's martketplace) to start learning independently.
  • How myskillcamp offers perfect integration with existing LMS', and how company's without an LMS can use myskillcamp's built-in software.

Many company's at the expo signed up to try our free personalised demo of myskillcamp. If you want to try a free demo yourself then let us know. You can start training your new hires effectively from day 1.

Learn how to ensure successful onboarding by leveraging training initiatives that help new hires feel welcome, understand company values, and excel in their roles.

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Fall in Love with Learning: 12 Ways to Cultivate Learning Motivation

Most people know that they should be learning new skills to boost their careers, yet finding the motivation to learn is difficult for many of us. Especially if you've been set a course by your job before, you'll always hear 'Have you taken that course yet, I haven't.' Or 'Is it mandatory?' Echoing around the office.

We know it's important... but learning a new skill just isn't as interesting as watching your favourite show, seeing friends, or spending time with family.

But if you've ever read an autobiography from high-powered business mogul, they all seem to have a love of learning and acquiring new skills.

If you wish to unlock this love of learning within yourself, myskillcamp has developed a guide on how to do it.

You are flawed... but so is everyone else!

Not to get all 'armchair psychology' on you, but take a seat. 💺

1) Acknowledge your resistance and difficult feelings with motivation. ...

Why are you putting it off? If you are scared of failing, or looking silly? Are you worried about the time it'll take, or if it's worth it?

Getting to the root of your resistance is the best way to solve the issue you're having. A great method to try is called the “5 WHYs’ Method”. Simply asking 5 whys when a problem appears in your mind, then you will get down to the root of the problem.

Problem: I am putting off the learning I need to do

Why: Why are you putting it off? Answer: Because I feel like I am overwhelmed.

Why: Why do you feel overwhelmed? Answer: The course looks difficult.

Why: Why does it look difficult? Answer: It's not something I've done before.

Why: Then how do you know you'll be bad at it? Answer: If I am bad at it my colleagues will think I'm stupid?

Why: Why would they think that? Outcome: You can then reflect, I am not being judged, I'm overthinking.

2) Don't question your abilities

There's a reason why eLearning is a multi-million dollar industry... and it's not because everyone else is smart. People need to learn new things all the time especially in the working world (where things are changing constantly) so starting something new and having no idea what you're doing is normal.

Get to know how you work

3) Do not blame yourself for procrastinating now and again...

Procrastination is going to happen, but it doesn't mean you've failed. Set yourself a time to resume your learning as well as scheduled breaks. Giving yourself time to relax is essential if you want your learning to be effective.

Also, when you are on a break, don't stay at your area of work, get up, have a drink, snack, exercise etc... making your breaks fun can help motivate you to learn.

4) Understand your learning style

Get to know how you learn most effectively, then use that style in your studies. Visual, auditory and tactile learners need to study in completely different way, and if you are studying incorrectly, it won't be as effective as it could be.

Plus, learning in a manner that's best suited to you is a lot more motivating as you can see the results a lot faster and it's more fun.

Take our 'What kind of Learner am I' quiz if you're interested (we'll open it in a new tab so you won't lose this blog page 😉)

Once you know your style, you can even suggest to your work that you take courses that compliment your needed learning method.

5) Set goals and reward yourself when reaching them

Finished one course in a learning path? Taken a quiz and passed? Studied for the allotted time you set yourself? Then it's reward time! Setting challenging, yet achievable goals with a reward when reached will boost your motivation to learn.

Make things work for you

6) Find a good course provider

*Psst* This is simpler to do when you know what kind of learner you are!

There are lots of course providers and teachers out there, so finding what's best can seem challenging. Our best advice is to look for a well-known course provider in the subject(s) you're interested in. If your company has an LMS/LXP, look into what's on offer and pick the best for you. Alternatively, suggest a course to your manager - they'll like the initiative and may purchase the course. You can get started straight away by checking out our list of course providers.

A good provider will have reviews and analytics on every course so they will be constantly improving the courses on offer. They will want to make their courses interesting and effective so you stay motivated (and thus come back to the course).

7) Make use of microlearning

If a course states it has microlearning (or bitesize courses) then consider it as a good option for you. As with any task, splitting it into smaller pieces makes it easier, and the same goes for learning a new skill. However, if your course has been given to you from your company and doesn't include microlearning, see if you can split the time you learn into chapters... and remember to take breaks in between! Check out what microlearning is if you want to know what you're looking for.

8) Use habit-building apps

Yes they exist! Habits usually have a negative connotation, but you can build a positive habit too, and learning new things is a great habit to build. We've collated a list of the best habit-building apps here, complete with how they work (and yes, most of them are free!).

9) Connect with others in the same boat

Sometimes, being held accountable by others who are doing the same, is all the motivation you need. Finding others who are taking the same course, or trying to learn the same thing is a great way to stay motivated. You can also swap knowledge, resources, test each other, or even build friendships around a common goal. Find forums and groups on social media or see if anyone in your workplace is learning the same thing.

Some course providers or LXPs even have chats, groups and forums to interact with other learners. Myskillcamp has just that and we've found it increases learner focus and knowledge sharing.

10) Show off your new skills

A definite (yet unspoken) perk of learning a new skill is showing it off. When you have successfully passed a course, earned an achievement, reached your overall goal; don't keep it a secret. Update your CV, add it to your LinkedIn as a skill and as a post. When people see you have this new skill they may call on you for work opportunities.

11) Set a new goal

Don't stop the love train! Once you've found your love of learning, don't stop when your first goal is reached. Find a new skill to learn and repeat the process.

12) Suggest myskillcamp to your company

Ok, a bit cheeky, but hear us out... our LXP puts the power of learning into your hands. You can pick from thousands of courses from course providers that are well-known and trusted. Plus you can use microlearning, gamification, chat to colleagues, gain achievements and so much more. And, companies only pay for what is used, so it's cheaper for them too! So why not check us out.

Discover 12 effective ways to find motivation and fall in love with learning, even when faced with challenges and time constraints.

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Gamification in Courses: Effective Strategies that Work

If you think about all the types of games available, it doesn't take long to realise that many different genres and themes exist. Once you know this, it's clear that if you want to use gamification in your courses - they'll also need different themes to be successful. In this blog, we'll take a look at the different kind of players that exist and how you can build courses that satisfy them all.

What kind of players are there?

According to the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, all people can be split into four categories of players: Killers, Achievers, Socialisers, Explorers. You can even take this test yourself if you're interested!

Let's go through each one:

Killers:

Driven by competition, tests of skill, playing against others; they have a focus on winning and seeing their competitors lose. They are engaged by leaderboards and ranking. Although they make up a small percentage of people, they are still worth satisfying.

Achievers:

Driven by points, levels, trophies; their focus is on gaining status and goals while beating their personal bests. They like in-game achievements and the ability to show them with pride. Achievers make up around 10% of the population and are the ideal player due to their willingness to complete games and unlock everything.

Socialisers:

Driven by friends, community, communication; their focus is on creating friendships and cultivating a community within the game. Having the ability to add friends, chat with others and work together in a group is important to them, more so than winning. And since this makes up 80% people, it's an element that you can't ignore.

Explorers:

Driven by exploration, discovery and the process. An Explorer's focus is to find everything and discover what nobody else has. They enjoy finding elements to unlock to enjoy the process of playing rather than getting to the end of the game. About 10% of people fall into this category.

How to create courses that satisfy all player needs

Knowing that all of these players exist in your workforce is a great first step to figuring out how to use gamification in your courses. After this, look at how all player types can have fun on the courses you want to create. We made a list of touchpoints for you:

  • Use levels for their learning journey. (Achievers, Explorers)
  • Let them (and others) see their progress easily (Killers, Achievers)
  • Build a community - a chat/comment element (Socialisers)
  • Encourage competition with a leaderboard (Killers, Achievers)
  • Let them unlock achievements (badges, prizes, titles) (Achievers)
  • Include hidden elements and prizes for those that go the extra mile (Explorers, Achievers)
  • Build the course with multimedia (Explorers)

Building this if you have a lot of time and money is quite straight-forward, there are many lists online of gamification done well, Duolingo, Nike+ Run Club, My Starbucks Rewards... But we at myskillcamp realise that not everyone can invest this much into gamification - luckily that doesn't mean it can't be done well!

Even setting up a email chain, around a course if done well, can act as gamification! But if you want something simple yet effective, myskillcamp can help.

How we can help

Myskillcamp is a learning experience platform, allowing company's to build their own learning platform (using either our own LMS capabilities, or their own integrated LMS). Building courses and analysing is the first step, but you can use video, quizzes, podcasts, eBooks, AND choose from over 300,000 courses on our marketplace.

Since we offer multimedia, a large part of gamification has already been achieved, but here's where it gets even better... each learner gets to see their score, progress and the amount of courses they have taken. They can even see the courses their colleagues are taking - adding in the competitive element. The platform you build with us will always have chat, message and comment capabilities, adding a community feel to the learning hub.

Lastly, admins can create courses for specific groups of learners - which can be utilised if a learner reaches a certain point in their learning, or achieves a certain score, unlocking the 'prize'/'hidden element' part of the gamification process.

We at myskillcamp understand that encouraging people to take their learning into their own hands can be difficult, but is hugely beneficial when it happens - that's why our platform is built to allow gamification, analysis, ease of access and simple integration with any LMS you may currently have.

Better yet, our platform gives you a free trial - think of it as a level 1 in the game of e-learning. Are you ready to start playing?

Discover how to successfully implement gamification in your courses, leveraging different game genres and themes to enhance learner engagement and motivation.

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Get the Best Content with Myskillcamp: A Content Curation Guide

Learn how to curate and access the best learning content for your organization using the myskillcamp platform.

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Get the Program: Diversity & Inclusion Adaptive Learning Path

This on the shelf learning path, ready to be deployed in any LMS in SCORM format, allows Training Managers, Human Resources and Learning and Development Managers to instantly deploy training experiences that will adapt to learners in real time.

Your learners gain time by only following the resources needed for their own upskilling and you save about 2 months of pedagogical design by learning path.

During this training, you will learn to:

  • Understand the issues related to diversity and the importance of identifying privileges and unconscious biases to establish an equitable environment.
  • Promote an inclusive culture by adapting your communication style, strengthening your interpersonal relationships and cultivating empathy towards individual differences.
  • Act as an inclusive leader, able to identify and fight against inequalities and systemic discriminations, while promoting diversity and effectively managing intergenerational dynamics.

This training course aims to make participants aware of diversity, to help them reach out to others, to promote fairness and equal opportunity, and to teach them to lead in an inclusive manner.

Adaptive Learning
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E-books & Infographics
Get the Program: Leadership Adaptive Learning Path

This on the shelf learning path, ready to be deployed in any LMS in SCORM format, allows Training Managers, Human Resources and Learning and Development Managers to instantly deploy training experiences that will adapt to learners in real time.

Your learners gain time by only following the resources needed for their own upskilling and you save about 2 months of pedagogical design by learning path.

During this training, you will learn to:

  • Make informed and collaborative decisions to effectively guide your team.
  • Manage and support teams remotely to ensure their commitment and performance.
  • Maintain motivation and promote adaptation to change in a constantly changing environment.
  • Take advantage of diversity and develop strategies to improve collective performance.

This training path is designed to guide you in acquiring the fundamental skills for contemporary leadership.

Adaptive Learning
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HRD Collective Recap: Insights from Myskillcamp Workshop

👆 Get this presentation for free!

24th February 2022, HRD Collective invited myskillcamp to participate in their event. Our CEO and Co-Founder, Kevin Tillier ran a workshop called: Upskilling & reskilling; Which skills are in demand, who needs them, and how to make people engage.

If you want to see the video rather than read the recap, you can watch here.

Alternatively, if you want to see what else myskillcamp can do for you, find out here.

Kevin starts by showing who exactly cares about upskilling/reskilling from a company perspective. These can be split into three main groups:

  • Companies that want to remain competitive

One example given, is that AT&T retrained nearly half its workforce after discovering they lacked the skills needed to keep the company competitive.

  • Companies that want to retain their employees

First West Credit Union found that upskilling their employees led to increased revenue– $200,000 per retained employee and a total return of $2.5 million.

  • Companies that want to close skills gaps

According to a Mckinsey report, 44 percent of respondents say their company will face skill gaps within the next five years.

Kevin explains, "If you want to remain competitive, keep on developing new and exciting products, you need to upskill your workforce, they're the ones building the products and taking care of your customers".

click to tweet: remain competitive

The presentation then covers why you should care about upskilling and reskilling, covering reasons you probably haven't considered...

  • The 'best-before date' on skills

Companies are fighting to stay ahead of the curve, trying to hold onto their best talent and struggling to fill key positions.

And individuals are conscious of staying relevant in the age of automation.

  • Boost workplace performance

"If you want a company to boost performance you need to develop those capabilities that your learners have to ensure you remain competitive and they can help you contribute to the company's growth". Kevin explains.

  • Software-led training increasing in popularity

A recent survey by Prudential included in the presentation, shows the willingness of people to learn tech-based skills.

  • Stopping 'the Great Resignation'

With Kevin mentioning that he himself is part of the 'resigning generation', he suggests that Millennials don't like to stand still. They need recognition, a good workplace culture and motivation - all of which can be provided by companies that offer training to their workforce. More information on stopping the great resignation was given in the presentation.

The workshop then moved onto the 3 steps to facilitate upskilling and reskilling.

  • Identifying skills

"The upskilling and reskilling journey actually starts when you identify skills from your workforce, and the time to do that is during the onboarding process..."

states Kevin, "...because once you do that, it will help the manager know the employee and know how to guide them towards various courses, learning journeys, learning paths and so on".

Click to tweet: the upskilling and reskilling journey
  • Retaining current employees

The workshop shows how to retain a workforce by continuing to take an interest in employee careers and what they can learn to achieve the next level. It's also explained that companies should consider reonboarding if they go through company shifts, culture changes or high-levels of recruitment. "It's really key for you to reonboard your existing employees once in a while when you feel like you need to realign everyone" says Kevin, who also shared more information on how to reonboard existing employees.

  • Developing and deploying training

"And then you need to develop and deploy exciting training. training that actually matters to your workforce, and not just going with a catalogue approach". Kevin explains to the attendees that solely relying on a catalogue approach can easily overwhelm learners with the sheer amount of courses available.

"So collect the data, see which skills are most needed within the team, invest their time on courses or learning journeys that really matter, not just for them, but for your organisation".

Click to tweet: Collect data to make better courses

The workshop then shifts into looking at which skills are in demand for upskilling and reskilling, and why.

Firstly, skills that will help close the skills gap felt by companies, worldwide.

List of skills gaps

Kevin shows that tech-based skills are growing in need, but reflects; "whenever I meet a company, they have more soft skills than tech-driven skills in their learning catalogue" showing that it's easy for a company's skills gaps to go unnoticed without proper assessments.

The workshop also looked at which skills are increasing in popularity via LinkedIn job search results, as well as the previous job roles of those who were hired.

It's interesting to see the clear link between the jobs that are in demand. Again, tech-based jobs and roles that have always needed to stay up to date with technology.

The final part of the workshop focused on how to promote learning within a workforce. Kevin listed six methods to do so.

  • Gamifying learning

It was shown in the workshop that gamification is a way of hacking the human psyche that makes learners want to return to the course. Kevin noted that you need to "take into consideration that whatever the gamification mechanism that you put in place, there are four different types of players in the workforce". You can discover what they are here.

Click to tweet: gamification
  • Engaging ambition, motivation and opportunity

All three of these (in part) can be reached by focusing on training, and once done so, job satisfaction will increase.

  • Fostering a learning mindset

Kevin explains, "We're all learners, yet we don't all have learning mindsets. It's something you can promote within your organisation, and you can promote it within 3 different actions that happen within a career. Succession planning, talent review and during a career pathing".

  • Personalisation

It was noted in the workshop that 74% Of consumers get frustrated when they receive content that isn't personalised. This directly translates to the need for personalised training courses for learners. Luckily, Kevin mentions the helping hand to personalisation...

"Today's technology enables you to bring more personalisation within your learning journey".

  • Making time to learn

The #1 reason employees feel held back from learning is because they don't have the time. So make time for them to learn. "You need to find a strategy to make sure your workforce can learn whenever they want, on the job if needed and whenever they decide to take the learning action, they can actually do it"!

Kevin continues, "So moving through microlearning courses instead of 16 hour courses is an idea, and schedule courses by putting them in their agenda is also great to do moving forward".

Click to tweet: learning strategy
  • Using eLearning

Included in the workshop is the statistic; According to LinkedIn job searches, 84% of searches are for remote jobs. And on average, those remote jobs receive 4x the applications that onsite jobs do.

But for those who are anxious about using elearning, Kevin has some advice: "eLearning doesn't mean you're learning alone, all by yourself, without any personalisation. It can be social, collaborative, personalised, so I really invite you to really apply eLearning whenever possible".

Click to tweet: eLearning

The final part of the workshop explained the myskillcamp platform and how it can help those wanting to upskill or reskill themselves or their workforce.

According to Kevin, "We bring a new methodology in our learning platform where we start by assessing the learner, assessing the workforce and recommend the journey".

Cyclical learning experience

Kevin continues, "We have plugins where you can actually bring adaptive learning experiences, personalisation, assessments and recommendations into one place, along with your own content." Not to mention the 300,000 courses available on the platform already.

From being at the workshop you were able to get a full grasp of all the points and the accompanying links to studies and research. So if you didn't get a chance to attend the workshop at HRD Collective, or you'd like a copy of the presentation for yourself, then download it here to learn more.

upskilling/reskilling presentation front cover

Get the recap of our workshop "Upskilling & Reskilling" presented by our CEO and Co-Founder, Kevin Tillier, at the HRD Collective event on February 24, 2022.

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How 'Netflix for Learning' Works: Debunking Misconceptions

Nick Hernandez, CEO of 360 Learning started his blog post with the following; 'It’s the end of a long, stressful work week. Finally, time to unwind and relax. You microwave your popcorn, pour a glass of wine, and settle in on the couch to turn on ... a tutorial on video editing? Seems unlikely, right? Yet once a week or so, we hear of another “Netflix for Learning'' initiative'.

And no, we're not going to argue with that. At the end of the (long, stressful) day, nobody wants to relax by learning. But what we do want to argue with, is that...

-the motivation to return to learning,

-the retention created,

-and the personalisation,

can be replicated by certain learning platforms.

In the minds of myskillcamp employees at least, the idea of 'Netflix of Learning' is more about recreating the personalisation, addictiveness, and simplicity of use, of the Netflix platform in a learning environment.


