The fundamental difference between a Learning Experience Platform (LXP) and an LMS is evident in their names. The LXP centers on the experience of learning rather than the management of the learner. The LMS tends to prioritize the general objectives of L&D and HR above accommodating individual learners. LMS focuses on wide-ranging outcomes, supposing a basic level of knowledge and awareness, and adopting a formal, sometimes inflexible approach to the method of training.

While a corporate LMS may provide concise reports on test scores and display the number of users who completed a course, they cannot typically create in-depth, customized reports on things such as:

• The impact training is having on specific business objectives
• The time a user is spending on any given course
• Precisely what content was accessed by users (plus which content is superfluous)
• The type of sales collateral reps are sending to prospects to win deals
• Where in a course trainees are getting stuck or confused
• Exactly How many attempts it took for a trainee to pass a quiz or test
• What skills gaps trainees have, and where further training is needed
• Data visibility to help administrators identify patterns and trends

Closed or Open System?

A conventional corporate LMS is a closed system that does not allow you to incorporate learning resources outside the organization. You are restricted to the training resources created by administrators within your company.

Because it is challenging to constantly create a vast amount of up-to-date content, conventional corporate LMSs are very limited in the value they can provide learners.

Self-Hosted or Cloud-Hosted

Though most software is hosted in the cloud, many conventional corporate LMS options still need you to install the software on your local server, growing upfront costs and ongoing maintenance pains. Additionally, updates must be done manually and typically involve long periods of lost time during which users can’t access the system.

While your learning tool is hosted on your local server, employees can’t simply access content unless they use a computer in the company’s office connected to its network. Employees, partners, and customers need the capability to quickly access bite-sized knowledge from their mobile device, as they are used to doing virtually every other service in their daily lives in an on-the-go, globally-connected world.

A customary corporate LMS is simply incapable of meeting the needs of organizations in a modern business environment.

Training is Shifting to LXP

Learning Experience Platform (LXP or LEP) is a ‘new to the job’ term by contrast. It’s a platform where content is both selected and grouped for a personalized learner experience. With an LXP, learners receive customized training suggestions based on their role, interests, and past completed training. From here, they have the freedom to select the courses and pieces of content that are most relevant to their goals at that moment in time. They can also skip around inside classes to find the exact information they need, in whatever order they prefer.

Learning Experience Platform – LXP

Contrasting a conventional LMS, an LXP allows you to aggregate the content focusing on the student experience. It brings together content from different resources, content libraries, intranet, LMS, collaborative platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Connect, or SharePoint Portal.

LXPs can be driven by emerging technologies such as data analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML), alongside their inherent ability to integrate resources from different learning environments.

In a nutshell, LXPs make each learner the architect of their learning journey, build individual learning paths, and offer truly personalized learning based on past preferences, learning history, skills to be developed.

Which Should You Choose?

Top reasons organizations need an LMS:

• Schedule instructor-led or blended training.
• Create cohorts and track learners.
• Track learning for compliance reasons or professional progression.
• Create a repository of institutional knowledge.

Top reasons organizations use an LXP:

• Deliver content driven by learner interests from multiple sources (internet, massive open online courses, user-generated content, internal resources, third-party training).
• Use AI content recommendations mapped onto career competencies or pathways.
• Log into curated channels or playlists for content matching their interests or job roles.
• Track informal learning.

Equated with a strict predefined learning path in LMS, LXP’s learners build the approach that gives them more control and productivity, acquiring new skills and upgrading their qualifications. Some professionals compare LXP with Netflix in eLearning due to its consumer-oriented methodology and intelligent content recommendation. In basic terms, an LXP features:

• Content from internal storage and external platforms
• Flexible learning paths

Where as an LMS features:

• Internal content only
• Predefined learning paths
• Curated by the administrators
• A user is learning and working separately

The first step to implementing an LXP in your company is understanding your employees’ expectations from the program. Built on this knowledge, you can decide what LXP functionality would be the best fit. However, there are vital LXP features every solid platform must-have.

Highly Instinctive Individualized Interface

The interfaces of LXPs show past interactions, learning paths, preferences, and suggestions. The user interface is responsive, individualized, and pervasive in delivery. It provides highly immersive learning experiences to users of the platform.

Social Learning

This includes integrated functionality for communication and knowledge swap (e.g., community-recommended or user-generated content). Many learning experience platforms have rating systems, public comments, and sharing options such as social media networks. Additionally, learners can showcase their expertise in the topic to their peers.

