The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast€¦ · The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps...
Transcript of The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast€¦ · The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps...
7 industry experts provide sensible solutions to identify and
close nagging skills gaps in your organisation.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast
Kenny Munck
Nick Etlar Eriksen
Soren Raagard
Omeed Aminian
Hans van Bergen
David Perring
David Patterson
Table of CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Introduction: The Corporate Skills Gap Problem 3
6 Steps to Identifying the Skills Gaps in Your Organisation 7
How to Change Your Content Production Paradigm 11
Building a Lasting Learning Culture 15
Empowering Your People to Create Rapid Content 19
How HU Created 400 Digital Courses in Just a Few Months (And 1,700 in Three Years) 24
Making Learning Stick 30
Identifying the Best Kind of Learning System for Closing the Skills Gap 36
Next Steps 40
About Eurekos 41
About the Authors 44
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 3
Introduction: The Corporate Skills Gap Problem
In a highly
competitive labour
market, the best
route to economic
growth is making
sure your learners
and workers are
prepared for
technological
disruption through
training and
education.
It’s hardly news to you that finding and hiring
the right employees has become a challenge
for every company and government agency
in Northern Europe. Studies and statistics
have been highlighting that trend for several
years. However, as one media report noted,
the “mismatch” has become so “acute,” these
countries face the prospect of losing out on the
upswing in business momentum that is driving
revenue growth in other parts of Europe.
The most recent Hays Global Skills Index, for
example, called out Sweden, Denmark and the
Netherlands, in particular, for continued hiring
challenges. This index uses 19 indicators to
quantify how easy or difficult it is for companies
in 33 global economies to attract and retain the
most talented workers. The higher the index
score, the more challenging the hiring process
is. A score above 5.0 suggests a labour market
under real pressure. All three countries come in
higher than that.
01By Kenny Munck
Country Overall Index Score Talent Mismatch Score
Sweden 6.7 9.9
Denmark 6.4 9.0
The Netherlands 5.6 5.9
The higher the index score, the greater the challenge in hiring. Source: the Hays Global Skills Index
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Introduction: The Corporate Skills Gap Problem 01
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As the report stated, two factors have come
into play, “both of which need to be tackled
urgently.” First, there’s a “growing talent
mismatch” between the set of skills workers
have and what’s required by employers,
demonstrated by a rise in unfulfilled
vacancies.
Second, labour productivity levels have
“flatlined,” a phenomenon that settled in
with the global financial crisis of 2008 and
hasn’t shifted since. As the report suggested,
stagnation in productivity reflects several
macroeconomic forces: a population that is
aging, a reduced investment in education
and training, and a reduction in global trade.
The challenge is only growing on both fronts
as work becomes increasingly digitalised.
The use of ubiquitous high-speed, mobile
internet; robotics; artificial intelligence; and
sensor-driven operations—encapsulated
by the monikers, “Industry 4.0” or “4th
Industrial Revolution”—suggests a future
in which digital processes and computing
technology are changing how work is done
as well as the skills workers will need to keep
up with those changes.
The number one antidote recommended
by the Hays report for driving economic
growth in the right direction is to make sure
that workers are prepared for technological
disruption through training and education.
Labour productivity levels have “flat-
lined,” a phenomenon that settled in
with the global financial crisis of 2008
and hasn’t shifted since.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 5
Introduction: The Corporate Skills Gap Problem 01
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How Traditional Skills Training Approaches FailHow do you keep your employees prepared?
Here too changes are afoot. The traditional
forms of training and education can no
longer keep pace. Sending members of
your staff off for a new round of classroom
training, delivered by a highly-paid expert
who may or may not understand your
specific challenges, isn’t necessarily the
solution that will address the skills gap your
organisation faces.
Classroom training is outdated on many
levels:
• Timing is a challenge. The logistics of
classroom training require that it be
scheduled in advance, when the space
and the trainer are both available, which is
often out of synch with the world you’re
actually living in and the problems you
face.
• The training is a passive experience. You
have several days in the classroom where
you’re expected to learn everything in one
go. Most people aren’t really ready for
that—especially those of us who haven’t
been in school for a long time. It’s really
difficult to maintain concentration over
that amount of time.