Will to learn

Nick Hernandez, in the same article also said that work is competing for employees' attention. With music, podcasts, social media, chatting to others... there's a lot of noise out there and it's hard for employers to win this battle - especially when it comes to promoting 'training' in employee down-time.

However, we would argue that the will to learn is increasing, it may not be for the sake / or love of learning, but the will to learn is growing. For example, when looking at the newly working generation - Gen Z, '[They're] primed to respond to benefits and perks aimed at avoiding or reducing debt or providing training and education at reduced prices'. Also, since the education level is higher on average than it was a decade ago, we need to learn more in order to stay competitive. So whether it's to get a better job, grow a career, or start a new one - the average person understands how education is beneficial.

Similarly, there are more courses than ever before on specific topics and unique skills, not to mention they're at a competitive price and can be accessed remotely. The ever-descending barrier to entry and the wealth of skills available leads to more people taking it upon themselves to learn.

Ensuring you have a platform that is compatible with these cultural/technological features means you have a better chance of learners returning. Just as the low barriers to entry (low price, downloadable, accessed on multiple devices, works for Netflix, so should it too work for your LMS/LXP/Course provider.


Addictiveness of platform

With Netflix, the sheer amount of options, the autoplay, and of course, the fact it's video, creates a lot of addictiveness. Although eLearning is different, it doesn't mean we can't make it addictive. Take myskillcamp for example. Our LXP offers many multimedia options (like video, quizzes, podcasts, etc) that engage the user. After all, video and audio hold attention for longer (think about the popularity of TikTok, YouTube and Podcasts) which is why we worked hard to give users a simple upload feature for multimedia and we're integrating a video creation tool from our Partner, Powtoon.

We've also found that using Gamification techniques increase the retention rate of users and makes them return to the platform in order to improve, compete, and play by taking courses. Viewing your course score is a tried and true technique we use.

Enabling social interaction on learning platforms also promotes an addictive aspect. It may not be something Netflix does, but it's certainly a main trait of many addictive sites, such as social networks. Not only does it mean teams can chat together, but it enables course trainers and admins to coach and motivate.

Ease of Access

A trait that's consistent among today's successful companies is the ease of access they have. Quick load times, apps, mobile accessible, remembering who you and where you left off... Netflix even autoplays shows if you hover over for too long!

After all, there's a reason why Google rates pages on their loading speeds, people don't want to wait or work hard to get their information. Successful companies' know this, and they have happy users because of it.

We use much of the same traits to encourage users to return. Single sign-on, analytics that log your scores, automatic saving, easy buying options with credits or the myskillcard. Similarly, myskillcamp is working on a recommendation algorithm (based on AI), to identify and suggest the best training for your business needs. Basically, we ensure users don't have to wait, while making the buying of new courses easy, safe, and cost-effective.

Personalisation

Looking (even briefly) into Netflix' algorithms , shows they are the king of personalisation. The platform recommends content based on what has already been watched, and they change a shows 'artwork' to something which has proved to appeal to your tastes.

When it comes to learning, the need for personalisation (even in face-to-face) learning is important. Depending on somebody's existing knowledge, the skills they need to acquire, their learning style... personalisation is key for successful teaching. What's more, eLearning can take this to the next level by introducing follow-up courses automatically, suggesting new skills, and quickly personalising course material with real-life, in-company case studies.

Personalisation is taken a few steps further with myskillcamp. Due to the chat features, anyone can suggest course edits or even platform edits. If a user suggests a way to improve the platform, it’s discussed and (if it helps our users) it’ll be added to the product roadmap.

Similarly, companies can personalise their training hub with company-specific colours, add department-specific camps, allow and restrict course access depending on the learner, and build personalised ‘learning pathways’. Learning paths actually solve a problem that Netflix themselves struggles with; 'choice fatigue'. Building paths for learners means people can make informed choices and about what they study, without a library of content staring back at them.

Company admins can further personalise their offerings to their learners by viewing their analytics - if a course is causing drop-off, if training retention is low, admins can further personalise and adapt what they offer.

Lastly, we give companies the chance to pay for the courses that actually get used. Rather than a blanket cost and hundreds of course subscriptions (that only a fraction of employees use) we have a pay per use payment option.

Bingeing

This is where the 'Netflix of Learning' analogy should take a U-turn. Bingeing (according to *ahem* Oxford Dictionary) ‘is a period of excessive indulgence in an activity’. It’s basically doing something enjoyable to excess, in an almost absent-minded way.

However, if your mind is absent, learning isn't going to occur.

It may be fine for Netflix, because their content is still being consumed, but we need learners to find courses informative, engaging and fun, without being bingeable - a new word for Oxford Dictionary.

To have learners reach their fill, leave, and come back when they're hungry to learn again is our goal. We do this by introducing quizzes, scoring systems and learning pathways. For example, if you take a course quickly but fail the quiz at the end, you can't access the next course.

The finale

The 'Netflix of Learning' is passed around lightly, and in many cases, no... it won't work. There's too much noise, learning isn't a 'hobby' or a 'stress reliever'.

However, the main aspects that make Netflix successful can be recreated in a learning setting. The accessibility, fun, addictiveness, crossed with a growing will to learn keeps our users returning. So yes, it's possible - you just need an LXP like myskillcamp to achieve it.

Understand how 'Netflix for Learning' platforms operate and debunk common misconceptions surrounding them, exploring their benefits and value.

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How Adaptive Learning Reduces Turnover: Unlocking Employee Engagement

We've previously covered what Adaptive Learning is and how to implement it within your business. Now it's all about looking for the tools that can get you the best results - especially reducing course turnover and employee turnover.

Have a quick google search for adaptive learning software and you'll see many promises of AI and machine learning, but what does that entail? How can you be sure it's really going to work?

So let's strip back the jargon and get simplistic.

There are only two tools you need to look for when comparing adaptive learning technology:

1) Adaptive Learning Paths

2) Retention Capabilities

Without these, you will have a lot of fancy tech, without the results.

So what are these adaptive learning tools and how do they help reduce course and employee turnover?


Adaptive Learning Paths


Adaptive learning is great because it doesn't just focus on a single element. It is composed of different skills that are linked to multiple courses. This means learners get a whole journey.

Having different courses, assessments, tests; all of which are personalised to each learner and will suggest more content along the way, will lead to greater motivation and a higher chance of a learner successfully achieving their learning goal.

This is backed up by recent LinkedIn survey data showing 74% of consumers get frustrated when they receive content that isn't personalised.

It's also backed by our own data gathered with our learning paths:

  • 37% time saved to acquire targeted skills
  • 49% more completed learning paths
  • 46% more retention after 3 months... however if you really want to focus on retention, you'll need retention capabilities (that is covered below 👇 )

It's not just about course retention though! When paths are completed and skills are gained, customers realise they are being cared about within your company and are more likely to stay.

If you're interested, you can discover our many 'off-the-shelf' learning paths and even create your own here.


Retention Capabilities


Retention capabilities is the second tool you need to look out for when researching Adaptive Learning solutions.

This helps to bring learners back to their courses as they receive notifications containing questions related to their training. 
The best part is, the learners' results affect the questions they receive in the future.

According to LinkedIn, 90% of training fails. Ouch. And a lot of the time, people do start off motivated and have the intention to succeed! But we also forget, get bored, get distracted... so having a personal message that encourages you to 'keep going' makes a lot of difference.

Adaptive Learning - Finding the solution that fits

On top of these two adaptive learning solutions you may be cornered into purchasing everything a company has in order to use the things you need.

But it really shouldn't be this way. You should be able to pick the things you like and only pay for them.

That's why myskillcamp should be a company you consider in your Adaptive Learning research.

Myskillcamp is the skills delivery platform giving you an LXP, content aggregation, personalised adaptive learning paths and retention capabilities for a full-circle learning strategy. But, we also give you the option to just pick the things you like.

So whether you want our full solution or just the adaptive learning tools, we can help you implement it.

Get started today!

Discover how Adaptive Learning Software can reduce employee turnover and enhance employee engagement within your organization.

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How Myskillcamp Utilizes Its Own Platform: Unleashing the Full Potential

If you're a myskillcamp user or a person familiar with training platforms, the chances are you've only discovered a fraction of what it can do. Our Product Team works hard to ensure our platform is constantly meeting the needs of each and every client - meaning there's a lot our platform can do now.

The truth is, as soon as a new member of myskillcamp starts, we start using the platform for a whole host of reasons, beginning of course, with onboarding.

Onboarding new hires

Apart from the welcome breakfast, new hires are introduced to the platform and start taking courses covering the main software, processes and culture on day one. Onboarding is tailored to each person's department, and role.

For example, the Sales Team will learn how to write sales emails on Hubspot, The Customer Care team will learn how to run the customer lifecycle and onboarding workshops with clients, Partner Management will learn how to onboard new partners, etc...

Furthermore, new hires can search through the thousands of courses on offer to learn about other areas of interest.

Welcoming new hires

Myskillcamp has a chat function that pops up on the dashboard. When someone new starts with us, we make a note to welcome the new hire with friendly words, images, gifs and videos. Discussions on new courses, products and planning can also take place in the chat.

Upskilling ourselves and others

Of course, if you have over 300,000 courses available to you, you tend to take a few! At myskillcamp we believe in life-long learning and take pride in practising what we preach. Whether it's soft skills, industry-specific skills, or language courses, employees here are usually enrolled in a course or two. After all, upskilling, reaching goals, and progressing careers is important.

We also help upskill our team members by uploading recorded meetings and webinars to the myskillcamp platform. This ensures that people on other teams are kept updated and we can work together better. It also means employees who are on holiday can easily catch up later.

Upskilling the whole company

Of course, some training is company-wide. Our newest course teaches Personal Branding techniques to those within the company who want to learn more about social media and thought leadership. Other training may include learning about new software, HR practises and evolving company goals.

How can you use myskillcamp

It depends if you're a business owner, course creator, learner, or training provider as to what you're going to find useful. But upskilling yourself, chatting to team members and welcoming new hires is something we can all do.

Want to see how you can use the myskillcamp platform to improve your work? Talk to us today!




Uncover the extensive capabilities of Myskillcamp's platform and how it maximizes its own potential for training and learning.

LMS
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How to Curate Learning Content: Best Practices and Strategies

Learn best practices and effective strategies for curating learning content that engages and empowers your learners.

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Articles
How to Successfully Integrate Your LMS: Streamlining Learning Management

Most likely, you have a Learning Management System (LMS). After all, they're a great way to store courses, track performance, deliver simple courses and provide clear help with logistics.

Also most likely, you've found your LMS to be lacking in some areas. But what can you do? Completely switch providers, or choose a Learning Experience Platform... sounds scary. Well myskillcamp is here to show you that you don't have to choose.

Your existing LMS

Like we said before, there's probably a lot you like about your LMS, especially if you're in HR or a management position, it helps you organise and simply train your employees. But whether there's a lack of user-friendliness, a non-learner-focused approach, or difficulty when it comes to importing and editing courses; your LMS is failing you.

What's good about a LXP

A LXP effectively fills in the gaps in an LMS when it comes to usability, customer focus and course effectiveness.

Taking myskillcamp as an example, you can introduce a wider range of courses and features than a LMS simply can't compete with. Social features, sharing, course creating, video, quizzes etc. It also gives employees the opportunity to learn for themselves, increasing motivation and skills.

Also, not to get too 'nerdy' with you, but according to the 70/20/10 rule of learning and development, you get 70% of your knowledge from job-related experiences, so if you want your employees to apply their learnings into their work, you’re better off with a LXP.

Your reservations

Even so, some reservations will remain.

We're guessing your first worry is that you don't want to switch from your faithful LMS. We're also guessing you have no idea how to use an LXP, or which one to choose. Lastly, even if a LXP is promising to integrate well, how can you be sure?

How we integrate, not replace

At myskillcamp, we don't want you to give up your LMS, in fact, we work with some of the best-known vendors to ensure companies like yours don't have to worry about switching, contract negotiations, or data.

We also ensure that our integrations are seamless. We specialise in real techy stuff so you won't have to sign in multiple times to both platforms, or change how you are currently working. And like we said previously, we work directly with LMS' so you don't have to act as a middle man. Pretty cool, right?

Also when it comes to learning about our platform, we offer tons of resources to get you using myskillcamp to its fullest. From our personalised demos, to our support team, to our own interactive courses.

Going the extra mile

To further ensure you're comfortable using our platform, we've introduced new features that will help you.

Our Joint Executive Program lets you experience our platform from three to six months without making you sign a contract. Your program will also be personalised to your business and can even work with your LMS straight away.

We also give you and your employees myskillcards to kickstart the learning process. We've found that allowing people to take charge of their learning increases their skillbase, motivation, and their readiness to share knowledge. Myskillcard works like a top-up card for courses, and you can see how it works here.

Integrated onto our platform is the opportunity to easily discuss, share and comment on the courses, as well as monitor progress. You can also create courses that are available only to the people who need them, allowing even suppliers, partners and customers access to courses if they need training.

Who currently integrates with us

Many companies signed up to myskillcamp also integrate their LMS' with us, to allow for seamless processes, such as Apside:

The LXP myskillcamp is a simple, intuitive and complete tool: the ergonomics of the platform was completely reviewed last year and the ergonomics of its content creation tool will be reviewed this year. The roadmap of the tool is open and its development iterations are short, which allows to influence the evolution of the platform. Finally, myskillcamp proposes to participate in workshops for the co-construction of use cases to enrich its LXP: Apside thus participates in the design and development of functionalities such as pay per course or the management of trades and skills.

If you're ready to integrate your LMS with us, and join the growing community of companies who enjoy seamless integration, and interactive training, join us today.

Learn essential tips and strategies for successfully integrating your Learning Management System (LMS), optimizing course storage, performance tracking, and logistical support.

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Integrating Adaptive Learning

Explore the benefits and implementation of adaptive learning to enhance personalized learning experiences.

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Is it Time to Reonboard Existing Employees?

We've made it clear on our blog just how much we believe in good quality onboarding of our new hires. Even the myskillcamp platform recently rolled out a new way to onboard your new hires using personalised learning paths.

But what about onboarding existing team members?

'Why would they need to be onboarded?' We hear you ask.

Well, think about the year and a half we've just lived through. Is the way you work now the same as how you were working 18 months ago?

With new ways of working, new software, new hires, different job requirements, even the veterans within your company could be feeling lost right now.

Which is why reonboarding is a necessary step to take in your company.

Thank yous

Just as usual onboarding starts with welcoming someone to the company, it's time to take stock in those who weathered the storm with you. Thank them for their work and ensure they realise that you noticed their contributions. After all, feeling under appreciated is one of the main reasons why people leave a company, so a little recognition can go a long way.

Who are yous

Chances are, in the past 18 months you've seen people come and go. Whether it's redundancies, early retirements, maternity/paternity leave or new people needed for new processes and demands. That means there are a lot of new faces in the office in the video calls. they may not know each other, what they do, or how they work. Nightmare! So just as you would introduce a new hire to everyone, update and share your new organisational chart. Complete with roles, tasks, perhaps followed up with a 'casual breakfast meeting' to get to know everyone. Not only does something like this put people at ease, but knowing who does what in the company makes day to day processes quicker for everyone and will save unnecessary stress.

What you dos

If your existing employees had to take on new tasks while the world was busy burning around us, then do they need to be reonboarded for those new tasks? Sure, they've been doing them for a while, but that doesn't mean they're doing them correctly or efficiently. After all, when stressed and overworked, people tend to pick up bad habits. So having a training course to ensure they're doing their new tasks correctly will only be a good thing, especially if you aren't looking to hire a new person to take over that task any time soon.

Office moves

Just as you show new employees what systems the company uses, you will have to do the same with your existing employees. This is due to the changing ways of working that was probably adopted in the last year and a half. Whether it was to due to home working, new systems, new team structures, or even the fact you're all starting to come back to the office, these changes in the way you work will need to be communicated and taught to everyone. This promotes autonomy with new systems you've implemented, encourages everyone to adhere to a way of working, and gets people used to the changes. Whether it's an office-wide webinar on how to use a new tool, or a quick video course on 'hot-desking' it's all relevant.

What we dos

Just as a new employee would like to know the benefits available in their new role, it's worth reiterating them to existing employees. With burnout at an all time high, it's important to show employees how their company will take care of them. What is the company stance on sick leave, stress-related worries, the plan if the pandemic returns. Your employees need to feel safe and protected so they will stay with you and be able to work well. Courses on well-being, yoga, stress-management and conflict resolution may be a good addition to your reonboarding plan.

Reonboarding cues

It doesn't have to take days, it doesn't have to be expensive, but companies need to take some time to settle their employees into the new normal of their working lives. Communication, company information, and short training courses can make a positive impact to your workforce and if you don't know where to start, myskillcamp has you covered.

Members can build onboarding/reonboarding learning paths quickly, with expert content available on the platform, and external content you can import. Similarly, you can contact us if you'd like to use some ready-made learning paths, created by our professional content curators.

Discover how we can help you by booking a demo or even a free trial of our LXP.

book a call

Discover the benefits of reonboarding existing employees and the new onboarding methods introduced by myskillcamp to enhance the process.

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Join the Joint Executive Program: Empowering Professional Growth

Integrating new software can be daunting. There is a lot to consider, from software capabilities, pricing, set-up, and training. You may even need to justify your decision to purchase the new software.

At myskillcamp we understand this can be a nail-biting prospect, which is why we are offering a 'try before you buy' model called, The Joint Executive Program.

How does it work

By working together, we determine what you need from our Learning Experience Platform, what you need access to, how much you'd like to spend, and how long the program will run for.

Once we've customised the platform to your specifications, we show you how to navigate and use the platform. Moreover, we can easily introduce others to the advantages of myskillcamp.

This hands-on approach and proactive communication is beneficial to HR teams as it helps you sell the project internally and find sponsors. It's also an opportunity for us to show you how we'll work with you in the long-term.

The Joint Executive Program also gives your employees the time to familiarise themselves with the platform, and integrate it with their training goals.

Why choose the Joint Executive Program


Unlike other 'demos' you get, this program doesn't limit you to a portion of the software with the promise of 'bigger and better' things once you sign a contract. myskillcamp gets to know you and your needs, then ensures you have a platform that meets those needs.

Also unlike other demos, the length of the program isn't fixed, whether you need three months or half a year to make a decision, we'll give you the time you need - and will even make adjustments to your accesses if your requirements change during this time.

What really sets us apart is that even before you sign a contract with myskillcamp, your employees still have access to professional online courses. This means you'll start seeing results straight away, proving the value we will add to your company.