Microlearning

LXPs comprise brief learning pieces that answer topic questions precisely (e.g., “How to create a diagram in Google Doc”). Such bite-sized learning permits employees to learn within the working environment, quickly switching to the LXP on the desktop or a mobile device.

Gamification in LXP

Gamification is simply using game-design elements in a non-game environment. For instance, a system of points, levels, and badges awarded for meticulous study and high test grades is gamification. Gamification is used much more often, as it requires less investment to implement. Yet, it has proven its usefulness. Here’s what it brings:

A/ Improved learning outcomes. Studies show that gamified software is more effective at teaching than its non-gamified counterparts.

B/ Improved motivation. Game elements get people to willingly spend more time studying, thus increasing the overall effectiveness of learning.

Note – Persons who participate in gamified learning as part of their work report increased enjoyment and loyalty towards their company.

Extensive Integration Capabilities

As a learning gateway, an LXP is usually just a part of a corporate L&D and HR system. It integrates with many other types of business software, including CRM, HRM, ERP, and LRS.

In-Built Artificial Intelligence

The platform routinely recommends relevant learning materials based on a learner’s job position, experience level, formerly completed courses, and other relevant information. The use of AI includes lessons from third parties and “non-learning” systems such as YouTube.

Advanced Analytics with xAPI

One of the primary goals of an LXP as a basis of corporate learning culture is to connect learning with on-the-job performance. For example, it offers the ability to track a learners’ success in the course, what certificates they get, what skills they master, which classes are the most relevant and practical.

Seamless Access to Multiple Devices

It’s important to give learners the ability to access content anytime and anywhere to start a desktop course and complete it later on a mobile device.

But you may find that it’s the blend of these two systems that create the perfect environment for employee learning.

What are the advantages of having a mixture between the two?

One system: Rather than spreading out learning across an LXP and an LMS – why not use a blend of the two? Then you can have your content all in one place.

Directed and self-driven learning: Combining these two types of learning is the definitive way to boost engagement. Allow your learners to complete necessary compliance training set by managers and share great content simply by using one system.

Content: You can have a dedicated team that obtains the best content for your learners and gives your employees the power to upload great content that they’d like to share with others.

Assessment: Not only can you assess your learners’ performance on compulsory training, but you can also see how much self-directed learning they’re doing too – which could help you assess their skills and professional development.

Continual improvement: You can use ratings and feedback (LXP features) to improve mandatory and optional content.

In brief, the LXP is more learner-centric than the LMS. Its accessibility and flexibility are demonstrated in the diversity of content it can offer. Instead of locking learners into a set course, the LXP allows trainees to create their path through an onboarding process using a wide range of resources, some of them generated by users themselves.

Virtual Training Software

We hope you’ve found this introduction to LMS v’s LXP useful but to delve in deeper on this topic and learn about virtual training, contact the team at ReadyTech at

+1 (800) 707-1009 or email the team at get-info@readytech.com

Due to the massive growth of digital content and tools, today’s digital learning is growing by leaps and bounds. And organizations are realizing that delivering a strong digital learning experience is vital to business success.

In fact, the Deloitte Human Capital Trends research found that 83 percent of companies consider this issue important and 54 percent consider it to be urgent—up 11 percent from last year.

In a recent article by Josh Bersin—founder and principal at Bersin by Deloitte, a provider of research-based information for organizations— he attempts to make sense of the new corporate learning landscape, also known as digital learning. In the article, Bersin shares several thoughts on how the world of corporate learning has changed—and is currently changing:

What is the meaning of digital learning?

Digital learning is a “way of learning” and not a “type of learning.” According to Bersin, digital learning does not mean learning on your phone. Rather, it means “bringing learning to where employees are.”

Digital Learning is “learning facilitated by technology that gives students some element of control over time, place, path and/or pace.” It requires a mix of technology, digital content and instruction.

This new type of learning entails a shift toward employee-centric designs—and not just a shift in tools. Learning must be easy and intuitive to use. Bersin suggests the need to move from “instructional design” to “experience design.” Examining exactly how employees work is important in being able to create training that is simple and easy to use.

Is our new way of working actually making us more productive?

The way we work has radically changed—and not necessarily for the better. Today’s employees are constantly bombarded by distractions, such as a steady stream of messages and emails. We also spend a great deal of time searching for information at work. And all of these distractions are not necessarily making us more productive.

In addition, many employees fail to create boundaries around work.