• The training is costlier. Frequently,
employees trained in the conventional
way need to travel to a different location,
stay in lodging, eat in restaurants and miss
days of work to obtain their training. One
company told us that it spends $1,000
per employee each year for their training.
How much training do you actually get for
that? A lot of that was related to hotels,
flights and transportation—all things that
have nothing to do with training but were
part of the cost because you have to
gather people in the classroom wherever
the training is being delivered.
• Work isn’t getting done. As valuable
as training programs are, whenever an
employee leaves for training, others are
left to pick up the slack—that is, if others
are available who know how to do the
work. People can’t do their jobs while
they’re in a classroom. That’s several days’
worth of lost productivity that put a dent
in the bottom line.
• The training is focused on learning, not
doing. Bringing people together in a
classroom makes for a generic training
experience. You end up discussing
somebody else’s problem, not your own.
As a result, people learning in a classroom
run the risk of forgetting much of what
they’ve learned by the time they’ve
returned to work. Studies have indicated
that classroom-based courses result in
participants remembering about a fifth of
what they learn, which equals to only a 20
percent value to your training investment.
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Introduction: The Corporate Skills Gap Problem 01
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• Getting the timing of training right
can be tricky. The learning in classroom
training often comes way before it’s
needed just for the sake of passing a test.
Take the example of GDPR certification.
Plenty of companies had staff take
their training in advance of when they
really needed to put the directive’s rules
into practice. The certification box was
checked! But when the time came for
them to do something related to GDPR
regulations, much of what they’d learned
was already forgotten. And there was
no way to recreate the lessons they’d
received because the instructor had
moved on and the assignments were over.
A Better Solution to Filling Your Skills GapsThe rest of this report lays out alternatives to
conventional skills training—online learning,
blended learning, and what might be called
sustainable learning—that overcomes every
single one of these obstacles.
Chapter 2 describes an approach for helping
you identify and analyse your organisation’s
skills gaps.
Chapter 3 examines how to change your
training content paradigm—especially the
leadership component needed for it to
succeed.
Chapter 4 shares three learning trends that
can help you build a learning culture in your
organisation to keep the skills gaps at bay
forevermore.
Chapter 5 provides a step-by-step plan for
empowering your subject matter experts to
create training content rapidly.
Chapter 6 offers a rapid production case
study and shares lessons learned from an
organisation that created literally hundreds
of courses for its students in an expedited
amount of time.
Chapter 7 explores how to supercharge your
learning and training with social elements
and collabouration.
Chapter 8 includes a checklist on the
features and functions your organisation
should shop for in selecting a next-
generation learning platform that will help
you close the skills gaps your organisation
faces.
Right now, the best remedy you have for
leading through the technological disruption
is by making sure your workforce can
pivot as new needs—products, services,
discoveries, opportunities—arise. And that
will require you to tackle head on any
skills gaps separating your operation from
success.
Kenny Munck is the CEO and Co-
Founder of Eurekos. Previous to
Eurekos, Kenny founded Mentorix,
a content development and
training company. During Kenny’s
23 years in both the public and
private sectors, he has spent
much of his time on corporate
learning, IT, program management
and business development. His
last ten years have been focused
on building innovative learning
technology and strong corporate
learning organisations.
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 7
6 Steps to Identifying Skills Gaps in Your Organisation
To develop a robust
training program,
you need to start
by understanding
what skills your
employees possess
now and which ones
they will require for
the future.
While researchers and executives often refer to
the skills “shortage,” “mismatch” or “gap,” people
may mean different things when they talk about
the basic concept. Sometimes it refers to the
inability of companies to hire people with the
appropriate skills needed to fill job vacancies.
Other times, the phrase is used to describe the
“competence gap” that exists within individuals;
they lack the “hard” skills or “soft” skills needed
to stay current with their jobs in administration,
production or service as the work evolves.
No matter how you define it, the result is
the same: needless pressure on business
productivity. An organisation with insufficient
staffing will be unable to stay current with
market demands, driving sales (and revenues)
to better-outfitted competitors across town or
across borders. And individuals lacking the skills
they need to do the job right impose a major
drag on corporate productivity.