Become part of our community

Join the many other companies who are / or have been members of the Joint Executive Program, such as Apside:

"The LXP myskillcamp is a simple, intuitive and complete tool: the ergonomics of the platform was completely reviewed last year and the ergonomics of its content creation tool will be reviewed this year. The roadmap of the tool is open and its development iterations are short, which allows to influence the evolution of the platform. Finally, myskillcamp proposes to participate in workshops for the co-construction of use cases to enrich its LXP: Apside thus participates in the design and development of functionalities such as pay per course or the management of trades and skills."

Integrate myskillcamp into your business through the Joint Executive Program in a way that suites you, while seeing results from day one.

Make today your day one by joining our program today.

Discover the benefits of joining the Joint Executive Program, a comprehensive program that helps professionals integrate new software and make informed purchasing decisions.

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Knowledge Sharing between Colleagues: Fostering a Learning Culture

Creating a knowledge sharing company culture requires more than an open office space and a communal lunch area, it requires concrete measures to ensure your employees not only want to learn, but want to share what they've learnt. It's breaking down the tendency to build hierarchies and instead facilitate collaboration that includes everyone.

So what's the barrier?

It can be attributed to two main factors; firstly, management not allowing all employees to know the 'goings on' in the business. It won't be on purpose, but it's a common issue. In fact, according to the Journal of Organizational Behavior 75% of employees feel they're missing out on company info.

Secondly, employees knowledge hoarding (keeping what they've learnt to themselves), either to keep them from doing extra work, or to ensure their newly-found ideas don't get 'stolen' by another employee.

Okay, now you're thinking, 'easy! Just allow everyone access to the intranet and set up some informal meetings' - *sips coffee*. And although many blogs do say it's simple, what happens in a month from now when the meetings get postponed due to something 'more important' or the intranet falls behind on the latest news.

Myskillcamp is here to give you actionable steps to create a proactive learning culture that sticks.

Lunch & Learn

...Because everyone likes free food! These are voluntary meetings over lunchtime where everyone (regardless of department) can informally talk, collaborate in the workplace and learn from each other. Lunch is provided by the managers to entice people to join and spend time with each other. This kind of meeting not only builds trust, but drives personal development.

However, given the sharp increase in home-working recently, not only may these informal meetings be off the table, but (as you probably have experienced) virtual meeting fatigue has set in. This has made, 'fun virtual hangouts' feel more like a chore. So how can we still create this company culture without the face to face element?

Mentoring and Coaching

Being a leader and ally can still be achieved even through virtual means. You'll get to know your employees' needs, work motivations, desires and skills, therefore being able to build trust, collaboration, and increase their willingness to learn. Although coaching is short-term and mentoring is long-term, both can be realised by having an active interest in employees. Achieve this with a mixture of catch-ups, asking questions, and trusting them with new tasks that show their hard and soft skills.

Content Curation

Having employees send you a link concerning a new feature or skill is one thing, but what about a knowledge library, where new chapters of learning are being added constantly? This is the beauty of content curation. Not only is this a 'lockdown-friendly' idea, but there are many platforms that facilitate this culture. From messaging platforms like Slack, to creating groups in Facebook, it has never been simpler to cultivate a sharing culture.

However, myskillcamp is here to make it a step leap easier: By joining together the act of learning new skills, and the collaborative, sharing company culture found on messaging platforms. Offering over 300,000 courses in eight languages with the opportunity to share, discuss and annotate; this Learning Experience Platform is not only a place to share thoughts and knowledge, but to discover courses that make each employee more knowledgable.

The result

By building this 'learning organisation' company culture from following the steps we set out, you'll soon find that the archaic practise of HR Departments cobbling together courses and trying to engage learners is a thing of the past. Instead you'll have a company full of eager-to-learn employees that share proactively, unhindered by knowledge hoarding or distrust.

Want to see how myskillcamp can help you join together the passion to learn with the act of sharing knowledge? Why not try a demo and take your company to the next level.

Explore the importance of creating a knowledge-sharing company culture, including concrete measures to foster employee engagement and a desire for continuous learning.

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LMS vs. LXP: Understanding the Key Differences

LMS, LXP (or LEP)... We are hearing more and more about these online learning platforms. In line with the ever-increasing involvement of digital technology in our lives, LMSs and LXPs are online social learning systems that are revolutionising training methods. They are suitable for everyone and are known to improve employee engagement. Indeed, the agility of these learning solutions is ideal for upskilling. Let's take a closer look:

  • What is the definition of an LMS?
  • What is the definition of an LXP?
  • What are the differences between an LMS and an LXP?

Find out everything you need to know about LMSs and LXPs.

What is the definition of an LMS?

You want to optimise the skills of your teams and are starting to hear about LMSs? It's normal, this type of social learning platform is becoming more and more widespread. The reason is simple: they are agile tools, ideal for delivering training courses and content in a way that breaks with the traditional method and optimises the organisation. The social commitment to the learning path is also strengthened. LMS stands for Learning Management System. This name is translated into French as Système de Gestion de l'Apprentissage.

In concrete terms, an LMS training platform is an online social learning platform. Everything is done remotely, as the content is delivered via LMS software installed on a computer or smartphone.

LMS platforms are described as simple online tools for managing training devices. Their undeniable advantage lies in their digital nature. Indeed, with an LMS, everything is done in e-learning. LMSs therefore benefit from the undeniable advantages of e-learning.


For example, for your teams of learners and employees, using an LMS means...

  • the possibility of learning from their office or even from home,
  • the possibility of interacting with other learners, learning on these media following a social organisation, for greater commitment,
  • interactive learning content thanks to the potential of the LMS tool,
  • varied and very complete content that can be easily updated by the trainers,
  • no more transport, no more precise timetables: they can be trained at the time they want, and in particular make the most of their downtime.


For you, the company training manager, using an LMS platform means

  • the possibility of training a large number of people at the same time (no more room capacity problems),
  • agile training that is easy and simple to manage,
  • a better dialogue with your learners thanks to the social organisation allowing you to communicate and interact with each other.
  • statistics and data provided by the LMS platform,
  • Less expensive training (no room rental, trainer's salary, employee expenses).


An LMS is therefore a type of e-learning platform that allows for optimised training courses, reduced learning budgets in the long term and time savings for you and your teams.

What is the definition of an LXP?

In addition to LMS learning solutions, there is another type of platform for learners: LXPs. These online solutions are, in this case, focused on the user experience and also very conducive to a stronger commitment to training. In particular, it is the learner's learning experience that is the focus of the LXP tools' training method. This is no longer a Learning Management System but a Learning Experience Platform.


The particularity of the LXP or LEP platform is that, in order to improve the learning experience of your employees, its content is more specific. It is still e-learning, as in the case of an LMS solution, however, LXP's use micro-learning in particular. The content of LXP or LEP is short, highly interactive and more personalised according to the objectives, the context and also the learning experience of each of your company's employees. In this way, on an LXP medium, the organisation of each learning path is even more specific to the needs of each employee, to the targeted competencies that he or she must achieve.

Neither the LXP medium nor the LMS solution is more advantageous or recent than the other. They are simply two social learning methods with complementary content, organisation and solutions. Although we speak of "LMS platform" and "LXP or LEP platform", the two types of media can be combined in the same software.

What are the differences between an LMS and an LXP?

There are three major differences between LMS support and LXP (LEP) solution:

  • The idea and the action
  • Personalised training
  • Motivating and social training

Let's look at each of these differences between LMS and LXP:

  • Idea and action:

LMSs are generally considered to be more idea-oriented, whereas LXPs are more action-oriented. LMSs facilitate the creation and distribution of good content and learning modules.

LXP's, on the other hand, with their emphasis on microlearning and user experience, are more advantageous for the practice and application of new skills.

  • Personalised training:

As mentioned, the LXP platform is, in essence, user experience driven. Therefore, it logically provides a more personalised training path than an LMS. One of the particularities of LXP is the use of a technology called machine learning. This is translated into French as "automatic learning" and refers to the use of artificial intelligence. The latter works from all the data collected on the LXP about the learner's activities. It then draws up personalised content, suggestions, exercises and activities that correspond more closely to the user's tastes and needs.

Although it is possible to offer more personalised training on an LMS, this will not depend on automation but on human work, which will therefore take longer.

  • Motivating and social training:

LXP's also have the specificity of being very efficient in social learning. This results in higher motivation and therefore higher commitment to training. Your more engaged teams are more likely to succeed in their training.

LMSs and LXPs are therefore very practical training tools, enabling a new organisation of training, thanks to digital and social learning.

Explore the differences between LMS and LXP (or LEP) online learning platforms, adapting to the increasing role of digital technology in education.

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Learning Creation: Designing Engaging Learning Experiences

Dive into the process of creating engaging learning experiences that captivate and inspire your learners.

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Learning Curation vs. Learning Creation: Choosing the Right Approach

Choosing curation or creation of content will depend on your strategy, of course, but it will also depend on the specific needs your organisation has. Indeed, creation can pretty much meet all the needs. However, is it always worth it, knowing that it requires a lot of time, energy, skills, and of course, money?

Curation vs. Creation: what differences?

First thing first, creation and curation are very different. The only similarity might be that both words start with the letter “c” but the common points stop right there.

Creation of learning implies creating a brand new learning journey from scratch. Not only do you have to design the specifications of this learning project but you also have to define the learning objectives, the script and the creation. All these steps can take a lot of time before introducing the new training to learners (which is also one additional step!)

On the other hand, curation means finding, aggregating and putting together content that already exists from different sources so they work together to form a meaningful learning experience. It’s much faster since you just have to find the right piece of content instead of creating something new.

However, when it comes to building your learning experience, you will probably want a mixture of both as they have different advantages and objectives. Let’s see when you should go for curation and when you should choose creation.

When to Curate?

Going for curation can be a much cheaper and quicker option in your learning strategy. Here are 3 reasons you should choose curation instead of creation.

  1. When you don’t have the expertise and resources internally to build strong, interactive and learner-focused learning experiences. Creating courses requires a set of specific skills, that’s why curating content from experts can be a good option instead of doing everything yourself.
  2. Why create something that already exists? Indeed, many companies have the same learning objectives. So when you want to teach skills or knowledge that other organisations teach as well, why bother creating it again?
  3. Having a lot of content is great, but many learners might feel overwhelmed by the number of resources they have access to. One objective of curation is also to push only the ‘best in class’ content so learners get the best training straight away.

When to Create?

However, curation cannot meet all the needs of a learning strategy. It may be real time and money saver, but at some point you need to get your hands dirty. In other words, you need to go for creation. Here are the main 4 reasons you should choose creation.

  1. Creating a learning course can be necessary when you train your learners about specific or technical knowledge within your organisation. Indeed, it’s more likely that there’s no existing content when it comes to an internal tool or a process internally.
  2. When it comes to new skills, there may be no existing content. Therefore, you might want to create your own course because nobody has created it yet.
  3. You may want a course that is personalised to your company rather than to someone else's. For branding or other personalisation reasons. Especially if it is a course for external learners like suppliers, stakeholders or clients.
  4. Finally, creation can complete curation by filling the gaps of knowledge you couldn’t find existing courses for. That is why creation and curation shouldn’t be seen as separate approaches, but as complementary.

It’s all a matter of strategy

You got it: creation and curation can be both efficient and appropriate for your training. In the end, even though creation and curation seem more appropriate depending on your situation and your needs, it depends on your strategy. In other words, questions like:

  • What are the objectives and the targets of your learning project?
  • What are the resources you have in order to achieve your learning strategy?
  • What is the deadline?

...would define which option or what proportion of the two you should go for.

Want to know more about creation and curation and how it can serve your learning strategy? Then, book a call with us today to work on your learning strategy.


Understand the differences between learning curation and creation, and choose the right approach based on your organization's strategy and specific needs.

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Learning Strategy in Response to Uncertainty

Develop a robust learning strategy to navigate uncertainty and adapt to changing circumstances effectively.

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Learning a New Language: The Power of e-Learning

How learning languages has changed

You would have thought that spending over a year stuck in your own house would have negated the need to learn new languages. But boy, is that the wrong take...

According to everyone's favourite green owl, Duolingo; 'Over 30 million new people started learning a language on Duolingo in the weeks following the outbreak of the pandemic' and that's just Duolingo alone.

It seems that the pandemic gave people the time they needed to stop putting off their new year's resolutions and start learning their chosen language. But due to the lack of face to face contact, the way these new languages were being taught was via eLearning!

Whether it was mobile learning with Duolingo, Babbel, Memrise, video conferencing with VerbalPlanet or Busuu, or multimedia courses with GlobalExam, or CLL - eLearning became the only way to tackle language, and even though we can venture past our front doors again, eLearning has remained active in the language scene.

Loïc Herbe, COO at GlobalExam explains, "Lockdown and partial activity caused by the Covid crisis created space and needs for learning languages online. Our highly personalised and certifying offer attracted new users who were hoping to travel or change careers after the pandemic. In B2B, the schools or training centres we work with were in great need of quality distance learning to carry on with their classes”.

Why is this?

Well perhaps once you finally learn how to conjugate verbs, you might as well keep going! But another reason is the surge of digital nomads. People (en mass) have realised that if they don't need to be in the office to work, why do they need to be in the same country? People are working from all over the world and with that international mindset, comes the need to know new languages.

Why HR may focus on language courses

Language courses have been popular in the workplace for tens of years now. Albeit below soft skills and management, but the reason for their introduction may have been to answer a rising demand from coworkers wanting new opportunities and challenges... more motivational than practical.

And with the rise of remote working, freelancing and now, digital nomads, offering languages as a way to motivate coworkers and boost company loyalty has surely increased.

However, motivation isn't the only reason why language courses are becoming a popular selection in HR teams. Going back to freelancers and remote workers; you may hire a person who has strong skills to complete a set task but lacks the language to communicate in-depth. These people will benefit from language courses set by the HR team. Similarly, a new hire may know the company's chosen language well, but may struggle with 'business jargon'. Meaning if you want your new remote worker to give you a 'ballpark figure' you may need to teach them that phrase before expecting a quantitative result.

Alternatively, it may be the company that needs to switch languages. An example of this is our very own myskillcamp. Once an exclusively french-speaking company, due to hiring internationally and expanding into new countries, English is now the main language. This means that our resident Francophones have enrolled in English courses provided by myskillcamp.

How to eLearn a language

Recently, we ran a poll on whether eLearning can be used exclusively to learn a new language. It was pretty close in terms of scoring. However, the majority was YES!

So with that, let's investigate the positives to eLearning a language;

  • Save your courses

Whether it's a quiz, written course, video or audio, you can always save your courses. This is invaluable when it comes to language as you need repetition in order to effectively learn a new word. In fact, studies show you need to relearn each word a total of 17 times (urgh) to properly mash it into your long-term memory.

  • Multimedia

In fact, you can't just relearn the word the same way each time. Differing methods are needed. Which is why having multimedia courses can help you get to grips with each new word and phrase faster.

  • Mobile technology

Learning on the go is a god send for those with dull commutes, spare moments or sleepless nights. Picking up your phone and opening your chosen language learning app is quick and simple, not to mention effective.

  • Videoconferencing

For the purists, we have videoconferencing. All the fun of face to face, with none of the effort of putting on trousers. Also, since the spoken element of learning a language (including pronunciation and confidence) is vital, talking - even virtually - is an important part of the process. But when you don't have access to a native in your vicinity, using video conferencing programs are a godsend.

Platforms, apps and companies use many gaming tactics to keep their learners engaged for the long-term. The scoring, achievements and sharing elements prevalent are ideal for learning languages where repetition and motivation are needed.

  • Alert and Notifications

Sometimes, you just don't feel like learning, in more extreme cases, you don't want to leave the comfort of your own home. In those times, face to face or classroom learning gets pushed to another time. However, eLearning can provide the nudge you need to dedicate the time to learning. By sending push notifications, texts or emails, people can simply engage with their courses - even if it's just for a small amount of time.

  • Learn from locals

Think about where you live, there's a good chance that the people living in the north of the country sound a lot different from those in the south. When it comes to a new language, there are plenty of subtle differences that can be easily missed when you decide to learn it. To give an example, let's take French! We have... French, Canadian French, Belgian French, Swiss French, in fact 29 countries speak French. And in France alone, there are as many as 13 regional accents. Traditional french courses are very rigid and formal, giving the learners a clear disadvantage unless they plan to live in Paris. With eLearning, there are plenty more opportunities to learn the specific dialect and accent that belongs to your chosen language. For instance, connecting to a local via videoconference.

  • Timing

For those in HR and L&D, the first pro of eLearning is that it can be slotted into busy schedules. Many traditional language courses focused on grouping coworkers together after work which can lead to high drop-off rates and tired learners. eLearning can be done in a colleague's own time, boosting engagement rates.

The second pro for HR and L&D is content curation. Unlike having to hire a tutor to come into the office, you can find the content that already exists and add it to your learning platform, or assigning existing courses to learners through training organisations.

That's a lot of pros! However, with any kind of skill, 'in the field' / 'on the job' learning is always needed. Immersing yourself in your chosen new language may be scarier than taking a course, but it's an element that must be included.

How to create a language learning program

Whether you want to find your own eLearning courses and add them to your company's training platform, or enrol your learners with a training organisation, it's very simple for those in HR or L&D to give their learners the tools they need to start learning a new language.

In fact, myskillcamp has many learning courses from our partners, including those from CLL and GlobalExam that you can check out.

To ensure you select the correct eLearning courses, not to mention the correct goals and timeframe for your learners, it's important you come up with a plan. Establish your goals and metrics, calculate the workload to give the learners, ensure you have the right tools and platforms, and enable feedback between you and the learners so you can see if the courses are working.

For more information about eLearning languages, subscribe to our podcast, 'MyPodCamp'. Our episode called 'eLearning Languages' covers how eLearning can help you learn new languages, with special guest, Loic Herbe, COO of GlobalExam.

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Explore the transformative effects of learning languages, even during times of confinement, and the value it brings to personal growth.

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Making Your Company Recession-Proof: Leveraging Training and Onboarding

The current situation

Economic down-turns aren’t as rare as they used to be, since the 60’s there has been one per decade: 1975, 1982, 1991, and 2009. But due to a global pandemic in 2020 and the Russia-Ukraine war leading to a worldwide energy crisis, the economy is yet again on the verge of a recession. 

Bloomberg Economics has gone on record to say there’s a 75% chance a recession will occur by the end of 2023. 

And to add tear-flavoured icing on top of the misery cake, each recession we find ourselves in leads to a deeper job deficit than the previous one.

…So it’s no surprise companies worldwide are dealing with worsening skill gaps. 

It’s also no surprise that people have turned to other ways of working - and no I don’t mean working from home - the Gig economy, full of temporary, contract, on-call and freelance work is more prevalent than you may realise. One in three adults say they do some kind of nonstandard gig work to get by.