Recent research shows that nearly eight in ten employees (78 percent) are more comfortable taking time off—only when they know they can access work. While most employees (46 percent) check in with work occasionally during vacation, only about a quarter (27 percent) of employees fully unplug on vacation. The reason? Today’s employees feel they are expected to be working—even while on vacation.

And stress is another big issue. Employees who are more connected and taking less time off are more stressed. In fact, more than half (51 percent) of those who check in with work frequently report stress in their home life, compared to 48 percent of those who check in only occasionally, and 36 percent who completely unplug while on vacation.

Because of these trends, corporate messaging platforms (such as Slack, HipChat, Yammer and Workplace by Facebook) are entering the market by droves with one specific goal: to reinvent the digital experience and make work much easier for employees.

And these tools are expected to radically change the learning landscape. By offering integrated tools for content discovery, communication and messaging, these platforms provide employees with the ability to share content. “This is where digital learning will eventually go,” writes Bersin. “And I suggest it will happen sooner than you think.”

Has Traditional Learning Disappeared?

The average U.S. consumer spends a massive 5 hours a day on mobile devices. And while we are convinced that we can do almost everything on our devices, this is not quite the reality.

According to Bersin, when it comes to sustainable development, there are “Four E’s of learning” at work: education, experience, environment and exposure. However, employees believe they are only able to spend 1 percent of their time on training and development. This is simply not enough. Bersin explains: “People must have time to learn, they must feel their new skills will be valued, they must take time for discussion and reflection, and managers must give people space and freedom to discuss mistakes, ask questions and often experiment with new ideas.”

Does digital learning require a new set of skills and capabilities?

Bersin maintains that digital learning requires a new set of skills, capabilities and thought processes in learning and development. “It’s no longer enough to consider yourself a trainer or instructional designer by career,” he writes.

Instead, learning and development must concentrate on experimental, data-driven solutions, such as experience design, design thinking and the development of employee journey maps. Today’s companies are now focusing on addressing the employee experience—rather than merely adding new training programs.

Adds Bersin, “Our job is to understand what employees jobs are, learn about the latest tools and techniques to drive learning and performance, and then apply them to work in a modern, relevant, and cost-effective way.” And while organizations have been doing this, they must now drive learning and performance using newly developed processes and technologies.

It is clear that learning and development is experiencing many significant transformations. And the development of new kinds of digital content and tools are reinventing learning programs that allow employees to learn in new and improved ways. While the future may be uncertain, one thing is clear: the future is definitely bright.

These changes include increasing budgets for elearning programs, new developments in technology, enhancements in virtual training tools, and a surge in social learning as an important educational tool.

In fact, David Kelly, executive vice president of The eLearning Guild, recommends that today’s learning and development leaders become educated on digital learning because it will inevitably become part of their overall strategy. “Even if your training department is not proactively looking to shift towards this change in human behavior right now, your organization will eventually be impacted,” he says.

Let’s examine some of the exciting virtual learning trends, which are predicted to significantly impact the eLearning market throughout the next few years:

eLearning Industry Growth

In 2016, the eLearning market’s global size was estimated at more than $150 billion. And the number is projected to grow by 5 percent from 2017 to 2024.

This industry growth is driven by several factors, such as the recent demand for eLearning solutions; allotting a lower budget for eLearning compared to traditional training; an increase in learning flexibility; the effectiveness of new, virtual training tools; a boost in employee productivity due to eLearning services; and a rising interest in distance learning.

Corporate eLearning Development

In line with the growth of the eLearning market as a whole, the global corporate eLearning market is also expected to grow. This market includes all forms of electronically-supported learning and teaching tools used by organizations to facilitate the continuous learning and development of their workforce. Specifically, the market is projected to expand to $31 billion in revenue by 2020.

The reasons for this growth?

Organizations are making the shift from traditional teaching methods (like in-person, face-to-face classes) to eLearning solutions as a way to reduce training delivery costs and improve instructor productivity.

Additionally, social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) technologies have facilitated the adoption of eLearning solutions because these technologies enable organizations to reach a larger number of students at a fraction of the cost of traditional, in-person training.

Positive attitudes and strong beliefs toward self-improvement and training are other reasons to consider. In fact, studies show that:

• 63 percent of working adults consider themselves professional learners. These adults have pursued training to improve job skills or expertise related to career advancement.
• 73 percent of adults consider themselves lifelong learners.
• 89 percent of millennials think it is important to constantly learn at their job. Millennials value knowledge and experience. They recognize the importance of continual learning and believe that happiness equates with learning.

