Building Learning Strategies for our New Reality

Building Learning Strategies for our New Reality

How can companies ensure they stay on the right track when it comes to building learning strategies for our current situation?

COVID-19 Calls for Learning Strategy Tweaks

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies world over are suddenly witnessing unprecedented times. The workforce, especially the leadership is called upon to be agile and quickly adapt to new realities.

Everyone, from the top to the bottom rungs is working from home. Such an arrangement was unimaginable, in normal times. In the past, several companies have prohibited work from home arrangements citing regulatory or privacy reasons. But in order to keep the show running, additional measures such as data security precautions, reliance on digital platforms, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity, have been pushed to the forefront.

So, what does this mean for learning? How can companies realign their learning strategies to fit the current situation? To answer this question, we must consider the employees’ current realities vis-à-vis pre-pandemic days. We must consider their psychological state, their physical wellbeing, and their surroundings. We must also consider how they spend their time given that they aren’t working in a formal setting now. Based on these factors we can draw relations to how learning is impacted and what needs to be altered in order to cater to the changing realities.

Overall, there will have to be a shift in the learning delivery mechanism. Companies will have to factor in scenarios where learning happens completely online in short spurts. Increased virtual learning sessions will have to not just aim at increasing competencies and bettering skills, but also on addressing mental health issues if any, making the employees feel secure, and keeping them engaged.

The importance of learning is and will always be critical.  And therefore, pandemic or no pandemic, learning interventions will still have to be rolled out; learning strategies will still have to be executed. However, the current reality of employees calls for keeping the learning strategy agile and dynamic, at least until we come out of the lockdown situation.

– By Vidyut Sonde, Director – Instructional Design at MPS Interactive Systems