What’s on the minds of employees? 

Apart from the background noise consisting of ‘oh god, not again’ there are two lanes of thought, and it depends on the speed of economic fallout as to which lane becomes the most travelled. And as you’ll read, both give a great insight into how companies should act during the next recession.

Stay put and slog it out 

This has been the one and only path in past recessions. The fear of the unknown, coupled with hiring freezes and job cuts leads people to stay within their current role. Moreover, job losses during the Great Recession of 2008 were not only huge, but employers did not begin to add jobs until 2010. A much longer job deficit than seen in past recessions. 

“During the Great Recession of 2008, most companies set a freeze on permanent hiring, with some of the hardest hit also forced to lay off staff. Employers remained cautious even after things started to improve – there was a significant pivot towards temporary staffing and short–term contracts as a way of augmenting staff where needed.” – Jennifer Martin, Operations Manager at Mindscope

Similarly, many people are still recovering from the effects of Covid, where, according to the Pew Research Center; unemployment rose higher in three months than it did in two years of the previous recession. 

It’s fair to say that those working during either of those times, don’t want to suffer a two-year (or more) struggle.

Find better opportunities before the recession hits

As an employer you may raise your eyebrow at this. But it’s true. We may have gotten out of the Great Recession, but we’re very much still within the Great Resignation

In July 2022 it was reported that ⅓ of workers are looking for a new role; 31% actively looking, 28% looking to leave in the next 6 months, and only 38% wanting to stay. It seems that since 2022 began, the ball is in the workers’ court as the job market is still thriving and employers are still desperately trying to fill skill gaps.

Right now, we simply don’t know what will happen, whether people will continue to search for new opportunities, or if a new recession leads to the end of the Great Resignation. But it will depend on the supply and demand of jobs.  

What’s on the minds of employers?

For this we need to look at industries that closely follow economic trends, such as the tech industry.

According to Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, due to rising inflation, fears of a looming recession, higher interest rates and energy shocks, a slew of the largest social media companies have made deep cuts into their workforce. Meta cut 11,000 jobs; 13% of its workforce, while Twitter cuts its workforce in half with 3,700 jobs lost. 

The end of the Covid boom

Another underlying reason for these cuts is a wide-spread misunderstanding on how long the pandemic-driven e-commerce boom would last; as Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke acknowledged in a memo to staff. 

Many industries who profited from the pandemic due to e-related products and services now find themselves applying the brakes to their spending and realising they are now in the after-shock of the e-commerce boom. This includes social media, ride-sharing apps, eLearning, and online payment companies.

However, this could be the 2nd dot com bubble about to burst - although scary, may not be completely indicative of what’s to come for non-tech sectors.

What can be on the chopping board?

When looking at company actions taken during past recessions, the first cost to be cut is training. Not just cutting training for new employees but to stop investing in current employees. However, just because it seems easy, doesn’t mean it’s the correct move.

Economist Chris Farrell says the overall lack of investment in developing employees may be partially responsible for the complaints by many companies that there is a shortage of qualified workers.


Building a recession-proof training strategy

If you were impatiently scrolling for the answers, stop now!

Preserve* your training

Previously I listed the two possible paths that employees are looking to take either now or in the next six months. Either remaining or leaving to find new opportunities. If you want your company to be recession-proof, here’s how preserving your training, or perhaps boosting your training efforts will help.


Lane 1: Your employees are looking to leave

Currently one of the top three reasons for leaving a company is ‘career advancement’ at 33%. Workers are feeling stuck, unappreciated and crave upskilling. To cut training now may well be the ‘final straw’ to those you consider lynchpins (or to those you may not realise are lynchpins) in your company. During times of economic uncertainty and downturn, you will want talent to remain, to limit skill gaps and have the ability to keep employees motivated and updated on quick company changes that often happen during recessions.

During times of economic downturn you’ll also want to steer clear of ‘brain drain’, the financial costs of skilled workers leaving the company. It’s important to remember that retaining current employees is a lot more cost-effective than training new employees. 


Lane 2: Your employees will stay 

You may think the most loyal and invested employees will stay with you regardless of a temporary training cut. But that doesn’t mean your company won’t feel the effects of that decision.

Houdmont, Kerr, and Addley (2012) found that the Great Recession was associated with net increases in work demands, role ambiguity, coworker interpersonal conflict, and with net decreases in job control, coworker support, and participation in change at work. This ongoing level of uncertainty has knock-on effects on mental health and physical health as seen in the chart below.

Not only can this lead to results like low performance but also long-term employee burnout; a situation that came to a head even before the pandemic.

This paired with seeing the fate of others within the economy, their industry or even their company will add to stressor levels and lead to a low level of ‘Affective organisational commitment’; a work attitude representing “an employee’s emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organisation” (Meyer & Allen, 1991) in layman's terms, the employee won’t leave yet, but they won’t be happy.


Circumvent this negative outcome by preserving training. Show you value your workers, show them they have a better future with you and possible changes in the company during a recession will be trained for. A study by Shoss, Jiang, and Probst (2018) similarly suggests that training to increase employee resilience may reduce the negative impact of job insecurity. Likewise, employer-sponsored training to enhance work skills may attenuate the association between employment insecurity and adverse outcomes.


Make your training smart

* You may have noticed the asterisks beside ‘preserve’ in the title above. The reason for this is to reflect upon your current training. With instability, fewer workers, more stressors, you want training that is cost-effective, smart, works without much input and gives you ROL (return on learning). 

You can achieve this with adaptive learning. This training relies on AI and machine learning to personalise learning paths for employees. Personalising training can improve learning engagement by 76%, leads to fewer training failures (leading to saving 49% of costs) and 46% more retention in the skills needed within your company. 

Keeping employees engaged in learning leads to quicker adoption of new skills and more motivation to improve output and quality. 


Quick and effective training also pays off with new employees, so if you need to hire quickly and effectively (especially during a recession) adaptive learning can be your best tool.

The 3rd lane taken by your future employees: Onboarding

Historically, companies that have continued to hire during a recession have been able to take advantage of the market. If you can, make it a priority to look for new hires during a possible recession — you may find the best talent is suddenly available. For example, a great deal of highly-skilled people were cut from tech companies. These workers are also highly skilled in technology, the top skill most employers are looking to fill - especially since so many companies heavily invested in technology during the pandemic (even to a point where many of their employees didn’t know how to use the tech). If you’re looking to hire skilled workers and you want to survive the recession, it’s time to snap up these people.

Hiring during a recession

If you take the initiative to hire during a recession then you’ll want to onboard this new talent quickly and effectively. Not only will this save money, but they’ll be more motivated to produce quality work, stay employed with you longer, and use the skills they learned while onboarding straight away.

Another point to consider is how you onboard. Research from Accenture’s Future of Work Study 2021 shows that 83% of workers prefer a hybrid model and greater flexibility. 

To achieve effective eLearning, especially during onboarding you’ll want an Action-based Learning pedagogy. Action-based means ‘learning by doing’ this can help new employees retain 90% of the information they consume and turn knowledge into applied skills - resulting in them being able to produce results for the company faster. 

Enhancing action based learning

To use this pedagogy requires a SaaS that offers adaptive learning, micro-actions and retention capabilities. This will serve to remind new hires (and existing employees) about training automatically and require less set-up and fewer integrations (than if you were to choose multiple SaaS’). 


The steps to hire during a recession

While Enhanced Action Based learning is the SaaS you want to use to save money and train faster, there are steps to take during a recession to ensure your onboarding is swift and effective. 

1. Conduct a skills gap analysis

A skills gap analysis should be used to identify the skills your workforce needs but doesn’t have yet. This can show what your hiring priorities are, create opportunities for training and development, and allows you to prepare the course material.

A skills gap report also provides deeper insight into the talent that already exists within your company and considers the skills your company will need in the future. Perhaps existing employees can be upskilled to fill those skill gaps.

2. Check-in with passive candidates

Are there industry experts you’d love to have on your team, but are working for other companies? As I covered previously, these experts could be in the job market, either due to company cuts or seeking other opportunities with more security and/or higher salary. Harvard Business Review suggests asking your leadership team to list professionals with whom they would love to work. Then, rank this shortlist in terms of attractiveness and skill gaps to your company and begin your outreach.

3. Find tools to make screening easy

During difficult economic times you’ll have more demand than usual for an open role. This can quickly overwhelm recruiters. Prepare for this by adding resources that allow you to hire at scale.

4. Recruit remotely

Especially since the pandemic, remote working has become a normal part of work culture and few are willing to give up this freedom. If you believe resources may be limited due to a recession then think about hiring remotely. This is more affordable, it costs less to hire them and you often tap into a broader pool of skills and diversity.


Onboarding during a recession

  1. Don’t delay onboarding

A worrying trend among companies is to pause onboarding, especially when companies are unsure of the future. This not only shows a lack of care for the new employees but shows a company that makes decisions without much consideration. In some cases this action can cause media backlash, which happened to Tech firm Wipro when they delayed onboarding for almost a full year: “I had been given an offer letter way back in October 2021. It has almost been a year now, I am still waiting for Wipro to onboard me.”


  1. Make content easily accessible

Having access to your onboarding material not only helps those who are hired remotely (which is becoming more common, especially as a recession looms) but all workers. New hires are often inundated with so much information that recalling it is impossible. Give all employees easy access to onboarding materials to refresh memory and generate a consensus of action. An LMS/LXP library is a great place to start, not just so employees can access documentation, but they can retake courses, download material and you can see analytics on its use, successes and possible improvements.

  1. Deliver bite-sized content

Shorter, bite-size content is a more effective way for employees to learn. It reduces cognitive overload, it allows for quick refreshers when needed and it’s not as daunting for the person to consume. Better yet, bitesize content lends itself to mixed media such as video, audio, quizzes and micro-actions; all part of Enhanced Action Based Learning.

Especially when your employees have to work to short deadlines, act quickly and deal with more pressure caused by recessions, being able to refresh memories with quick training content is more helpful to the company.

  1. Reinforce learning

As mentioned above, Action Based Learning is the pedagogy best suited to how we actually learn and turn knowledge into skills. A large part of this pedagogy is practising what has recently been learned with repetitive reminders and small tasks known as ‘micro-actions’. As you can see, this active environment helps the average person retain 55% more information.


  1. Don’t underestimate your employees

It’s often thought that people don’t want to learn. That they want to get it ‘out of the way’ as quickly as possible. However, this is only true for training that misses the mark. When you have personalised training that offers real-world use cases accessible from anywhere, you’ll see that training is something that people want.

59% say it improves their overall job performance, 51% believe it gives them more self-confidence, 41% claim it helps their time-management skills and 33% cite it as a factor in earning them a pay bump.

Especially during a recession, anything people can do to upskill, become more qualified and beat the competition is appreciated. And when you as a company take that initiative and help your employees (new and existing) achieve this, you’ll have a more motivated and loyal workforce that will help you weather any storm. 

If you want to start the process of becoming recession-proof then you’ll need the resources detailed in this article; Adaptive Learning, Enhanced Action Based Learning, an LMS/LXP and micro-actions. Luckily I know just the place and you can get a tour of the platform today. Start your journey here, with myskillcamp.

Discover strategies to make your company resilient in times of economic downturn by leveraging training and onboarding initiatives for long-term success.

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Measuring Training Success: 4 Effective Ways

The impact a course has can take many forms, the issue for HR and L&D professionals is that it can go unnoticed easily if you don't know where to look / what to measure. This can lead to hard work being overlooked, success of teams being minimalised, and even training budgets being cut.

So let's find out how to measure all the impact your courses can have on leaners and the company as a whole.

Establish the questions to get the best answers

Not only is this good for the L&D team to know, but knowing what the CEO/'heads of' want to see, means monitoring impact in the areas that matter most to the company. Asking the following can help achieve this...

  • What do we want to know?
  • What are the learning objectives? (and company objectives)
  • When do we want to measure?
  • Which tool will we use?
  • Which dimension do we want to dive in?

When the key areas are established, you can move on to identifying the different impact stages a course will hit, and how to measure those impacts.

Kirkpatrick model

This model shows the different stages of impact, from immediate to months down the line.

Satisfaction (also known as Reaction)

The simplest and first impact stage to measure is Satisfaction. You can assess whether the training was accepted by the learners and what they thought about it.

You can do this by:

  • Asking learners anonymously if they want to take the course beforehand
  • Asking learners during the course if they have any thoughts (especially relevant for those who are moving through the course slowly)
  • Asking learners what they thought about the course when it's completed

This allows you to collect truthful answers which can be used to improve the training for future learners. Myskillcamp has a version of this we send internally, AND as a template to clients. In fact, we want to share it with you. Here's the post-course evaluation form. Feel free to make a form of your own using the same questions.

Measuring satisfaction

  • Collect the responses (how many positive/negative)
  • Measure the percentage change of positive/negative responses over time
  • See the change of attitudes to the course at the end compared to the start

Learning

The second potential impact stage is Learning. This is a great way to see if your courses helped your learners acquire new skills.

You can do this by:

  • Evaluating the learners' knowledge on the course's topic before taking the training
  • Evaluating the learners' retention during the course
  • Evaluating the learners' knowledge after taking the training (both straight after, and further down the line - to see how much knowledge they've retained)

Measuring learning

  • Establish the learners' base level of knowledge on the skill that the upcoming course will cover. This can be done with a test (perhaps the same test the learners will take after the course)
  • Distribute small quizzes throughout the training to see whether each chapter is successfully being taught
  • Set a final quiz at the end of the training with a minimum success rate of 80% correct answers. (If failed the learner will retake the course/chapter they failed again.
  • Compare their post-course score with their pre-course score to see the knowledge gained.
  • Ask learners to retake quiz in the future to see how much knowledge is retained.

Behaviour

The third impact to measure is the level of behavioural change the course had on the learners. This is very course specific but it can be measured.

You can do this by:

  • Looking at what behaviours could potentially change BEFORE the course has started
  • Monitoring behaviour individually, as a group (the group that took the course)
  • Monitoring over a long period of time to track changes

Measuring behaviour

As stated earlier, this impact isn't as black and white as 'Learning' and 'Satisfaction' as it depends on the course topic. So let's take learning how to use Adobe Photoshop as an example.

  • Calculate how much time Photoshop has been used before the course
  • Look if there's a Photoshop alternative the employees were using before. How much time did they spend using that instead?
  • Monitor how many people are using Photoshop after the course
  • Calculate how much time they spend using Photoshop per month after the course. You can also calculate this number against those who haven't yet taken the course.
  • Plot the usage rate month per month
  • Measure the decline of use of the Photoshop alternatives that may have been used before.
  • Track any requests of a follow-up Photoshop course

Performance (also known as Results)

This is the final potential impact your course can have. This is also the one that c-suite managers will be the most interested in, as it relies on ROI and KPIs.

Your can measure performance by:

  • Choosing courses that (if successful) could help learners achieve business goals
  • Reviewing if a learner reached their yearly goals and what they attribute that success to
  • See if time and money were saved after the course was completed

Measuring performance

Let's keep the same course example as before, Adobe Photoshop, and see how it could impact performance

  • Calculate how much money/time was spent on other editing apps before the course, or outsourcing to freelancers. Then calculate the saved time and money after the course.
  • Look at the success rate of imagery before the course and the success rate of imagery after the course. (How many people clicked on ads? How much revenue was it generating before and after?
  • Ask learners to rate how much the course helped them achieve their goals.
  • Compare the performance of those who did take the course against those who did not.
  • Plot any quantitive number against the overall cost of the course itself to track ROI.

Who measures what

All these measurements shouldn't be left to one person. After all, some impacts are qualitative rather than quantitive within certain teams, so relying on L&D and HR for everything won't be ideal.

Learning Manager

The person in charge of the learning within an organisation should monitor the first two impacts:

  • Satisfaction
  • Learning

This is because those two dimensions are directly related to the training and can be woven into the training itself.

Project Manager / Expert / Business Sponsor

  • Behaviour
  • Performance

These two dimensions should be managed by the head of the team. As this is a month by month, holistic approach, it'll take a while to see behavioural and performance changes. Similarly, it will be easier for the head of team to spot changes, and track goals being reached,

Since the impacts are measured by different people, it's important at the start of the year to meet and discuss what is needed by all participants. That avoids any potential impact being missed.

When do these impacts happen?

The different impacts are measured at different times. Satisfaction and Learning are best measured during and right after the course (otherwise known as a 'hot' evaluation), whereas Behaviour and Performance are measured further down the line ('cold' evaluation).

This is why it's important to keep track of results during the year, and to have a good idea of the business goals. After all, you're going to be issuing more than one course a year, so plotting timelines and gathering information is crucial.

Certain impacts can be measured with the help of your LXP, especially if you're a member of myskillcamp. As you have have the ability to build quizzes into the courses, review course satisfaction, analyse time spent and number of learners taking/completing the course; you won't have to spend so much time calculating impact yourself.

Watch the webinar

We know that measuring the success of courses can be difficult, so if you want a simple way to review this information, feel free to watch our webinar on the topic.

Available on demand.

Learn about four effective ways to measure the success of training programs, enabling HR and L&D professionals to identify impact and improve future initiatives.

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Meet the Happy Campers: Celebrating Camper's Day

What is Camper’s Day?

Recently, our company enjoyed its yearly Camper’s Day. They’ve always been special to us, but this year, after so much growth, was a particularly special one.

You see, we’ve more than doubled in size (who didn’t during 2020? 😉) but in terms of our team members, countries we occupy, services provided and revenue generated. We had a lot to celebrate, and with so many more people, we had to do so in a BIG way!

The funny thing is, most of our team members (or campers) had never experienced a Camper’s Day, or even met some of their fellow campers: ‘There is always a little apprehension of how it will go and if you will click with everyone or how that whole interaction will pan out.’ - Stevan

Similarly, after adhering to the strict rules the pandemic brought, the thought of gathering as a team felt a little strange: ‘To be honest, when I arrived I was quite overwhelmed! I am not used to these kinds of gatherings where you have so many people!’ - Loic

But those pre-event butterflies soon flew away: ‘I really enjoyed it, it was so nice to see and meet in person all our colleagues. I realised how much I missed face to faceI’ - Antoinette

Even those who haven’t started with us yet felt the same! ‘It was a really good day, I got the opportunity to connect with my future co-workers and experience the company culture’ - Karla

...and it was safe to say that those who organised Camper’s Day, (shout out to Nathalie and Milena) exceeded expectations. 👏

What happened?

As with any team-building event, it started with a recap of what we’ve achieved so far and how we can continue to achieve our goals.