A shift to the cloud

IT spending is moving away from traditional IT offerings (environments used for hosting data, services or applications that are operated by an organization, such as a data center or mainframe) in favor of cloud services. Specifically, this cloud shift is estimated to reach $111 billion, increasing to $216 billion in 2020.

And it’s no wonder. The cloud not only offers a reduced cost of hardware, but a wide variety of applications and the ability to work from anywhere, saving a great deal of time and money. When you compare in person training vs. online training, for example, companies can reduce their training delivery costs between 30-70% by switching to online training.

According to Deloitte’s Josh Bersin, cloud computing and SaaS are the dominant delivery models in today’s learning management systems. Bersin suggests that moving to the cloud should be a top priority for organizations. “While only about 45 percent of companies have moved to the cloud, the trend is clear,” he explains. “It can help simplify your life and offer you a far more integrated core system.”

Job-Specific Training Content

The most common areas of corporate training content focus on job-specific training. According to the Brandon Hall Group Training Study, more than 40% of today’s corporate training is job specific. The study found that 27% of training focuses on job-specific technical skills, aided by virtual training labs, and 13% focuses on job-specific soft skills.

Important Training Goals

Productivity and performance are on the minds of today’s training departments. In fact, many learning and development teams consider improved productivity and performance to be a major goal. In addition, converting training and knowledge into business outcomes, as well as helping employees grow and learn, also top the list of goals.

Social Learning

Learning via observation, imitation and modeling—also known as social learning—is picking up momentum in the workplace.

In fact, according to 2016 research published by Brandon Hall Group, social/collaborative tools top the list of learning technology priorities for learning and development professionals. And these tools even beat out mobile technology.

While social learning has been around long before the development of technology, it is clearly playing an important role in the future of corporate learning.

Some believe the reason has to do with the fact that eLearning technology is now mature enough to support social learning.

Another reason for this momentum may be directly related to the millennial generation. As this generation takes hold of the largest share of the labor market, the needs and demands of these workers are becoming a priority. And the social learning experience—part of the millennial generation’s DNA—becomes very important in today’s workplace.

Organizations that are focused on harnessing the power of millennials are quickly realizing the importance of giving this generation exactly what they want at work: engagement, interaction, flexibility and instant access. Afterall, millennials were raised on social technology. And as more companies add social learning to their corporate training programs, they are realizing its importance and value.

The world of eLearning is continuously evolving. While this can make the virtual training world difficult to navigate, the key to success is for organizations to leverage these trends and use them to power their training strategy today—and in the future.

In the words of David Kelly, “The trends that are driving digital learning are here for the long-term.”

Mobile Learning. Americans are obsessed with their mobile devices. About 95% of Americans now own a cell phone. And the number that own a smartphone is 77%, up from just 35% in 2011. In fact, the mobile device obsession is 24/7  — with 71% of Americans sleeping with their  smartphones — either by putting their phone on a nightstand, in their bed, or for 3% of people, holding it in their hands.

With stats like these, there is no question that mobile learning (also called mLearning) is on the rise. It’s all about the demand for flexibility, which means offering courses that run seamlessly on desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Cloud-Based Systems. Cloud-based corporate training has been steadily growing in popularity. According to statistics, 42% of the most profitable companies in the world (those listed on the Fortune 500) are currently using e-learning tools for online training.

This is mainly due to the fact that organizations are beginning to realize the numerous benefits of virtual training, including reducing online training costs (find out your company’s potential savings using this in person training vs. online training calculator) and making training more accessible for all employees and customers. In addition, it is very easy to scale online training initiatives and update content to include new products and features.

Collaborative And Social Learning. Today, social learning is increasingly used by forward-thinking organizations to foster collaborative learning. This type of informal learning allows individuals to network, share, collaborate, problem solve and exchange ideas.

In fact, the Association for Talent Development’s study, Building a Culture of Learning, recently found that top companies are almost five times more likely than lower performers to have extensive learning cultures.

According to the report, “In high-performance organizations, employees share knowledge with their colleagues at a rate four times greater than that of workers in lower-performing firms. This communication is supported by rewarding workers for learning, providing tools and resources for creating and sharing learning content, and making knowledge sharing a performance expectation at all organizational levels.”

Measuring Learning Effectiveness of Online Courses. It is very important for organizations to understand which areas their employees are skilled in and which areas require additional training. But what’s the best way to identify these areas?

A good way to start is by identifying pockets of the business that are experiencing bottlenecks, lower-than-expected productivity, or is often the root cause of bigger problems. Once you find these pockets, use it as a starting point and dig into the details. What’s causing the bottleneck? Why is productivity lower than expected? And is there an event or process that is making this area a consistent root cause for problems? This investigation should shine a light on the areas where your employees require additional training. Then provide that training to the employees.