In this chapter you will learn the six-step process
for identifying your organisation’s skills gaps.
Without that understanding, you will have little
success in filling the shortages and closing the
gap. More importantly, your organisation will
misdirect its training efforts, thereby wasting
time and money.
Preparing Your Company for a Digital FutureFour in 10 businesses in the European Union
(EU) report difficulties finding staff with the
right skills, according to the European Centre
for the Development of Vocational Training
(CEDEFOP). This challenge is only growing as
companies face increased competition for skilled
workers in specific areas (software developers,
cybersecurity experts and computer engineers,
to name three of the most extreme examples).
They also follow hiring and employment
practices that exacerbate recruitment difficulties
(such as companies expecting those they hire
to come 100-percent job-ready or relying on
02By Kenny Munck
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6 Steps to Identifying Skills Gaps in Your Organisation 02
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the same over-used social channels, such as
LinkedIn or Indeed, for identifying potential
candidates). The situation is not helped by
a business sector maintaining its outdated
expectation that training is to be provided
by the government.
The result is a downward spiral for workers,
who stay trapped in under-skilled jobs, and
for companies, which decline to invest in
new technologies for lack of right-skilled
employees.
Skills drive innovation, the key to enterprise
survival. By investing in development of skills
for your workers, your company supports
the workplace changes needed to sustain
market, product, and process innovation.
The recently released Future of Jobs Report,
from the World Economic Forum, found
that by 2022, based on the job profiles
of their current employees, almost half of
companies expect automation to lead to
“some reduction” in their full-time workforce.
However, 38 percent of businesses surveyed
anticipate extending their workforces to
new “productivity-enhancing roles.” And a
quarter expect automation to lead to the
creation of new roles in their organisations
that may not even exist today.
What are these roles and where will these
trained people come from? Among the jobs
referenced in the report are those that are
recognizable: data analysts and scientists,
software and applications developers, and
ecommerce and social media specialists.
While these roles obviously fit an increased
use of technology, there are others that rely
on more “human” skills: customer service
workers, sales and marketing professionals,
training and development experts,
innovation managers, and others.
However, among jobs that relate to emerging
technologies are specialist jobs that do not
exist in large numbers yet. Companies will
be seeking experts in artificial intelligence
and machine learning, big data analytics,
process automation, information security,
human-machine interaction, robotics, and
blockchain.
There are several fundamental ways
companies can prepare for their future
strategies:
• They can join the hiring fray and pay the
requisite;
• They can hope to automate work,
eliminating a trained workforce altogether;
or
• They can train existing employees.
Those organisations that master the work
of identifying and addressing skills gaps
now will be better positioned to reskill and
upskill their workforce in time to fully exploit
innovation initiatives that will help them
attain their business goals.
How to Conduct a Skills Gap AnalysisTo make your workforce as competitive as
possible for what’s coming, you need to
analyse your company’s skills needs and
the skills currently held by your workforce.
Here’s a step-by-step process:
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6 Steps to Identifying Skills Gaps in Your Organisation 02
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1. Start with your company strategy;
Identify company goals to understand
what roles will be needed in the near-term
and far-term. For example, you may find
that customer service operations currently
handled by phone will be conducted online
as part of a broader project to modernise
customer relationship management overall.
So, individuals working the phones and email
will need to develop skills for handling chat,
videoconferencing and other social channels.
2. Identify the roles required for reaching
those goals.
You can develop this list of roles with your
internal brain trust or turn to an openly
available resource, such as “The Future of
Jobs Report,” from the World Economic
Forum. An “industry profiles” section
segments the evolution of workforce
needs—both those that are “emerging” and
those “declining”—by industry and roles
through 2022 (see page 10).
3. Create an inventory of skills for each role.
You can turn to multiple sources to help
develop a list of the key skills needed for
specific roles. Some recruitment firms
specialise in performing comparative
studies across organisations to develop
skill inventories. Individual countries publish
official classifications of occupations,
describing the skills needed for each. And,
if you want to undertake the work internally,
you can use job listings from LinkedIn and
Indeed, for example, to compile the skills list.