We spent time working on what the myskillcamp values meant to us, on the behaviours that those values embody and on how we can live them as guiding principles on a daily basis 💪 ‘Our break out sessions were a great exercise to get us mingling with other departments and collaborating on some of our core values and what they mean to us collectively’. - Stevan

Followed by two team-building games, including the building of a Rube Goldberg machine -> which can be watched here. A BBQ, many drinks, the after party, and (for those brave enough) the after after party! 🍻

pose

What was achieved?

I think the main thing achieved was that we all connected as a team, not just in our own departments, but with those who we don’t get to see everyday. We’re a very international team so being able to actually talk face to face and have a laugh was very special’ - Ali. It was also a chance to realise we may be working on different projects, but we are all working toward the same goals: ‘We now understand that we are all in the same boat: we share the same values and are passionate about learning’. - Loic

Another achievement of the day was learning more about each other, specifically cultures. As said before, we’re a multinational team, from Brazil to Romania, Cyprus to Ireland, so there’s a lot to discover... ‘Dinner and drinks after were also such a delight. The drinks were high-powered Belgian brewing at its best! Those 12% beasts laughing at our measly Irish 5%! - Stevan

We also learned other things… like the fact all men are drawn to BBQs 🍖

We learned who we need to keep away from confetti cannons. 🎉

confetti

And we learned who can really dance 💃…

The best bit

We asked what the campers thought was the best bit of the day, (to help us make the next Camper’s Day even better) and we got many answers:

Working altogether (or playing, what's the difference?) - on the values, or later building this huge confetti engine’. - Mathieu

Being able to laugh and spend time with people you usually only see in formal meetings’. - Antonia

My favourite part was the first team building exercise, well now - how fun was that!! - the lack of voice I had for the next 3 days from boisterously shouting "that's it”, and “that over there...Beautiful" so many times is testament to how good it was. - Stevan

The takeaway

We are a fast-growing team, but we’re a fun and close team. We really do believe in myskillcamp and know that by working together, we can achieve anything! As Stevan puts it, ’I have always been all in with Myskillcamp - but this day just brought my excitement for the future and what we are creating here to a whole new level’! - Stevan

Want to be part of the next Camper’s Day? 🤔 Then you’ll have to become a Camper! 🤩 But like we said, we’re growing fast, and we are looking for the fun, happy, ambitious people out there. So see where you can fit in today!


Get to know the significance of Camper's Day, a special annual event that highlights the company's growth and fosters a sense of celebration and community.

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Myskillcamp Overview: Empowering Learning Experiences

Discover how myskillcamp empowers organizations with its innovative learning solutions and customizable platforms.

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Discover effective strategies to optimize your training budget in 2021 for maximum results and cost-efficiency.

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Personal Branding: Unlocking the Power of Self-Promotion

Personal branding is a course that most employers tend to skip over when planning a company-wide/team-wide upskill. Normally, soft skills, software skills and industry-specific skills take centre stage.

But personal branding has a place in an employee's learning path, not just for them, but for the company as a whole.

What is personal branding?

Personal branding is how you are perceived online that is shaped by a person's dedicated and ongoing approach to curating, posting, and engaging with content.

This can be in a professional (work oriented) or personal (lifestyle) manner depending on what you'd like to focus on / build your brand as.

But usually, professional, work oriented personal branding is what a company will focus on, and it's what myskillcamp recently created for our employees.


Adding personal branding to the company culture

More than encouraging employees to take personal branding as a course, it's key to assimilate the practise into company culture. The reason behind this may be unclear right now, but there are great reasons for it...

  • Increase interaction

Encouraging employees to increase interactions with social media, you increase the chances they'll engage with your company's updates and with each other. This increases reach organically while simultaneously showing a better work environment - perfect for curious potential clients and recruitment efforts.

  • Ongoing learning

Growing a professional brand encourages people to keep updated with new business and industry practises (either because they want to be one of the first to post updates or because they will follow people who post updates quickly) meaning employees will be proactive in learning and bettering themselves. This means they will be consistently upskilling themselves and using those skills in your company.

  • Social Selling

Certain departments such as sales and marketing can use personal branding to kickstart social selling. Social selling is the process of creating relationships via social media with potential clients as part of the customer journey. It's a great way to build trust in the people and product before any real company involvement begins. By building a personal brand people are far more likely to interact with you and the interaction won't feel like a 'pushy sales tactic'.

  • Increased reach

With employees mentioning your company (or even being affiliated with your company) while building their personal brand, it subconsciously puts your company name into the minds of people you otherwise wouldn't have reached.

  • Shows an interest

With helping your employees learn any skill, it shows that you company is taking an active interest in your employees' careers. Making sure your employees are highly employable and ensuring their continued growth is a great way to keep your employees by your side.

How to make personal branding attractive

With any skill you want your employees to start learning, getting them to actually TAKE the darn course is the hardest part. The best thing to do is ensure this is something your employees would like, and then make the course as attractive as you can.

  • Ask for opinions

This is what myskillcamp did first. We looked into whether our employees were interested in social media, building a brand, or social selling. In all honesty... if it came back negatively, we wouldn't have proceeded with the next steps - but it came back that our employees were interested in social media and the course idea as a whole.


  • Make it optional

We wanted to ensure that the course was something employees could do, not something they must do. That way it's positioned as a treat rather than a chore. Of course, this doesn't work for all courses you want your employees to take, but for personal branding, it's well-suited to those who are motivated to take the course rather than everyone in the company.

  • Show the success

When employees start posting more, and using personal branding techniques they will see an automatic improvement in their engagement rates. This is perfect to amplify. Encourage people to share examples of their successes and share them with other employees internally. Creating a sense of accomplishment to those who had the success, and inspiration (or even competition) among others.

  • Microlearning

It's not just about communicating the course, it's about the course itself. Myskillcamp split the personal branding course into smaller segments such as a 'LinkedIn starter pack', workshops, webinars, and a larger branding course.


  • Guest speakers

Learning from the company is one thing, but learning from actual personal branding experts and thought leaders brings a level of validity to the course. After all, that's why myskillcamp has a large selection of training providers for all the courses we offer. Bring in experts to talk about the topic and have them interact with those who are taking the course, perhaps assessing their current efforts and giving further advice.

Cementing branding into the company

As stated before, myskillcamp is encompassing personal branding courses into the larger company culture. The final (or should we say the first) way we're doing this is including it in the onboarding training we start all new hires on. Our onboarding isn't just about software or the myskillcamp platform, it's also about the goals, missions and beliefs of our company.

Implementing courses

With all the steps you must take to make a course successful can seem like a road of stumbling blocks. This is why myskillcamp has a platform that not only helps you build courses and learning paths simply, but offers you thousands of professionally built courses for quick and easy implementation. Coupled with our analytics and customer success team, we ensure any course you want your employees to take is well introduced, explained and set-up.

If you want to see what we can do for you, then reach out for a platform demo, or a personalised trial.

Explore the importance of personal branding as a valuable skill often overlooked in company-wide upskilling initiatives, empowering individuals for career growth.

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Articles
Rapid Learning: Unleashing Efficient Skill Acquisition

Rapid Learning is a method in vogue in recent years in the educational world. But what is it?

A smidgen of definition

Rapid Learning doesn't mean quickly picking up a skill or cramming information for a last-minute test.

It relates more to the courses themselves, how quick they are to build and how long the lessons take. Really it should be called Rapid Course Creation... but here we are.

Making courses in this way fits with the 'fast-paced' needs of today, we need courses that are quick to make, easy to teach and can be edited at any time. This means people can train continuously, regardless of their seniority, profession or geographic location.

Thanks to new technologies, tools now make it possible to meet this demand for the acquisition of skills or knowledge almost instantaneously. Whether it's powerpoint templates, easy video creation tools like Powtoon, or course creation tools on myskillcamp, these tools allow courses to be created and edited quickly, by those who have the knowledge in the subject. Gone are the days a course has to be made by a designer, video expert, or training expert. These tools are user-friendly and can be mastered by someone from any department.

And then there's the other part of Rapid Learning; the courses themselves. Rapid Learning courses are often bite-sized, multimedia and educational, using several e-learning tools to build something that's simple for the learner to learn and retain. To achieve rapid Learning within your own company, you will need to use an authoring tool to create this content quickly and inexpensively.

Please note: although Rapid Learning meets current needs, it is not suitable for all entities or even all learners. It evolves perfectly in a digital context in which learners are familiarised with the company. However, if your learners want direct access to precise, short, effective content so they can train independently, Rapid Learning will be a good solution. However, if your content requires more time and attention, other e-learning or face-to-face options may be considered.

Benefits

  • Quick to get started and easy-to-use tools
  • Quick and short training
  • Compliance with SCORM and AICC standards for certain software
  • Reduction of costs and production times
  • Fast, multiple and diversified production
  • Autonomy of training

Disadvantages

  • The learner is training alone
  • Limited pedagogy
  • Short training, not suitable for long and intense content
  • Limited interaction

In short, Rapid Learning is the ideal tool for creating "fast", targeted and inexpensive content. But this method can never be used for training that requires more time and intensity. Therefore it's best to use this method in conjunction with other digital learning methods.

If you want to use Rapid Learning for some of your courses, then get in touch with myskillcamp. Our authoring tools are perfect for creating this content, and we have many other options for other digital learning methods you'd like to deploy. Access a free personalised trial of our services to try it out today.

Understand the concept of Rapid Learning, a method that has gained popularity in recent years, and explore its definition and characteristics in the educational world.

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Simplifying and Augmenting Workplace Learning with Myskillcamp

HR Tech Outlook recently published an article about how myskillcamp simplifies workplace learning using our Skills Delivery Platform.

Read on HR Tech Outlook or continue scrolling.

Businesses often rely on disjointed learning management systems (LMS) and online platforms to drive an influential learning culture. However, a lack of necessary integration among these platforms hinders content accessibility, affecting the learning experience. In this regard, the need of the hour is better streamlining and centralising learning content.

Enter myskillcamp!

The company offers its eponymous learning content management system (LCMS) that accumulates learning content from multiple training providers and delivers bespoke, personalised experiences to employees. It aggregates the data that different content providers offer and pushes it through shareable content object reference model (SCORM).

Users get to access the relevant content on a single platform without any hassle of logging into or managing multiple platforms. "We optimise and recommend the content that is accessible to the workforce within the LMS of the client, without the learner having to switch to every platform and search," says Kevin Tillier, CEO, myskillcamp. For example, if an employee wants to develop sales skills and has access to DataCamp, Coursera, and LinkedIn Learning, myskillcamp recommends the most relevant courses to them across these platforms.

To ensure its effectiveness and impact, the company has a team of educational experts dedicated to partnering with the clients to guide them continuously. They use instructional design and learning design to ensure the clients implement a learning strategy that ultimately helps them achieve the desired outcomes.

“Our scientific guidance ensures that customers see value in our LCMS and not just another tool to get access to content,” says Chris Chesterman, CRO, myskillcamp. The highly flexible LCMS integrates with the client's existing learning tools and adds value to the existing ecosystem without disrupting their current commitments and investments. The company uses a hybrid approach—a combination of challenger and Sandler sales model—to better understand clients' business objectives and motivations to drive business change and impact through authentic learner experiences. The discovery conversations with different teams and leaders enable myskillcamp’s experts to truly understand the intentional growth journey of a client or prospect and then provide the best experience for employees that support the growth journey.

Myskillcamp recently worked with an IT services company that wanted to centralise different content sources, including Coursera, Pluralsight, OpenClassrooms, and several other free and paid sources. First, the client created an internal academy around specific skills and jobs for career mobility. However, they didn't have time to create their own courses, and that's why they needed to rely on purchased or free content available on the web. Secondly, the client wanted to put a certification at the end of each learning path to attract the workforce. It was a great driver for engagement as employees can use these certificates throughout their careers. Lastly, this IT services and engineering company aimed to bring their academy and knowledge to their clients as well. Using myskillcamp for content curation, the client could fulfil all their goals.

With many such successes under their belt, myskillcamp continually focuses on building a rich culture that facilitates humble feedback, self-awareness, and coaching each other. This ensures optimised performance and the opportunity to develop, grow, and be successful. With an aim to tangibly impact individuals at work, the company is dedicated to aggregating the best content across platforms to deliver the best experience to end-users. It helps individuals to be more successful and drive their career growth, and in turn, facilitate overall organisational performance.

Simplify your workplace learning by getting the full solution from myskillcamp.


Learn how Myskillcamp simplifies workplace learning through its Skills Delivery Platform, as featured in HR Tech Outlook.

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Articles
Stop the Great Resignation: Protect Your Business

If you've been a member of the working world for more than five years you've probably daydreamed of quitting your job, moving to a tropical island and selling coconuts instead. Whether it was a nightmare boss, an infuriating coworker, or a crippling workload, there was something that made you contemplate handing in your notice.

But... you didn't. You couldn't! You need a job, you want to grow your career, you may have a cat to feed. So, the daydream remained just that, a dream. And you carried on working.

Then Covid arrived, and most of us had to work from home, or made redundant, or put on furlough. We found ourselves at home, not knowing what was happening or how long the limbo would last. It also made us wonder if what we're doing is right for us... could it be the time to follow a new path?

Turns out, a lot of people decided it was the time to quit (1 in 4 people in America alone). Leading to the Great Resignation.

The Great Resignation

The term was coined by the US academic, Anthony Klotz, to describe the wave of pandemic-related resignations. However, to the dismay of many business owners, this is more than a blip.

Why it's happening

(and why it's not a blip)

  • Options - Millions of businesses made job cuts in 2020, but now the same businesses (and others looking to grow) want to hire more people in 2021. This high number of vacancies has people looking at their options, wondering if the grass is greener. If there's a better paying job that piques an interest, why shouldn't a CV or two be sent out? 🤷‍♀️
  • Burnout - The grind culture was already present before 2020, leading to many workers to burnout and leave their jobs for months or even permanently. Similarly, those who remained working after their teams were whittled away experienced the stress of the unknown and high workloads. A combination that lead to record-high numbers of burnout. 😵
  • Reflection - Whether it was enjoyable time off or not, the lockdown gave us time to step back and rethink our lives' trajectories. Covid also reminded us that life is too short to do something you don't enjoy. Even if times are uncertain, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to quit and take some time to ourselves... 🧖‍♀️
  • Travelling - It was off the table for a long time, and the one-hour of allotted exercise didn't stack up to the sunny shores we usually escape to on our summer holidays. But now, (albeit with some logistical gymnastics) we can travel again! Some are even leaving their jobs to travel, as they see this as the perfect time to shake up their lives. ✈️

But it's not going to end soon, and the reason for that, is due to a power shift.

Before, (especially around the 2008 recession) people needed jobs, and since there were slim pickings in the job market, job seekers had to take what they could get. The ball was in the employers' court.

Now, (after 2020) the ball is no longer in their court. There are lots of jobs, and people are taking their time to see what's right for them. This means it can take longer to fill a position, and the candidates have the bargaining power when it comes to pay and benefits.

How it's affecting business owners

The Great Resignation is growing, causing a staffing shortage. For example, in the UK, over a quarter of businesses reported a lack of staff is affecting their ability to operate. Recruitment firm, Randstad, predicted serious cost implications for employers (up to £25,000 per worker) and has been advising employers about improving 'pay and other conditions to help them retain their best staff'.

Stopping the resignation

So if you're a business owner your palms may be starting to sweat right now. But, with any hurdle, there's a way to get over it. After all, you got through 2020! 💪

So here's how to develop your business into a resignation free zone. ✋

Thank the veterans - Those who stuck with you through the pandemic, through the uncertainty and high workloads should be thanked. If they feel their efforts are taken for granted, you will be losing some key members of staff that stuck by you and your company when things looked bleak.

Wages - Be competitive with salary. There are many jobs out there and they may be offering something a lot better than you do. So even if the role isn't a new one to fill, look at what you're paying your existing employees and ensure it's competitive.

Flexibility of work - If 2020 taught the working world something, it's that we can be trusted to work from home. Although many people like social interaction too, it's nice to be able to choose where you work. Letting your workforce retain that freedom will mean a lot to them.

Office dog - Sounds silly, but even something like allowing pets in the office can be a great stress reliever, and a cute little perk that could sway a candidate to choose your company over another.

Sabbaticals - Okay, it may sound counterintuitive right now, but giving sabbaticals is a great way to retain staff longterm. In fact, they're on the rise. Not only does it scratch the travel itch, but it's a great way to battle burnout.

Help employability - Your workers want to get ahead and grow their careers. An obvious way they can do that now is by changing jobs, so enable them to grow their careers and skillset while staying in your company by offering training. Training is included as a perk on many job listings on recruitment sites, so don't fall short of the norm. Myskillcamp can help you give your employees professional, affordable eLearning that educates and motivates your staff.

Work Perks - Although respect, good pay and growth are the most important, perks of the job are always appreciated and don't have to break the bank. Free refreshments, Friday beers, gym memberships, fuel cards etc can go a long way to maintain motivation.

Train Management - Business owners and managers want to be the best leaders possible. But it's not always easy when team sizes change and you aren't working under one roof everyday. So ensure those in higher positions have the skills they need to retain staff. Leadership & management skills, conflict resolution, onboarding remotely etc... are all things management should be skilled in. If not, invest in eLearning.

Overall

So if you're a member of HR, Learning and Development, or a business owner reading this, it's up to you all to ensure your company is competitive. Of course, resignations will always happen, you can't predict every worker's needs or ambitions. But being a company that cares for the workforce, gives them the benefits they deserve, and nurtures their careers, will see you retain a lot more staff than the global average!

Now, we can't help you source an office dog, or move your new pingpong table through the office door, but we can help you with training.

With over 300,000 training courses in 18 languages in countless subjects, we can provide you with the best training for your staff and give you the analytics to see the success of the courses you choose.

Lastly, if you're interested in the potential impact that learning can have in your business then join our upcoming webinar on 30th November.

Discover strategies to mitigate the impact of the Great Resignation on your business and retain valuable talent within your organization.

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The 7 Steps to Adaptive Learning Success: A Practical Guide

Follow these seven practical steps to successfully implement and leverage adaptive learning for optimal training results.

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The Benefits of Coaching in the Workplace: Strengthening Knowledge

What is coaching?

Thankfully, coaching in the workplace has fewer whistles than that of sports coaching. But like sports coaching, the intent is to strengthen knowledge in a particular topic while moving people to achieve a goal.

The aim of coaching is to improve a person’s/team's knowledge and performance in a task by reinforcing learning and development practises. So courses, learning paths, even conventions, can be followed up by coaching.

How to coach?