Finally, to measure the effectiveness of the training course, do a before-and-after analysis. If a department was the cause of bottlenecks before the training, are they still the cause for bottlenecks after the training? Or has the bottleneck been removed or improved? Doing this before-and-after analysis will yield results that show the effectiveness of the training course.

There’s no guarantee exactly which technology features and platforms will be popular in the coming years. But one thing is certain: staying up-to-date is vital in today’s ever-changing virtual training environment.

In other words, nobody learns in the same way or at the same pace. Everyone can learn—but just not in the same manner. And that’s the basis of differentiated instruction.

Carol Ann Tomlinson, a leader in differentiated instruction and a professor of educational leadership, foundations and policy at the University of Virginia, defines this type of instruction as the need to consider students’ individual learning styles in order to create the best learning experience possible. This applies to training in schools, as well as in the workplace.

Research on the effectiveness of differentiated instruction shows this method benefits a wide range of students. Differentiating instruction translates into teaching the same material to all students using diverse instructional strategies—or delivering lessons at different levels of difficulty, based on the individual skills of the learner.

According to Tomlinson, instructors should differentiate instruction based on student readiness, interest or learning profile. She suggests focusing on four classroom elements: content, process, product and learning environment.

Content is what students need to learn or how students will access the information. Tomlinson suggests varying the content according to Bloom’s Taxonomy, which classifies learning objectives into six levels of complexity: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating.

For students who are unfamiliar with the material, instructors can use remembering and understanding tasks. For students with some mastery, instructors should ask students to apply and analyze the content. And students with high levels of mastery can complete tasks that require evaluating and creating.

In a corporate training setting—especially a virtual classroom—it is very important for online instructors to teach content that is directly related to learning objectives. Additionally, to assess whether these learning objectives are met, online instructors should include a variety of assessment tools.

ReadyTech offers numerous virtual training assessment tools, such as surveys, polls, quizzes and exams. For example, these tools allow instructors to build quizzes and tests to gauge exactly how students comprehend the topics taught in class.

Instructors can also send a quiz at the end of a lecture to reinforce the lecture concepts. This helps identify the students that may be struggling and need extra assistance. If there are questions that many students are answering incorrectly, instructors can review the correct answer at the beginning of the course. And at the end of the course, trainers can send a final exam to further reinforce the course’s topics and give students a sense of value.

Process is defined as the activities in which students engage in order to make sense of—or master the content. Because every student has a preferred learning style, successful differentiation means delivering the content to each individual student via visual, auditory, speech or kinesthetic means.

It is also important to keep in mind that not all students need the same amount of support from instructors. As a result, students may be more successful working in small groups, in pairs or individually. And while some students may benefit from one-on-one interaction with the instructor, others can progress on their own. Because of this, trainers should always offer support based on individual needs.

This type of one-on-one interaction are integral parts of ReadyTech’s virtual training software. The virtual instructor-led training (VILT) platform enables instructors to effectively teach students and allows students to collaborate and communicate with one another.

For example, ReadyTech’s Thumbnail View provides instructors with the platform to see all students’ remote desktops in a single screen at all times during the class, allowing instructors to see where students are in their exercises—or which students are struggling. Breakout Groups helps instructors break out the class into smaller groups for group assignments. And the Live View feature gives instructors the ability to zoom in on a specific student’s screen and offer individualized assistance.

Products are projects that require students to rehearse, apply and extend what they have learned in the course. This often demonstrates mastery of the content. In a training environment, it is useful to incorporate hands-on activities that offer students the opportunity to apply the material in real-life scenarios and demonstrate their grasp of the information.

ReadyTech’s virtual training labs allow students to practice with the actual software they will use in their day-to-day roles. Because learning by doing has been proven to create a much higher knowledge retention than just listening and watching, virtual training labs offer hands-on practice that help students get the real-life skills they require to succeed in their jobs. By incorporating virtual training labs into a VILT course, instructors can help students become high performers.

Learning environment refers to the physical locations and contexts in which students learn. Effective teaching and learning can only take place in optimal learning environments, which provide “a positive, productive climate” as well as “intellectually and emotionally safe, stimulating classroom communities.” In addition, these environments must allow for the diverse needs of each learner to be addressed.

