Mobile learning in the workplace

What is driving adoption?

Future proofing:

Not all organisations are ready to roll out mobile learning. For example; currently they may not provide all staff with mobile devices or data to expect them to access their learning on their smartphones. But they understand that the trend is towards mobile learning, so a learning asset or resource built today needs to still work in the changing environment for a few years to come, and that means mobile.

Access:

Many organisations have issues with their LMS and sometimes need to improve their employees' access to learning and reference pieces without going through their existing LMS portal; especially with performance support pieces. For example one of our clients has mobile learning available to support sales reps on the job so they can interact with customers and instantly get access to vital information to improve their performance.

Speed:

Speed to develop and deploy learning is so important; it has to be rapid. Given the speed we are accustomed to within this digital age, when a request comes in for a learning resource, stakeholders expect a turnaround on a prototype in weeks if not days. Not the traditional months and months of development when everything was custom coded and built from scratch.

Performance support:

Mobile learning is perfect for performance support for those needing instant assistance on the job. For example managers can quickly refresh themselves on the GROW model moments before a coaching conversation is about to take place.

Barriers to mobile learning

Budget:

We need to be able to make investment but see the return. The great thing about mobile learning is it's more accessible and the tools are not very expensive. The cost versus the benefit is great, when you compare to the cost of an LMS years ago.

Integration with legacy LMS:

In providing a mobile learning experience there can be challenges with an existing LMS. Some organisations we work with host mobile learning outside of their LMS as their existing LMS doesn’t provide the experience their learners expect.

Security:

Many of our clients need to know that this learning is not going to get accessed by someone outside of the organisation. There are many mobile-based apps that organisations can use to solve these challenges and ensure security of their content. But it is a very important issue to address as this could be a portal to penetrate firewalls and hack into systems. Too much content for this blog, however our technical team are happy to talk with your team.

IT infrastructure to support:

Whether your organisation's IT team is willing and resourced to support this new technology. Ideally these solutions would be created so that there is minimal technical support required and the mobile learning resource can be managed within the L&D team. Most clients moving to mobile learning are leveraging the groundwork already laid out by mobility initiatives or joining existing mobility programmes, adding mobile learning as an adjunct to this.

Examples of mobile learning

SQUIZ

Squiz is a global technology company with around 450 employees located in Sydney, New York, Edinburgh, London and Melbourne.

They needed to raise awareness of key workplace behaviour policies to support their strategy of an inclusive and diverse workplace. Inspire Group worked with Squiz to identify the unique cultural quirks of each office and incorporated these into a 10-minute responsive module.

Just 5 days after launch, the module had a 47% completion rate, with users giving the experience a 5/5 star rating. See the full case study here.

SEEK

SEEK needed to raise awareness of mental health in the workplace and remove the stigma associated with it.

The most significant challenge was how we communicated the learning about such a sensitive topic and made that readily accessible.

Inspire Group created a mobile-first online experience, with research-backed design that raised awareness, assessed and introduced bias-breaking behaviours, and strengthened employee wellbeing. See full case study here.