Coaching can take many different forms, especially now that remote working is prevalent. Usually coaching is relatively short-term (as there’s a goal to reach) and lets a team think about answers/solutions to questions a coach poses. It’s not about giving someone an answer, it’s about helping them find their own. An example of this would be to follow-up a course with a session between the learners and coach to apply what was learned in the course via questions and use cases.

Coaching can be one-to-one, group-based, online (through an LMS/LXP) or impromptu - like helping a learner find a solution on a new task. Overall, it’s not just about reinforcing newly-gathered information, it’s also about allowing improvements to happen through constant feedback.

More information on how to be a successful coach can be found here.

Who can be a coach?

Usually, the managers of a team are coaches. Since they have (hopefully) the most experience and knowledge, not to mention responsible for getting the team to reach their goals, it makes sense that managers are coaches. A situation that also helps Heads of HR and L&D rely on managers to be their ambassadors when it comes to implementing learning strategies.

However, fellow colleagues can be coaches too. For example, if a new hire has a skill that the rest of the team doesn’t possess, it makes sense to give that new colleague a coaching role. Not only can this strengthen the team in terms of communication and teamwork, but it can grow the new hire’s presentation, management and analytical skills.

What’s the difference between coaching and mentoring?

Eh, it depends... there’s a lot of differences but also a lot of similarities, and of course, as every person is different, how they coach may seem more like mentoring or vice versa.

Also, even if the methods differ, both are about helping people achieve their goals by leveraging the experience of the coach/mentor.

But in terms of concrete differences, there are qualifications available if a person wants to coach, unlike mentoring. Also, coaching is often carried out in a shorter period of time (as it’s more goal-dependent. Lastly, since coaching is more goal-oriented, measurements are necessary to ensure the courses are being taken, that the results from the courses are good, and the team is getting closer to reaching their goal.

How to help coaches?

With that in mind, giving coaches the tools to train and track learning software is essential. You may already have an LMS or other software within your company, but if you want your coaches to have a seamless experience, an LXP like myskillcamp is ideal.

Myskillcamp is an all-in-one system (both training courses and analytics in one place) and offers team managers and coaches a ‘Team view’ where they can easily view all their learners’ progress - aka their ‘Learning Health’ breakdown.

Coaches can organise follow-ups during or after training to reinforce what was learned, or if they identify an area where a learner may be struggling. Our platform allows for public and personal interactions with one-to-one conversations (chat or email) and the Team Newsfeed.

This Team View is the perfect way to assist coaches and managers as it’s allowing them to combine eLearning technology with coaching, allowing them to be more present, effective, and hands-on.

Is coaching right for your business?

Of course! It increases team working, communication, employs a strong learning-based culture, fosters knowledge-sharing and is a strong motivator. Deloitte even found that companies that implement coaching are 33% more effective at engaging their employees and are 30% more likely to have better business results.

So if you’re thinking coaching is right for your business, identify the coaches, give them the tools they need, and set their goals.

Discover our courses

Learn about the benefits of workplace coaching in strengthening knowledge and expertise in specific topics, fostering growth and development.

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Articles
The Best Habit-Building Apps for Life Improvement

Encouraging yourself (and those who work for you) to start learning new skills is really hard. But lifelong learning is so important if you want to stay competitive.

So how can it be done?

By making learning a habit. Just like snoozing your morning alarm, scrolling through your phone on the train, or having a piece of chocolate after your dinner. Building a habit is as simple as doing something repeatedly until it become second-nature.

Building your learning habit

Turns out, there are plenty of apps dedicated to helping you create positive habits. Here's our top five list of the very best, habit-building apps that can get you reaching your learning goals quickly, while having fun.

1) Habitica

Over four million people have become Habiticans to achieve their goals. By building your own cute 8-bit character, you unlock achievements, hatch pets, and earn gold by ticking off your daily tasks. So if your goals is to learn a new skill, doing 20 minutes a day will allow you to earn points in the game. Plus, you get to see how other characters are progressing... so if you want to keep up, you better do your tasks! Habitica really takes gamification to the next level.


2) StickK

This app helps you build habits with a healthy dose of social pressure. By creating a commitment contract with yourself when you get started, you won't want to let yourself down. You can also bet money on yourself and assign friends and family to check on your progress. So if you don't want to let your mum down, you better stay committed to reaching your goals.


3) Streaks

As the name suggests, this app encourages you to maintain new habits in a 12 day period. You can set positive goals like learning a new skill, while suppressing bad habits you may have. The app won't let you forget about it as it sends you regular reminders to check in and tick off your daily progress.

Streaks is highly customisable and can be integrated with other apps already in your phone and even your smartwatch.


4) Coach.me

On top of being a great way to track your daily goals, you can invest to get extra help from a leadership coach. If you struggle to motivate yourself, getting a coach who knows the habit you want to build can be a great help.


5) Goalify

If you find checking into an app and listing habits not motivating enough, then try Goalify. By giving you reminders, schedules and helpful advice on how to build habits each day, it gives you a nudge in the right direction each day to keep you on track. You can also join with friends to add accountability and compete.


Getting the content

So now you have hopefully chosen the app that will help you build the skill-busting habit you desire. Now to get the content you need! Whether you want language, personal development, leadership, software or anything else, check out myskillcamp. You can get a demo, free trial, and even look through our list of free curated content that you can download right now.

Discover the top habit-building apps that can transform and enhance various aspects of life, including lifelong learning and personal development.

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The Big Guide to Microlearning: Boosting Course Effectiveness

Microlearning is a great way to introduce and teach courses. They're engaging yet quick to make and can help boost the effectiveness of in-depth courses. The popularity of microlearning has increased greatly in recent years, in part due to the capability of technology and changing needs.

Microlearning courses should be no more than 15 minutes max per piece and can be delivered in many ways.

Examples of Microlearning

It's very likely that you would have enrolled in microlearning yourself, even if you didn't realise. A big example is 'how-to' videos on YouTube. If you've ever looked into how to light a BBQ, change your car's oil or unblock a drain, you've been microtaught! (New word!)

Similarly, TedTalks can be classed as microlearning. Introducing a new topic in a short, interesting segment that motivates the listener to learn more.

Then comes elements like Duolingo/Babbel/ tests and flashcards, bitesize pieces of information that serve to reinforce a topic you're learning.

Moreover, smartphones (aren't all phones smart now, should we just call them phones?) are perfect for microlearning as they fit the bitesize information approach - like succinct copy, short character counts, and brief videos - as we get used to social media platforms like Twitter and TikTok.

Benefits

  • Better knowledge retention

Studying something repeatedly and revisiting information means you retain it much better. Since microlearning is small and easy to return to, it allows itself to be revisited regularly and therefore, remembered better.

  • Flexible learning

Shorter courses means you can pick up and learn something when you have 'spare time' such as commuting, during lunch, or after work. Plus with eLearning, you won't lose your progress or misplace the training.

  • Quicker to produce

Fewer tools and fewer words means less time spent on producing the content. Whether it's video, audio, quizzes or written content, companies can create microlearning courses with ease and cut back on 'frilly' unnecessary language.

  • Cheaper to produce

Fewer resources and instructions means you can produce a microlearning course for less money, while still delivering great content.

  • Create interest

Microlearning can be used to introduce a topic and increase motivation to learn something new. Very often, the beginning of a course can be the most interesting and engaging aspect, using microlearning, especially in the beginning can encourage people to enrol.

When NOT to go micro

  • In-depth topics

When you have a subject that requires in-depth learning, microlearning may not be suitable. You may need more time and more words to teach a subject, requiring longer sessions, and therefore a different style of eLearning.

  • Technical topics

Topics that require hands-on learning or extensive explanations can't be taught with microlearning as learners will need more time and resources to learn the subject. For example, eLearning and traditional learning methods are beneficial to medical students learning pathology, but microlearning (such as flashcards) will only be beneficial for memorising facts.

Optimising microlearning

  • Know when to use it

Before or after in-depth training, or for small, simple topics.

  • Gamification

Make microlearning addictive) so learners are more motivated to return) with gaming elements, like scoring, ranking, quizzes etc... Discover how to gamify your courses.

  • Learning Paths

Add microlearning to a learning path so learners get a mixture of ways to learn, in one, personalised journey. Read more about building learning paths here.

  • Golden nuggets only

Take only the best information from a topic to put in microlearning courses. Strip away anything unnecessary so you don't waste time on useless information.

  • Make it easy to revisit

Make your micro courses downloadable, accessible, reviewable, everything! You want your learners to go back to them again and again.

  • Test after

After a micro course, do a micro test! Make sure the learners didn't skim information.

  • Remember

Microlearning is an effective tool and can be used to bolster longer courses. Don't make everything micro, but don't make everything long-winded either.

Make microlearning courses today

At myskillcamp, you can create, upload and edit multimedia courses from scratch on our platform, including microlearning courses. You can even download readymade courses from our marketplace.

If you want to create a learning environment full of great content, why not book a free personalised trial.

Discover the benefits of microlearning as an engaging and effective method to introduce and teach courses, enhancing the overall effectiveness of in-depth training.

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The Impact of Domoscio Adaptive Learning: Insights and Results

The challenge: to optimise the learning levels of employees

At the beginning of this project, AG2R La Mondiale identified a clear problem: to be effective in their jobs, employees need to acquire knowledge which is specific to the insurance sector and commercial skills. But the time an employee spends in learning means time away from clients, meaning there’s a portion of time where the employee isn’t generating revenue.

For AG2R La Mondiale, the challenge was to ensure that every employee had sufficient proficiency in key knowledge and skills, and to improve the reinforcement of knowledge over time, while respecting the regulatory framework specific to the insurance sector.

With the aim of optimising skills development, AG2R La Mondiale chose to implement an adaptive learning system to evaluate the skills of each individual and adapt the learning paths accordingly. Based on the principle that learners have heterogeneous profiles - depending on their past experience, learning, ability to rapidly acquire new skills, etc. Adaptive learning aims to provide a better understanding of the individual's skills and adapt learning programmes accordingly. This positions each person's level of competence in order to highlight their areas of progress and suggest remedial teaching content.


A pilot to demonstrate the impacts of our services...

The deployment of adaptive learning was carried out in two phases: a pilot phase and a run phase. The objectives of the pilot phase were as follows:

  1. To increase the skills of AG2R La Mondiale's learning team in terms of learning engineering related to adaptive learning
  2. To validate the integration of the service into the tools already in place, and in particular into the CrossKnowledge LMS
  3. To demonstrate the impact of the system in terms of optimising skills development

After identifying a scope for this pilot - the Beginning Advisors' Course - the learning team designed an initial adaptive learning experience with the help of a Domoscio expert. This experience was then uploaded to the AG2R La Mondiale LMS to launch a three-month experiment. After three months, the pilot phase revealed two main indicators:

  • 90% of learners have completed their assessment, which enables the learner AND the manager to obtain a precise view of their level of competence in relation to the job expectations
  • 91% of the learning content recommended to the learners were actually followed, which demonstrates a strong commitment on their part to their individualised path, and ensures their skills are enhanced


...Followed by a larger-scale deployment phase

Once the pilot phase had been validated, the run phase could begin. The aim is to deploy the same system to all counsellors concerned and broaden the scope in terms of skills and themes: each employee must be able to benefit from a tailor-made path to acquire all the knowledge and skills that are needed for their job.


To move into the run phase, two elements remained to be put in place:

  • Domoscio's learning team to create adaptive learning experiences corresponding to other skills and themes (social security, inheritance, customer relations, etc.)
  • Access to the functional support service, so questions regarding the service could be answered by the Domoscio team.

The results 1.5 years after the launch of the project:

While the adaptive learning project was launched a year and a half ago, and the run phase, a year ago, AG2R La Mondiale comments: "Once the design and architecture of the content had been completed, we found an internal organisation to enable each of our learners to benefit from a totally individualised skills development plan. The Campus Pro Commercial team is autonomous in the day-to-day management of the system. From the creation of adaptive learning paths to their deployment, including the monitoring of statistics - and the Domoscio team is responsive to our questions”. (Aurélie Besnard, Head of Business Learning Paths).

And the results obtained in the pilot phase are always met or exceeded! As an example, the last class of counsellors who participated in an adaptive learning experience in February 2022 showed the following results:

  • 89% of the learners completed all their actions during their adaptive learning experience (positioning questionnaire and follow-up of recommendations)
  • 100% of the recommendations for learning content were followed by the learners

Aurélie Besnard adds: "With Domoscio, the success rate and the reinforcement of each of the key skills has increased. The employee knows where he or she needs to progress and, for each skill not acquired, he or she has direct access to the content that will help him or her to develop the skill. All of this is done in complete autonomy and without having to search for the appropriate content within the Campus Pro Commercial.”

Want to experience Domoscio/myskillcamp's adaptive learning success for yourself,
book a demo here.

Gain insights into the impact and results of Domoscio's adaptive learning solution, as shared by customer REX AG2R La Mondiale.

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The Ultimate Tools for Audio Courses: Enhancing Course Creation

Want to jump right into the audio, editing and recording software that will make your audio courses a success? That's great! Just make sure you've checked out our blog on How to create kickass audio courses first. Then you can swing on back to this list when you're done.

Firstly, let's look at audio. You'll have seen previously that having the right background and scene-setting audio is very important to immerse the listener and get them excited about the lesson. But let's make sure the music you choose is free to use and comes from a reliable source...

12 Free music websites 

...We only included sites with large catalogues that don't require you to give extra credit.

Audio Archive - This website has 200,000 free digital recordings. You'll have to filter through to find what you like as it includes old radio broadcasts, concerts and news from around the world, but get stuck in and find some audio gems.

Bump Foot - Bump Foot is a non-profit netlabel in Japan. There are two main branches. Bump side : techno and house, or based on them. Foot side : ambient, IDM, or etc... other than bump side. You are free to share, to copy, distribute and transmit the work, and to adapt the work.

CASH Music - CASH Music is a non-profit organisation that hosts digital tools for musicians and labels to share their music. The digital tool allows for uploads and downloads of songs and sharing is made easy.

ccMixter - Looking for music for a video, school project, game you’re developing, podcast or just for listening in your cubicle or mobile music device? Find exactly the music you’re looking for - podsafe, liberally licensed - using dig.ccMixter Music Discovery tool.

FMA - The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads. The Free Music Archive is directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America. Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet.

Freeplay Music Library - Freeplay's first product, the Freeplay Music Library, is a comprehensive collection of High End Broadcast production music spanning all the popular musical genres, available for download either on-line or via our Portable Hard Drive.

iBeat - Free Beats – Download beats, loops, breaks and samples Free beats, loops, and breaks - iBeat.org iBeat – pushing beats, loops and breaks since 2007. Free under Creative Commons licensing.

Kompoz - Kompoz is an online community that prides in collaboration between artists from all over the world. Artists post their clips on the website where anyone can download it and use it for their own productions. They can also add their own instruments or creative mix to the original clip and upload it on the website again.

Musopen - Set music FREE. Musopen (www.musopen.org) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on improving access and exposure to music by creating free resources and educational materials. We provide recordings, sheet music, and textbooks to the public for free, without copyright restrictions. Put simply, our mission is to set music free.

Partners in Rhyme - Royalty free music libraries for you to download and start using right away in your commercial projects. These high quality music tracks will make your projects more effective and sound more professional.

Royalty Free Music Library - Royalty Free Music Library is proud to offer one of the largest offerings of online broadcast-quality royalty free music anywhere on the web. Download royalty free music from 3 of the top royalty free catalogs online:Royalty Free Music Revolution - The definitive royalty free music catalog with over 1000 songs from some of the top composers in the industry.

SoundCloud - SoundCloud is a website where artists share their new tracks to the world. There is a section under Creative Commons license where you can download other people’s tracks. You can stream the available clips and it takes just a simple click to get the MP3 file without any registration

4 Free Audio editing tools

Ensure that the idea, the script, the care you put into crafting a great audio course doesn't go to waste with sub-par recording and editing software. Record high-quality audio that can be simply edited with the following tools.

...We only included free tools that enable you to both record and edit audio.

Audacity - Audacity is a free, open-source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds. With Audacity, record live audio, cut, copy, or mix sounds together, change the speed or pitch of a recording, and more.

Garageband - gives you all the tools you need to write, play, mix, and export your own songs quickly and efficiently via Mac download.

Oceanaudio - is a cross-platform, easy to use, fast and functional audio editor. It is the ideal software for people who need to edit and analyze audio files without complications. ocenaudio also has powerful features that will please more advanced users.

Vocaroo - An easy to use audio recording tool allows the user to upload a file from a pre-recorded file. Audio created here can be emailed, embedded and shared by URL or through social media sites.

3 Free audio recording tools

If you are going to give your audio to an editor then you may want to use something even simpler for quick recording. The following software are purely for recording audio.

Veed.io - There are paid options that give you more features, but the free version is great for voice recording, transcribing and even editing out background noise.

Voice Memos - Yes the app that comes installed with Apple products. But it's free, easy to use, easy to send, and if you record in a quiet place the sound quality is good.

Chirbit - Chirbit is a useful and fun tool that enables you to record, upload, and share your voice or audio files easily. Record your voice using a webcam or microphone connected to your computer, or upload an existing audio file.

Microphones and audio capture devices

You don't necessarily have to buy a microphone, recording in a quiet place or a padded area can suffice. But if you want your voice to sound like melted caramel, these microphones are highly rated.

Now to upload the courses onto an all in one LMS that allows you to create courses, add audio to existing courses and create learning pathways for your learners. Unlike the other subheadings, there's only one choice if you want the very best...try a free personalised trial of myskillcamp today and create a training hub you'll love.

Discover the essential audio, editing, and recording software tools that can elevate the quality and success of your audio courses, creating an engaging learning experience for your users.

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Understanding LTI and Its Impact on Training: Leveraging Interoperability

The Learning Tools Interoperability (thankfully abbreviated to LTI) is a great addition to the myskillcamp platform. It lets you easily plug-and-play a wide variety of external online tools, apps, content and activities into your LMS.

Why is this needed?

Because you want to offer your learners the most fulfilling courses, and sometimes your existing LMS doesn't offer what you need to make that happen. Very often you'll see an online resource and think 'I wish I could use that in {insert course name here}, but oh woe is me, I cannot!' - but with LTI you just add it into the LMS and your learners won't have to login to an external site. This means more safety, better UX, better courses, and more results you can track.

Who made this magical tool?

IMS Global Learning Consortium developed the tool for LMS' to give users easy integration in a seamless way. Myskillcamp has this tool ready to go and is already widely used within our platform.

What does LTI do?