In general, there are two types of learning environments: in-person and virtual. And there are pros and cons to each. With an in-person learning environment, you can experience the clear benefits that come with physically being with your students. But you can’t always control the in-person classroom. Is there enough space for all the students? Does the space allow for group discussions? Does it have enough lighting or a fast enough Internet connection?

With virtual learning environments, you are physically separated from your students, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In virtual classrooms, your students have more control over their learning environment. This means they can select the environment that allows them to focus best, such as a quiet home office or a private room at work.

And regardless of whether it’s in person training vs. online training, the learning environment must encourage student engagement and participation, providing resources and support, and welcoming student feedback.

Due to the many differences in learning styles, not everyone learns in the same way. While this can sometimes make training a challenging endeavor, it is not impossible. In fact, implementing different training methods for different types of students via differentiated instruction provides numerous advantages that are well worth the investment.

Whether it is a request dealing with deployment or a last-minute event change, your team handles it quickly and with extreme professionalism and patience. We are perfectionists with our classes, and ReadyTech’s support meshes well with that expectation of perfection for our classes.

The truth is that providing excellent tech support is quite challenging. After all, who calls tech support to give compliments? Add in the difficulty of having virtual teams with employees distributed across the globe in various time zones—and you have a daunting task.

The customer letter made me stop and think about the tech support department we’ve created at ReadyTech. What makes it so good? Are there things we can do to be even better? What advice would we give to other organizations building a 24/7/365 support team? Here are some thoughts on how to deliver strong and reliable tech support:

Leadership: Each office location should have an experienced team lead in charge. This lead can be a point of contact for all urgent and complex tech issues.

Ongoing training: Training helps any tech support team understand their roles and responsibilities. In addition, training can improve their well-being and confidence in performing their responsibilities effectively. Support representatives who receive training are better able to perform in their jobs. This builds confidence by providing a stronger understanding of job duties—and this confidence inspires them to work harder and perform better. Additionally, investing in training proves to employees that they are valued and supported.

Communication: Because virtual teams don’t see each other regularly, good communication between managers and employees is vital. Strong communication enables employees to be self-sufficient, which is crucial when it comes to remote employees tackling spur-of-the-moment, complex issues. Develop an open door policy and consistently encourage employees to ask questions.

Another way to foster strong communication is to create an internal support blog. For example, ReadyTech has a section on its intranet that is used for support team announcements and policy changes–and maintained regularly by support management.

Not only is it useful to have a designated place to share what’s happening in support, but managers should communicate to all staff that it is their responsibility to regularly check the blog. In addition, every support team should have some kind of chat system, such as HipChat or Slack. This chat system allows for quick and easy communication between staff.

Hiring: To avoid employee burnout–which is quite common in the customer service industry–it is important to pay special attention to hiring. Try to employ individuals who are self-motivated, positive thinkers, independent, multi-taskers and tech savvy. In addition, seek candidates who are confident in making quick decisions, thrive under pressure, and possess empathy and patience with customers.

Keep in mind that customer satisfaction is an important differentiator for many companies. Consequently, it is vital to personalize the customer service experience. Because every business is a “people business,” your support team members should consistently personalize their service. This means engaging in one-on-one conversations, obtaining the loyalty and trust of customers, working hard to resolve issues quickly and always making customers feel important.

And this, in turn, can reduce burnout because personalized service translates into an increase in creativity and individuality for support team members. Many organizations that provide support use call scripts for almost everything they do. However, this creates a monotonous and repetitive workplace, which can result in employees feeling bored, discouraged, unsatisfied and frustrated.

For ReadyTech, hiring qualified staff is especially important. When anyone calls or emails ReadyTech with technical issues, support staff treats every interaction as urgent. Consequently, hiring people-saavy employees who believe in ReadyTech’s values–and can be the voice of our company–is crucial.

Resource center: Establish a shared, online resource center. This center should cover common problems and solutions, as well as FAQs. A shared knowledge base enables all team members to be on the same page, and feel like they have the needed resources on hand. For example, ReadyTech has a resource center maintained by support reps. Support staff writes most of these articles, which makes sense since the reps manage the ins and outs of support each and every day.

Employee engagement: Technical support can be extremely demanding due to the high stress work environment and emotional aspects of the job. Consequently, be sure to consistently check in with employees to hear about their highs and lows. Listen to their feedback and implement their suggestions.

Customer feedback: Another way to improve your support team is to encourage feedback from customers. This feedback will allow you recognize your support team’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as improve processes.

Onboarding: More than 85 percent of new employees lack the level of knowledge to do their jobs, causing stress and anxiety during the transition to a new position. That’s where onboarding comes in. Integrating new employees into an organization and making them productive as soon as possible is the mission of a good onboarding program.

It is vital to realize that onboarding and training are different. Michel Falcon, founder of Experience Academy, explains: “Employee onboarding is the design of what your employees feel, see and hear after they have been hired. Often companies confuse onboarding with training. While training does have a role within the onboarding, it doesn’t represent the entire scope of the process.”

Onboarding is the opportunity to equip employees with resources, tools and confidence they need once they are on their own. This is the time to set expectations and teach skills, knowledge and behavior in order to be effective on the job. Strong onboarding can lead to higher job performance, job satisfaction, greater organizational commitment and a reduction in job stress.

As described in the Hiring section, many support organizations use call scripts as a way to enforce standards and speed up the onboarding process for new hires to make sure there is ROI on the support representative before they quit. But scripted conversations lack engagement, resulting in customers feeling like the support representative isn’t listening and the support representative feeling like a robot. During the onboarding process, be sure to address the critical need for personalized service. After all, giving employees freedom to tap into their individuality will not only reduce burnout, but improve the experiences of customers.

A strong tech support team can make the difference between happy and unhappy customers. By implementing these suggestions, you, too can receive compliments—instead of complaints.

There is no question that engaging virtual audiences can be extremely difficult for novice instructors, as well as for experienced ones.

Kassy LaBorie, instructional designer, author and principal consultant at Kassy LaBorie Consulting, describes how to break the mold of static lecture-style trainings. Her strategies described below will help ReadyTech instructors ensure the effective delivery of meaningful training that sticks:

1. PLATFORM: Know it inside and out, upside down and all around.

Be an expert of the ReadyTech online training platform. Understand its capabilities, nuances and all its virtual training tools. Click on all the different options and utilize an Assistant Instructor for extra platform expertise. If you’re using ReadyTech’s platform and want additional training, contact your Customer Success Manager to schedule a training session or visit ReadyTech’s Knowledge Base.

2. PRODUCER: Don’t go it alone.

An Assistant Instructor can help distinguish your session, as well as support you, the participants and the technology. They are an extra pair of hands, eyes, and ears!

Meet your Assistant Instructor in advance for pre-session preparation to discuss the best ways to be supported. Learn from each session by conducting a thorough debrief. For virtual instructor-led training (VILT) courses, ReadyTech recommends having an Assistant Instructor if the class is greater than 15 students–or if it’s the instructor’s first time teaching the course.

3. READINESS: Confirm that you, your participants and your technology are ready.

Use a Facilitator’s Guide to stay on track. At the start of your online class, don’t assume that participants are familiar with the ReadyTech online training platform. Give a quick how-to on the ReadyTech platform to teach participants how to work and learn in ReadyTech’s virtual training environment. Have backup plans in place for any unexpected technology issues, such as loss of internet connection.

4. SOUND: How you sound determines how people feel.

Deliver with a tone that says, “I want you here!” Make participants feel welcome and let them know you care. Be sure to call on individuals by name, remember to bring all students into the conversation, acknowledge them and incorporate participants’ comments and ideas into the session.

5. THINK: Practice “purposeful silence” when asking students to respond.

Allow quiet time for students to think and process. Thoughtfully comment on students’ ideas or questions submitted through chat. Instead of just reading these out loud, call on students to elaborate.

ReadyTech’s Chat and Whiteboard features can help instructors facilitate this strategy. For example, with Whiteboard, instructors can draw and write, as well as communicate flowcharts, IT configurations and process maps. Private and Public Chat enables one-on-one conversations between the instructor and other students, as well as chats between the entire class.

6. INTERACT: Encourage students to answer questions–instead of being the first to comment.

Facilitate group learning and collaboration by asking students to answer each other’s questions. ReadyTech’s Breakout Groups allows instructors to break the class into smaller groups, which enables student collaboration on case studies and lab exercises.

7. ADAPT: Manage time, adhere to course objectives and flow, and adapt to participant needs and expectations.

With ReadyTech’s Lab Timer, instructors can set a timer so students know exactly how much time they have to complete their virtual training labs. Students are able to indicate when they have completed each exercise and can track how long it took them.

8. ACTION: Open the class with purpose and respond to that purpose.

For example, open using a slide with a question on why the topic is important. Or ask students to share their challenges related to the topic. Read their responses and thread them throughout the course. A feature that can help with that is ReadyTech’s Public Chat. This feature allows back-and-forth communication in an easy way across the entire class, keeping track of the conversation, plus the functionality to search through chat history later in the course.