LTI enables a secure exchange of information between your LMS and the external tool you integrate - it's explained in detail by myskillcamp's very smart Product Team here. It also allows learners to navigate from one learning tool to another without having to login, logout, and create several passwords. Coupled with myskillcamp's single sign-on ability - you'll never need to remember your password (that is definitely not your pet's name) ever again!

What tools can I use?

So you can now integrate external tools, but which ones? It seems the list is extensive and growing everyday, but we found an active list for you to check out if you need some integration inspiration.

LTI and myskillcamp

Those reading this who are already users know that we already offer many on-platform goodies. Not only the ability to import existing courses, but create new ones in the form of text, podcasts, videos, eBooks, quizzes and more.

Select an activity


But with the power of LTI, any external tools you still want to use can now be tracked in terms of courses taken, scores, qualifications gained externally and more! Learn the nitty-gritty of LTI here .

Also see how to integrate a tool on myskillcamp using LTI in this step by step article, including those who create courses on myskillcamp.

Myskillcamp as an LMS and LXP

Wait what? Myskillcamp is more than an LMS? We are, in fact we're a Learning eXperience Tool, giving you a whole host of activities, analytics, chat functions, marketplace and integrations. In fact, if you already have an LMS but you've maxed out its capabilities, you can integrate your existing LMS with myskillcamp to give you ultimate learning potential.

Want to see if myskillcamp is right for you, AND check out LTI?

Book a free personalised demo.

Learn about Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) and how it enhances training by seamlessly integrating a wide variety of external online tools and apps.

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Understanding Learning Styles: Discover Your Learning Style

Do you know which kind of learner you are?

Or which kind of learner your employees are?

Moreover, do you know all the course methods that are effective for each learning style?

Follow this post to discover all learning styles, and how you can pick / create better courses so you can ensure knowledge retention.

Take our in-depth quiz to find out what kind of learner you are for free!

Remember to come back to this page to discover your most effective learning style:


Mostly A's: Auditory: If this is your learning style then you'll benefit from training courses that rely on podcasts, videos and repeating facts with a friend/course mate.

Mostly B's: Visual: If you learn visually then you'll benefit from seeing charts, colourful wording and images found in e-books, listicles, videos and interactive charts.

Mostly C's: Tactile: This learning style relies on a hands-on approach. You'll benefit from being quizzed on something recently learned, using blended-learning, or interactive tasks.

Very few people are 100% one learning style so taking a mixture of learning solutions that fit you / your team, is the best way forward.

But how do you cultivate a training environment that suits differing styles... you can't set up the same course multiple times after all. And with LMS' the way you can present courses is very limited - only suiting visual learners with text-heavy learning.

Here's where myskillcamp can help you. Our training platform integrates with existing LMS' or uses our own (if you don't have an LMS) and helps you create great courses that suit every style of learning. Video, podcasts, e-books, quizzes, charts, and so much more - all created and edited on myskillcamp.

You can even set-up several courses of all different styles so ensure everyone taking a course retains the information in a way that suits them. This includes blended learning and conversations about courses in real-time on the platform.

Learning the right way has never been simpler to do, or to set-up for your employees. Share this blog with your learners to discover how they learn best. The results will give you great insight into your team.

Explore different learning styles and understand how to identify your own learning style and choose effective course methods accordingly.

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Upskilling and Reskilling: Future-Proofing Your Workforce

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Using Off-the-Shelf Courses for Training: Boosting Learning Initiatives

If you're looking to introduce new training to your learners, then you'll have thought about the benefits of making your own courses vs buying courses.

Making your own courses is great for reasons such as personalisation, communicating company-specific scenarios, and being able to easily teach the course... since you're the one who created it.

But building every course can be a tall order for anyone to handle. That's why it's good to loosen the reins every now and again and get your courses ready-made.

If you're wondering if off-the-shelf courses are right for you, then here's what you should consider:

Time constraints

Even if you have a simple way to create courses, such as the drag and drop features myskillcamp offer; creating courses takes time. Gathering information, thinking of examples, optimising it to keep your learners engaged... it's a lot.

Plus, when you have multiple courses, multiple departments, and perhaps even multiple languages, it becomes an impossible feat.

With buying courses, especially with myskillcamp, it's as simple as finding the courses and adding them to your training hub.

Creating with multimedia

Especially if you want to maximise the knowledge retention in your courses, making use of multimedia is a great way to start. However, it can be a longer process, especially if you don't have the tools. Even outsourcing takes time and you may not be happy with the results you receive from a third-party. This of course, costs money as well as time.

Similarly, you may want to create the same course in a different language... pretty easy if it's an eBook or a quiz, but what about if it's video content?

Using off-the-shelf content means you have access to thousands of multimedia courses in different languages. With myskillcamp for example, you can find multiple courses on the same subject in a wide variety of languages. We have 18 languages currently, and adding to our list all the time.

Limited expertise

You will have expertise in a few topics, and the courses you create on those topics will be engaging, informative and well-taught. However, there are skills your learners will need that you're not an expert in. Tackling these courses yourself won't result in the same outcome.

Leaving out these courses isn't an option, so buy the courses from experts in field. Myskillcamp has a marketplace full of courses from professional trainers who specialise in a range of topics. Courses from LinkedIn Learning, Bookboon, Coursera and plenty more are all available to our users. Is it time you took advantage of these off-the-shelf courses?

Updating courses

Especially nowadays, processes are constantly changing, updating with new software and tools. This means that courses that were perfectly up to date a year ago may now be obsolete. It's important that whether you're making courses or buying them, they're constantly updated with the newest information. Buying courses from professionals increases the likelihood of a course having the up to date content.

If you have an LMS that lets you easily update courses, such as myskillcamp you can be sure that the off-the-shelf courses are being periodically checked and updated. As not only is it in the self-interest of our training providers, but each course has detailed analytics, reviews and a comment section to quickly alert the course creator of issues.

The cost of courses

If you've decided that you want to buy courses then the next step is looking at the possible providers and choose the best for you. Not just for the courses on offer, but also for their price. If you've bought courses in the past then you may have fallen into the trap of paying far too much for a batch of licenses... few of which are actually used by your learners.

Being made to pay a flat fee is probably not what you want, so choose a provider that offers varying pricing options. That way you're not only getting the best courses but you'll be getting them for the best price.

For example, myskillcamp has three pricing methods, which can be further personalised to give the best fit. Whether you want to choose your favourite providers, pay per course, or pay for a certain amount of courses per year, the choice is yours.

Off-the-shelf

In our opinion, both have great benefits and a mixture of bought and built is the best decision. After all, as you can see from this blog, it all depends on what you can do/what you want to do, and who you buy the courses from.

That's why myskillcamp gives users the option to buy and build, easily.

Not only do we include multimedia course options, so you can build audio, video, quizzes and written courses, but we have over 300,000 off-the-shelf courses you can add to your training hub once you're a user.

Discover out platform, build your courses and choose our professional off-the-shelf options by requesting a free, personalised trial.

Learn about the benefits of using off-the-shelf courses to enhance training programs and explore the considerations when deciding between developing custom courses or purchasing pre-made ones.

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Welcoming Gen Z into the Workforce: Understanding and Adapting to a New Generation

There's a new generation entering the workforce, and it means two important things. Firstly, businesses have a new group to learn about, learn from, and adapt to. And secondly, Millennials will stop seeing articles like THIS! - I'm a millennial, can you tell?

Generation Z are categorised as those born after 1996, meaning the first batch of bright-eyed centennials are starting to work. Early research indicates they are more money-conscious, entrepreneurial, and individualistic, than previous generations, but let's take a deeper look and see how businesses can prepare for the Gen Z workforce.

Personality

Of course, personality is very subjective and everyone's different blah blah blah, but there have been studies that draw certain similarities from Gen Zs. Such as the need to be individualistic, active in decision-making and willingness to train and earn money.

This individualistic quality, cultivated from social-media competency and the need to create their own personal brand, coupled with the rise of higher-education degrees in new fields, means companies must adapt their hiring process. Namely, give this new generation the chance to show their individualistic quality through more than simple CVs. Video CVs, providing case studies to work on, and questionnaires will allow Gen Z to show you why they're perfect for open positions.

Another personality trait that will affect businesses is how they work within companies. Generation Z are said to be more active in decision-making processes and leadership especially will have to be ready for this change to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Gen Z employees' ambition may need to be channelled through coaching and training rather than 'managing'.

Centennials will also change the benefits and perks businesses offer. Whereas previous generations valued perks like extra holiday days and experiences, Gen Zs respond to perks related to reducing debt, training and education at reduced prices. Smart companies will start adding these benefits to contracts and communicating them online for the new generation to find.

Lastly, is the need to improve the world with environmental and societal action, being both at a personal level and a consumer level. Businesses won't be able to coast by with a good product or savvy marketing, they must now show how they are positively impacting the world and being transparent while doing it. Otherwise, not only will Generation Z not be your consumers, they won't be part of your workforce either.

Technology

Gen Z are digital natives who have little or no memory of the world pre-smartphone. This has made them hypercognitive, able to collect, evaluate and cross-reference data from online sources, and easily integrate virtual, online and offline experiences. This will lead to the further rise of training courses including AR and VR courses for both soft and hard skills.

However, just because this generation is fully digital, doesn't mean they don't want human interaction! In fact, a report stated 90% of Generation-Z wanted a human element woven into their work. Luckily, this may not be too difficult for businesses since the lockdowns of 2020 have increased the amount of video-conferencing and teamworking tools. Just ensure every generation in the workplace has training on how to use such tools, and the human element will remain strong in the company.

Working style

Due to Gen Zs entrepreneurial nature and ambition to reduce debt, the rise of the 'gig economy' will become the largest change for workplaces. This builds on the 'slash career' as many Millennials have (such as working in an office while having an Etsy store, for example). Being part of the gig economy entails many, short-term contracts, or generating additional income by temporarily partnering with brands they like or have existing relationships with. Jobs like Uber, TaskRabbit, AirBnB, and Influencer work all falls into this category. This may mean workplaces offering short-term contracts in some cases as well as paid internships, freelance work and influencer marketing. If prepared for now, while the generation is still relatively young, it will pose many advantages for companies in the future, like quick turnaround, a wealth of skills to choose from, and high visibility from influencers with large followings.

Linked to this is the location and layout of workplaces. Due to the rise of temporary work/remote work/freelance work, many Generation Zs would rather work from home or have their own space - making the open office concept a thing of the past!

Business Views

As digital natives, Gen Zs are used to seeing brands online, with the same power and presence as regular people. Just because a business may have a verified account doesn't mean they hold more weight or privilege in terms of actions, respect or responsibility.

This means (if not done already) companies need to increase their presence on social media while ensuring customer service is present on these platforms too. Not to mention showing how they're positively impacting the world. Doing this will be more fruitful for brands than those that simply offer discounts.

Another change businesses will have to make is how they offer products or services. With the success of platforms like Netflix, Amazon, and Spotify, Generation Z have come to expect 'getting access' to a platform as the main form of consumption. Free trials, limited use, discount codes for first-time buyers, and offering reviews and platform information; all examples of access that businesses will need to adopt unless they want to miss out on a key market.

Preparing for Gen Z

Gen Z may bring about change, but businesses should be able to ready themselves to welcome this new generation into the workforce. Changes like ensuring environmental care, offering platform access, giving training and adopting technology are all achievable with training - which is where myskillcamp can help. We offer over 300,000 courses in 18 languages that cover a wealth of topics, including those that will get you ready with the next generation of workers. Courses like business environments and ethics, remote management, multi-generational management, corporate ethics, future trends for business and technology and so much more.

Check out our training partners and marketplace, better yet get access to our platform (yes, we're Gen Z ready) with a free personalised trial. You can get started right away, no credit card or contract required.

Gain insights into the new generation entering the workforce and learn how businesses can adapt and effectively engage with Gen Z employees.

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What is Adaptive Learning: Personalized Training for Learners

Adaptive Learning is the practise of using AI and machine learning algorithms - as well as human methods - to deliver customised training methods and resources to learners based on their needs, interests and learning history.

How does it work?

When we hear machine learning and AI, the thought of 'I'll leave this to the techies in IT' but it's not as complicated as you think... it's like using Netflix, but for learning.

Many Learning eXperience Platforms (LXP's) have some sort of machine learning and algorithmic capabilities that will be ticking behind the scenes to deliver personalised choices for a company's learners.

Based on a learner's...

  • training courses they took in the past
  • what was clicked on, viewed, read in passing
  • what they're interested in
  • feedback, reviews, communicated goals

...an AI-enabled LXP can recommend follow-up courses and additional resources to keep a learner engaged and focused on upskilling. A few LXPs like myskillcamp can even put together whole personalised learning paths for learners to engage with.

Picking the right technology for adaptive learning

Adaptive learning tools are becoming more common as platforms realise how useful companies are finding it. The good news is, the more common it becomes the better, easier to find and cheaper it will become. Yay!

But if you're on the market for this adaptive learning technology now, here's what you should look out for and ask in a demo...

  • Will this platform challenge my learners at an appropriate level? (Not too hard or too easy)
  • Can this platform move at my learners' own pace? (Not too fast, not too slowly)
  • Can this platform emulate the learner-trainer experience? (with feedback, reviews, tests and chat functions)
  • Does the platform have retention capabilities? (messaging that nudges a learner to return to their course if they suddenly disappear)
  • Can the platform suggest curated content as well as my own content? (meaning you won't have to outsource courses or create many courses in a short span of time to fill course gaps)

How to make courses personalised, even without AI

It's going to be harder without AI, especially if you have many learners, but there are ways to make courses adaptive without the software. But even if you have the software, it's important to have the 'human methods' to accompany the AI, it helps motivation and learner-trainer /learner-manager relationships.

This is also covered in episode 6 of the myskillcamp podcast 'mypodcamp'! Listen to the full episode here.

  • Start with the onboarding and follow-up with each review

What does that learner already know, what do they want to achieve, do their goals align with any skills gaps your company has? With this information you can manually assign courses that they might not know exists.

  • Add optional content to training

Find a great video, podcast or blog about a subject you have a course about already? Add it as an 'additional reading' resource. You can even open a thread, slack channel or group dedicated to sharing curated content. This opens employees up to knowledge sharing too - which is always a bonus.

  • Set up assessments that allow learners to review their training

This can be as simple as a google form and can even be anonymous, if you want the cold, hard truth. But knowing if the training suits the learners is vital. If it's the wrong type of learning, too large, not what they expected, no amount of AI-suggested content is going to fix the issue. Communicate with your learners.

  • Assign training based on a learner's role and responsibilities

If a learner has just moved into a new role or taken on a new function, suggest content that they mind find useful to their new circumstance.

  • Allow learners to pick their own content

Put learners in the driving seat to their own learning. If they express a wish to upskill, reskill or simply learn a new skill, ask them to curate the content. Whether it's videos, podcast, webinars, roundtables, events or whitepapers, you're giving them the chance to personalise their own learning experience - and you don't have to do a thing! I know, I'm a genius, thank me later.

Again, what they find can be shared to other users and added to the learning platform.

How to start adaptive learning

It's not quite as simple as downloading an LXP and pressing 'go'. But for an L&D manager, getting started is a piece of cake.

Follow the five C's:

  • Clarify your learning objectives
  • Curate content from existing training resources
  • Think creatively when it comes to instructional methods and activities
  • Create different learning experiences for the same objective
  • 'Chunk' (clearly running out of 'c's) similar content for perspective learning

Get the best LXP for your needs

Remember before when I talked about 'picking the right technology for adaptive learning'? Good times... But you'll recall the list of things to look out for.

Turns out, myskillcamp has them all. Here's a quick presentation of what is on offer for companies looking for adaptive learning solutions.

Explore the practice of Adaptive Learning, utilizing AI and machine learning algorithms to deliver customized training methods and resources to learners.

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Why Charities Use Myskillcamp: Case Study Summary

Those who work or volunteer for charities often spin a lot of plates. Other jobs, multiple roles and time constraint often make learning the skills needed, very difficult.

Recently, we spoke to Victoria Galloway, L&D Manager at Befriending Networks, a charity intermediary about why myskillcamp was the perfect choice for their needs.


1. The potential of our services

"Everything was an improvement [from Befriending Networks' old platform] and if I could design something from scratch it would be very similar", Victoria comments.

Myskillcamp offers on-site tools to make, edit and import multimedia into courses and personalising everything to each learner through our powerful adaptive learning software.

Victoria lists the multimedia tools she's now added to her courses, "We've got our videos, we've got our quizzes, a breakdown of pages and now all learner types are catered to... plus everything is then a pdf that can be downloaded at the end of the course".


2. Customer experience

"I feel like we’ve invested in a company that actually cares".

As we covered previously, those working for charities often have very little time spare, which is why any question, concern or roadblock needs to be dealt with straight away. That's why myskillcamp have a fast responding customer success team.

Our customer service can be reached by phone, email and via the myskillcamp platform. Every customer is assigned a dedicated customer success representative and can access video calls to walkthrough any potential issue they have.


3. User experience for Befriending Networks

"On our old system it would take four hours 20 to do what we now do on myskillcamp in just 45 minutes".

It's important that myskillcamp is easy to use, not just for learners, but for those creating and assigning courses.

Victoria comments, "For me it’s the progress bars, showing the percentage of completion. For a learner I think that’s really good because I could log on, having not being on myskillcamp for a few days but instantly realise what I have to finish and what chapter I'm on".


4. User experience for Befriending Networks customers

"Myskillcamp is a lot more manageable for who the target audience is".

For L&D in general, ensuring your learners use the platform and stay engaged with their courses is a constant struggle, so a platform with good UX is one less problem. Victoria recalled the conversation with a volunteer who did training with both Befriending Networks’ old training provider and myskillcamp, who observed, "It’s like doing training with a completely different company".


5. Personalisation

"Although it is a course designed for all, to make it as individualised as possible and get to know our learners".

Myskillcamp courses can be personalised from onboarding onwards. Learner goals, interests, speed, success and learner type will all be taken into account to give them a full-circle learning strategy.

What's more, our retention capabilities can nudge a learner to complete their courses, ensuring even the most forgetful learner completes their training.


Using myskillcamp

With a whole host of services that can be used to create a full-circle learning strategy, myskillcamp can be used to revolutionise training in any industry.

Read the full case study of Befriending Networks and myskillcamp here.

And to experience myskillcamp for yourself, book a call here.

Explore the case study summary of Befriending Networks, a charity that benefitted from Myskillcamp's quality training delivery.

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Why Choose Myskillcamp: Exploring a Wide Course Selection

At myskillcamp, we get a lot of questions about the courses we offer. After all, there are over 30,000 of them...in 18 languages... in every topic imaginable... from lots of professional training providers.