9. FACILITATE: Commit to no more lectures.

Instead, design hands-on activities for students to complete–either individually or within small groups. For example, instead of posting a slide with a bulleted list, ask students to share their own experiences. Because hands-on training is vital to the learning process, students need to spend time working with the product.

10. BREAKOUT: Breakout groups are great for facilitating student collaboration.

Always be very clear with the breakout group instructions and answer all questions before launching the breakouts. Be sure to check in on students throughout the breakouts in case they need help.

The key for any virtual instructor’s success is discovering how to create an engaging and meaningful class—from beginning to end. To help accomplish this, instructors can use Kassy LaBorie’s 10 master strategies while teaching an online class on ReadyTech’s VILT software.

We wanted to share the most interesting ideas and key takeaways from the conference:

Anthoine Wurth, CEO of Mindmarker, presented on how reinforcement increases impact. For attendees interested in learning actionable tips on how to use reinforcement to improve training and increase results, Wurth outlined practical tips on building reinforcement objectives; measuring knowledge retention; closing the common training reinforcement gaps, and achieving the three phases of behavior change.

In addition, Wurth spent part of his session explaining how to bring about behavior change. He explained that ROI is 0% until you see behavior change. And to get this behavior change, organizations must spend 15% of time “telling” the employee, 25% “giving” them the knowledge and skills to do it, and 60% of the time “incentivizing” the behavior change.

John Mattox, Managing Consultant at Corporate Executive Board, presented on how learning drives metrics. According to Mattox, as technology advances, so does learning. And new and different ways of learning develop every day. In this new world, learning and development professionals face two challenges: measuring the wide variety of learning methods and communicating the influence of learning to business leaders. His session described the best practices for measuring formal and informal learning, as well as practical ways to summarize and communicate the value of learning’s influence on performance.

In addition, Mattox discussed how today’s digital learner is empowered (they can find information anywhere and at anytime); networked (they have peers that can teach them how to do things); and impatient (they are accustomed to instantaneous and accessible information). He also explained how training portfolios fit into four categories: maximizing operational efficiency, driving growth, mitigating risk and building, and maintaining foundational skills.

Kassy LaBorie, Principal Consultant at Kassy LaBorie Consulting, and Karen Greenfield, Global Director of SAP’s Virtual Live Classroom Program, presented 20 master strategies for facilitating and giving virtual courses. Here, they shared powerful tips, tricks, and practices to lead engaging online learning sessions. For example, they offered the following virtual classroom methods to engage an audience:

• Practice “purposeful silence” when asking participants to respond by allowing quiet time for participants to think, process and respond.
• Encourage others to answer questions instead of being the first to comment.
• Research your topic, learn about your audience, use specific examples relevant to their industry, company, and the culture of the participants. Use stories to make the content memorable.
• Have a trusted friend or colleague who knows how to deliver online learning observe you and provide feedback and coaching. Get out of the rut of bad habits, such as too many filler words or calling attention to technology.

Becky Pluth, CEO and president of The Bob Pike Group, presented a session on improving retention. According to Pluth, research shows that we remember best when we see or hear a principle first and then have it repeated as the last thing in a session. Consequently, presenters must start strong and end strong—with intentional and effective openers and closers. And to improve retention and engagement throughout the webinar, Pluth suggests offering revisiters and energizers.

Her nine steps to effectively facilitating activities includes gaining attention, explaining the signal, explaining the directions, giving a model, repeating directions, giving a signal, watching the activity, thanking, debriefing and sharing.

And finally, Kevin Carroll, author, speaker and agent for social change, delivered the keynote address, which focused on how organizations and individuals should embrace their spirit of play and creativity. This, in turn, maximizes their human potential and sustains more meaningful business and personal growth.

According to Carroll, play was “serious” business in our youth—and it should be even more serious business in our professional lives if we hope to unleash the creative genius that spurs organizational growth. In his keynote, Carroll described the relevance of play and how we must continue to tap into those lessons for our future success. In addition, he spoke about how a business culture that incorporates “purposeful play” can improve leadership, employee quality of life, and retention, as well as attract new talent.

Because technology is a vital part of today’s workplace learning, training professionals must stay on top of the current trends. The ATD TechKnowledge conference not only showcased these trends, but also inspired and encouraged L&D professionals to embrace these trends in the workplace. The goal was to think, create, and connect. And that’s exactly what happened.

For more information about ATD TechKnowledge 2018, visit http://techknowledge.td.org/.