But one of the questions we get a lot is, 'But why can't I just go to that provider?' And yeah, we get it. Usually, cutting out a middle man is a good thing, whether it's booking a hotel, buying a train ticket, or purchasing clothes - going straight to the source gives you the best price, and a feeling of safety.

So it's natural to think that you should do the same with training. But we want to debunk this myth and show you why having your pick of multiple training providers (and curating all that good content) is the best option.

The Pick n Mix Option

Just take a quick look at our partner page. Dozens of wonderful training providers who partnered with us. Each one offering a different speciality, from languages, to soft skills, tech skills, coaching, and so much more.

You may think picking one is all you need right now, but what about in the future? Choosing just one provider may limit the skills you and your employees can access for a long time.

An alternative is to pick and choose the providers and courses you like, when you need them. Myskillcamp will allow you to do this, while letting you to import these courses onto your personal training environment and create in-depth learning paths using providers' courses.

After all, why choose just one, when you can have them all?

Flexible Pricing

When it comes to picking a training provider, price is always a big question, and unfortunately, they're not always flexible. Whether you pay a blanket fee, or you have to buy a certain number of licenses... it's often not tailored to your needs.

At myskillcamp, we understand that you need value for money when committing to buying courses. That's why we have flexible pricing. Whether you pay per course used, by user, or credit, we ensure you can pay for any and all courses in a way that suits you.

Camp Personalisation

As myskillcamp is an LXP and has training providers as partners, you're able to build your training environment exactly how you like. Import courses, build learning paths, personalise onboarding, and create your own courses. If you choose myskillcamp, you're not just getting access to any of our training providers you like, you're also getting an easy-to-use training environment you can build upon.

Course Analysis

Many providers will sell you the courses and wave goodbye, letting you manage how to organise the material and generate interest. We do this for you by giving you access to analytics. How many people are taking the courses? Are the courses you chose popular among your learners? What percentage of your learners are engaged with learning? This is an addition to courses that is seldom available with course providers or LMS'.

Be spoilt for choice

When new skills are appearing quicker than ever, and employees want to make themselves competitive, don't limit your business' learning potential by choosing just one provider.

Discover the options myskillcamp can give your company today with a demo.

Before you go! If you're also interested in creating your own courses, (and want to make them as successful as possible) then get our step by step guide on creating amazing digital courses. Just click the banner below to get your guide. 👇

Find answers to common questions about Myskillcamp's extensive course offerings, featuring over 30,000 courses in 18 languages, covering diverse professional training topics.

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Why Conviction Invested in Myskillcamp: An Investor's Perspective

Recently, I sat down with Kristina, (virtually, of course) and spoke about the investment Conviction made to myskillcamp, why the investment took place and what she looks forward to seeing in myskillcamp's future. As my time at myskillcamp has been post investment it was also a great opportunity to understand the process.

After figuring out how to record the screen and conversation we were having simultaneously, (a process you imagine would be simple until you try) and briefly discussing the similarities between the British and Belgian weather (raining), I asked when Conviction first discovered myskillcamp and the first impressions Kristina had.

''It was back in April that we got in touch with Kevin (CEO of myskillcamp). At that time the world was already in the zenith of the pandemic. I think it was Myskillcamp's passion that stood out to me as well as the market - helping companies of different sizes with their training and helping employees of those companies choose their own learning path''. When discussing the CEO Kevin Tillier, Kristina commented, ''It became evident that he knew the market, requirements and needs of his clients well''. Conviction already has a few investments in the EdTech space and Kristina explained they were intrigued to find a smaller player in the heart of Belgium, and after being impressed with myskillcamp upon first contact, continued with the investment process.

''There were a combination of things that stood out at myskillcamp...'' Kristina continued, ''the performance relative to the size, the capital efficiency and the resilience it shows during this period. The key metrics indicated the quality of service was high and there was little churn even though there were budget cuts and high turnover rates within other businesses during the time''.

I wanted to know more about the due diligence process, and who is contacted to ensure the business is right for Conviction's investment. Kristina explained that not only are CEOs contacted, but so are chairmen as well as other investors connected with myskillcamp. Another aspect of the process is meeting with customers of myskillcamp which helps build an investment case, Kristina mentioned, ''It's not often you come across a business like myskillcamp that gets universal appraisal from their client base!''.

''So what sets us apart from other training providers?'' I asked. ''Well we have other investments in the EdTech space, but they don't focus on the mid-market in Europe''. Kristina explained, ''Conviction wanted to identify a player that identifies a different niche within the same market''. Elaborating further, ''Right now there's a great tail-wind of companies being forced to invest in their learning platforms but also companies wanting to reward their employees, especially in the current world of remote working - so it's a growing market with lots of players and opportunities for acquisitions. So we expect myskillcamp to have a bright future''.

I was intrigued to understand what Kristina, and Conviction as a whole, expects to see from the future of myskillcamp, given the prime market and timing identified. ''Well, the product is second to none, the Chief Product Officer (Mathieu Vanbelle) is the best of his kind so we're expecting to see lots of exciting, cutting edge product development. As well as product expansion across Europe, myskillcamp firmly embedded in the UK market, and a transatlantic crossing into the States. But by then I imagine we'll see myskillcamp receiving several acquisition offers from large players in America''.

Nearing the end of our conversation it's clear that myskillcamp's investor is looking forward to our future within the EdTech space, I wanted to know if there's anything extra Kristina wanted to add before we said our goodbyes. She came prepared! ''To surmise, I think what I like the best is that myskillcamp identified a specific niche within the LXP (learner experience) market, which is a heavily underserved space. Those looking for their first learning platforms and tech steps are often faced with software that is too expensive, inflexible, or requires them to adopt a whole multitude of tools. So myskillcamp is refreshing as it caters to these customers and their needs while offering amazing customer service that is truly customer-centric.

Through talking with Kristina, it's clear that a lot is expected from myskillcamp, which is why we're dedicated to furthering our efforts to provide more courses, personalisation and ease for our customers. We're looking to grow in a steady, well-managed way and are looking forward to expanding across Europe. If you are looking for a learning platform, your first one, or looking to change from your current provider, don't hesitate to book a meeting with us. We'll offer you a free personalised trial - so you get to see what all the fuss is about.

Gain insights into Conviction's investment in Myskillcamp, exploring the reasons behind the investment and the expectations for the future of the platform.

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Why Inventures Invested in Myskillcamp: An Investor's Perspective

I arranged a video conference with Lauren Wyman Investment Associate at Inventures Investment Partners (say that three times fast) recently to discuss what made Brussels-based Inventures decide to invest in myskillcamp. After discussing the current state of lockdown and the weather, we began our interview.

"So when did you first discover myskillcamp and what did you think?" Lauren explained, "The first time Inventures and myskillcamp were acquainted was back in 2017, however in March 2020, myskillcamp wanted to raise funds to fuel growth and Inventures were impressed with the amount of growth the company had already, as well as their strong management and strong presence in the market so we decided to go ahead with the due diligence process from there".

The due diligence process is known to be extensive, but as I wasn't a part of myskillcamp when these investments happened, I wanted to know more about it. Lauren talks me through Inventures' approach, "We have a process where we get to know the company, market, and management, while conducting external interviews with clients." Lauren continues, "What stood out was the amazing team, the massive growth, and the fact every client liked the product. It wasn't just internal views, it was external too".

I asked, "So internally, was it mainly management you had contact with? What was covered?" Lauren replied, "We met all of the management team, engineers and the product team. We were impressed immediately by their vision, the multi-lingual and multi-cultural nature, and by the concept of the Skillcard - which has now come to life". It was of course an atypical year for Inventures as their due diligence process usually involves meeting in person, however, the virtual meetings didn't seem to dampen the spirits, the strong spirit or culture of myskillcamp.

When asked what Lauren particularly liked about the business, Lauren replied, "From investigating the market and culture we're in right now, work is changing and everyone is now constantly learning, what I like about myskillcamp is that they're aware of that culture and provide the opportunity to upskill and reskill - they have their ear to the ground. Also I really like the trifecta between LMS, LXP and the marketplace, it's something unique that myskillcamp has".

I know from research that Inventures has over 20 portfolio companies, and I was wondering if myskillcamp is the only training company Inventures invested in. Lauren shed light on my query, "Right now, Inventures is generalist fund where we align all of our investments with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. All of our investments have a demonstratable social impact. Myskillcamp is our first investment in the HRTech training space, and we're excited about it".

This excitement stems mainly from what was found during Inventures competitive analysis on other training providers and myskillcamp. Lauren mentioned, "we discovered most training platforms are clunky and their software isn't strong enough. But myskillcamp has something flexible and adaptable for both small and large clients, and is also dedicated to expanding their languages and local content based on those languages".

Lauren summarised that after doing the 360 analysis on myskillcamp, Inventures decided to invest one million euros into the company. "We're expecting great things, myskillcamp truly has a tool that people can use throughout the years, and we're looking forward to the expansion through Europe and supporting them along the way".

After feeling absolutely flattered by Lauren's answers, we continued talking about training, the work of Inventures and the content myskillcamp produces. It's great to see the hard work my colleagues and management put into the company paying off. Furthermore it was great to talk about this opportunity with Lauren from Inventures.

If you'd like to experience what has been detailed in this blog then check out myskillcamp and try a free personalised demo. We offer over 300,000 courses in 18 languages in all skills and our platform is easy to use, customisable and fit for any business size. Book a demo today.

Gain insights into why Inventures, a Brussels-based investment firm, chose to invest in Myskillcamp, exploring the factors that influenced their decision.

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Why You Need to Train Your Interns: Harnessing the Potential of interns

Training your employees is a given, whether it's onboarding new hires, or offering training schemes like online courses or face to face learning to motivated workers. The internet is literally littered with guides to help you do this, and explaining why it's a good idea. However, the same can't be said for training externs, (in fact, while researching this topic, 'externs' rarely came up in the correct context) but myskillcamp is about to show you why it's imperative you do it, and how to start.

What's an extern, and why train them?

Externs are anyone who are outside the business but have a direct impact on how your business performs; clients/customers, suppliers, and partners. Let's go through them...

Clients and customers - As any customer success manager will tell you, a good customer journey is everything if you want repeat custom, large ROIs, good KPIs, and probably many other acronyms. A way to achieve a good customer journey is by training your clients to understand your service, and updating these courses when new features and patches occur. Not only does this allow your client to feel 'at home' on the platform, but it reduces any teething issues or struggles they may have... incidentally meaning your customer service team receives fewer angry messages. Win-win!

In fact, we bet you've received this kind of training. Many scheduling platforms offer courses, such as Hootesuite, AgoraPulse and many more (sometimes without even signing up). Not to mention courses like Twitter Flight School, and Google AdWords, for those who want to get to grips with social media platforms.

Suppliers - Training suppliers is paramount for two main reasons, firstly, logistics. Knowing when your materials are arriving, and ensuring suppliers follow your schedule (and not the other way around) means you can operate your day to day without delays. The second reason is quality of components. A great example of this is Apple: They need suppliers for many elements of their products, to ensure these components are up to their precise specifications, they train suppliers on how to create, and deliver parts.

A supplier can also be an operator; those who work in or near certain facilities need to receive training to ensure safety. A great example of this is Elia, who give structured, dedicated training to keep their operators safe.

Partners - If your product or service is sold in other stores, then providing partners with training enables them to successfully sell it. By providing education (not only at the start of the relationship but throughout) you can make good connections, ensure correct brand identity, as well as communication of existing and new features to potential customers.

How to train externs successfully

A good thing to keep in mind about training interns and externs is that not everyone needs the same training. A partner doesn't need to know when a component arrives, a customer doesn't need to know what to mention first in a sales pitch. So, create a catalogue that offers the right training to the right people. You can give and limit accesses, create new training, and offer personalised courses for different externs. This means you train effectively as a particular person can only take courses designed for them.

Oh, and at myskillcamp, we follow our own advice! When you sign up to use our learner experience platform we ensure you have a demo, e-learning courses, (so you know how to use the platform to its fullest) and have great customer service on hand to help if you need it.

Another great thing about the myskillcamp platform is the option you'll have to create these specific courses for your partners, suppliers and customers, while being able to add, edit and change user accesses when you need to. Giving you complete freedom to build an e-learning academy for your business. Ready to start?

Discover the importance of training interns and externs, whether through onboarding, online courses, or face-to-face learning, and unlock the benefits they bring to your organization.

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Will E-Learning Replace Higher Education? Exploring the Future of Education

Ok... so you may be thinking we're rubbing our hands together at this premise, but honestly, it's an interesting question to ponder. E-learning has exploded in popularity recently, not only because people may have extra time to finally learn Adobe Photoshop, so much has changed and businesses may need to meet this shift.

Traditional learning vs e-Learning

Traditional learning may still work, but perhaps it no longer fits in the world we live in. Covid-19, the internet age, the speed of business: all lead to traditional learning being too slow and archaic, and the age of microcredentials rising to take its place.

Microcredentials (like gaining a Google Ads certificate, or a Twitter Flight School badge) are also becoming things that set candidates apart, especially as college and university are becoming the norm for many young adults. Moreover, large businesses like Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft and others are investing in e-learning, knowing that there is a demand to become skilled in specific software.

This demand is also coming from those that want / need to reskill, as many jobs are becoming obsolete and others are developing into a more digital space. In fact, many business leaders are noticing a gap between those entering the workforce and the skills they require - leading them to create training or investing in external courses.

Lastly, job seekers now look out for upskilling and learning opportunities in job ads as it's now viewed as a perk that will accelerate their career.

Traditional learning + e-Learning

It could also be argued that it's not a traditional vs new, but a synergy of the two. We've all seen how 2020 has lead to e-Learning becoming a necessary part of education, from school to higher education to on-the-job learning. But even before that, as younger generations are becoming more comfortable with technology, more education systems are using it.

Moreover, training techniques such as blended learning are still on the rise, as it uses both virtual and face-to-face learning to achieve positive results for employees. Seeing as people are returning to the workplace, (and people do actually like to see others) it makes sense that learning in person isn't a dead practise.

Lastly, e-learning shouldn't be here to get rid of the human element that traditional learning provides. Taking myskillcamp as the example, whether you want to create your own courses or use off-the-shelf courses, we give companies the freedom to use multimedia - video, podcasts, eBooks, quizzes, and an interactive chat section to fuze interaction and independent learning.

How companies can adapt

Whether you think traditional learning is being replaced or simply turning into something less 'traditional' there are key takeaways that businesses can't ignore if they want to have skilled workers and a good retention rate:

  • Job seekers are looking for companies who offer training
  • Often companies require skills that candidates may not possess at the time of hiring
  • Your workforce are conscious that training is important for their career and a way to advance

Basically, you need to offer training is what we're saying... So, better to do it in a cost effective way! Instead of management or HR teams buying licenses to expensive courses, or creating courses yourself that look like soul-destroying whitepapers, make a good decision: join myskillcamp.

As stated before, we give you the option to easily create your own courses using multimedia, chat, and analytics. You can also choose from over 300,000 off-the-shelf courses made by Udemy, Bookboon, LinkedIn Learning and loads more. On top of that you can choose a payment method that suits your needs, and say goodbye to hefty licenses.

Also, we give you a free trial, personalised to your company, no credit card, catches, or forms to sign. And if you have an LMS, we can integrate with it, so you don't have to change how you work.

Keep your company updated with the times and start your free demo today.

Dive into the thought-provoking question of whether e-learning will replace traditional higher education, examining the recent surge in popularity and advancements in online learning.

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Will Virtual Reality Revolutionize Training? Exploring the Potential

The cost of VR has decreased rapidly over the span of a few years, and we're betting you've seen a VR world at least once, perhaps at a convention or via a techy friend. Well, businesses are already using it to train their staff in certain sectors while others are investing in it. So with this new reality emerging along with a rise home working and fast-paced society, is virtual reality becoming our new reality?

Who's using it and why?

Right now for many industries, there's a need to train employees safely and efficiently, with home-working being prominent and the size of businesses fluctuating, VR suits this period in time very well. Moreover, companies that most of us already use are investing in VR, such as Facebook, with their VR headset brand Oculus being among the most popular brands on the market. So with that being said, which businesses have already adopted this type of learning and what are they training their learners on?

Walmart has trained over a million people with VR. Their most popular module “The Pickup Tower,” simulates a kiosk that lets customer pick up orders. Trainees receive instructions on how to operate the virtual machine and receive immediate feedback when mistakes are made. Walmart report that their previous training (in person) took an entire day, but with VR it's a mere 15 minutes with no drop in efficiency.

Verizon has built a module to train call-centre employees on how to de-escalate conversations with angry customers. Learners get to practise speaking and listening as a conversation becomes increasingly tense. (Definitely better virtually) According to Verizon, VR increased the effectiveness and consistency of the training and reduced the time it took from 10 hours per person to just 30 minutes.

BP is using Virtual reality to train employees on start-up and emergency exit procedures at its oil refinery in Hull, UK. Similarly, UPS will begin training delivery drivers using virtual reality headsets by showing simulations of roads and hazards.

Is it useful for all training?

So many companies are using VR, but is it suitable for the kind of training you need? Viar360 thinks it's great for manual tasks, but currently a poor fit for honing soft skills as VR suits hands-on training as exhibited by Walmart, BP and UPS.

But demand for soft-skills training has increased. For instance, improving customer service like Verizon, and boosting managerial skills. Not only that, but studies have shown the use of using VR for improving presentation skills (not just because it's less scary, but it's a lot cheaper to use VR than assemble a room full of real people!).

It's also important to remember that necessity is the mother of invention - and since home working, need for communication, need for onboarding, and need for quicker training are all in demand, VR can easily step up to fulfil these needs. In fact, companies like Uptale.io is already doing it.

The benefits of VR data

Unlike face to face learning or even current e-learning, VR comes with a host of analytics that can help both edTech and learners with their training. For example, VR can monitor physiological responses like eye movement, heart rate and fatigue - keeping learners feeling engaged and offering to stop training if they feel tired or ill.

Training platforms will also have the benefit of seeing which courses aren't resonating with learners and be able to refine them. So if your course on accounting is causing VR participants to lose focus, maybe chuck in a quiz, add more colour, or perhaps a meme or two.

At myskillcamp we offer many types of training, which you can pick from our marketplace, and build yourself! From eBooks, quizzes, videos, podcasts and much more. We're constantly looking to include more methods of learning and perhaps VR is next on our list... 🤔

If you're interested in the courses we offer, how to build your own, or even how your business could look like with an engaging training hub, book a free personalised demo today.

Explore the decreasing cost and growing popularity of virtual reality (VR) technology, discussing its potential impact on training and the benefits it can bring to businesses.

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