Once you have the list of skills required for
specific jobs, you need to prioritise them in
two ways: first, by type of skill, and, second,
by level of mastery. Doing this will result in a
better, more manageable understanding of
each role.
4. Inventory the skills your employees have
already.
Now it’s time to find out where your
company currently stands. You can take
numerous approaches to assess your
employees:
• Cull through the employee reviews already
on file;
• Perform 360-degree reviews that identify
skills through co-worker and manager
feedback;
• Collect data directly from the employees
about their certificates and proven
competencies;
• Do observations of workers as they
perform their jobs;
• Assess them through testing or role play
for specific skills;
• Benchmark employees against top
performers in their roles; and
• Evaluate staff using specialised software.
5. Perform your skills-gap analysis.
In this step you compare the skills you need
from staff against the skills they possess. The
difference between those two elements is
the skills gap you’ll be bridging.
An important aspect of this stage is to
identify those employees that have shown
exceptional skills. (They’ll be especially useful
later as content experts. More on that in in
the next chapter.)
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6 Steps to Identifying Skills Gaps in Your Organisation 02
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6. Now it is time to close the skills gap.
Armed with the information your
organisation has developed about the roles
needed, the skills in place and those that
require further development, it is time to
get to work in closing the skills gaps. In this
phase, you develop and implement a training
program that uses a combination of learning
and social or peer support.
Now it’s time to change the paradigm
for your content production, which can
also help you embed learning into your
company’s culture. That’s covered in the next
chapter.
EMERGING DECLINING
8% in 2018 21% in 2022 41% in 2018 26% in 2022
Roles such as:
• Data Analysts and Scientists
• AI and Machine Learning Specialists
• Process Automation Specialists
• Software and Applications Developers and
Analysts
• Innovation Professionals
• Sales and Marketing Professionals
• Service and Solutions Designers
• Product Managers
• Industrial and Production Engineers
• Supply Chain and Logistics Specialists
Roles such as:
• Assembly and Factory Workers
• Data Entry Clerks
• Client Information and Customer Service Workers
• Accountants and Auditors
• Accounting, Bookkeeping and Payroll Clerks
• Administrative and Executive Secretaries
• Transportation Attendants and Conductors
• Material-Recording and Stock-Keeping Clerks
• General and Operations Managers
• Business Services and Administration Managers
This figure designates the roles expected to emerge and decline between now and 2022 in the automotive, aerospace,
supply chain and transport segments. Source: “The Future of Jobs Report 2018,” from the World Economic Forum.
Kenny Munck is the CEO and Co-
Founder of Eurekos. Previous to
Eurekos, Kenny founded Mentorix,
a content development and
training company. During Kenny’s
23 years in both the public and
private sectors, he has spent
much of his time on corporate
learning, IT, program management
and business development. His
last ten years have been focused
on building innovative learning
technology and strong corporate
learning organisations.
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 11
How to Change Your Content Production Paradigm
The use of internal
experts, the right
kind of learning
management
system and
management
commitment to
building a learning
culture will help
you keep up with
learning needs
through rapid,
timely content
creation.
Armed with your organisation’s skills gap
analysis, it is time to put a training program in
place. While traditional instructor-led training
has been the norm, that doesn’t work anymore.
People want to get training on the job, in
context, which means you need an alternative.
The goal is to limit the amount of time between
the knowing and doing. You also want to make
learning a part of the company’s culture so
the skills gap doesn’t continually occur. This is
done by developing a common language and
behaviour for learning within your operation.
It requires you to adopt a new paradigm for
content creation.
A Recipe for the Best Learning TodayThe best learning today uses a combination of
instructional formats:
• Short videos of recorded instruction (a la
YouTube);
• Digital materials and interactive activities, such
as text, animations, and quizzes, to keep the
learning active and engaging; and
• Social hubs with groups, chat, hashtagging,
and other aspects of social media in the
environment that enable learners to share
their ideas, questions and solutions with peers.
This approach offers numerous advantages over
classroom training. First, it can happen anywhere,
anytime. As long as the learner has access to
a device—a laptop, tablet or smartphone—and
an internet connection, he or she can watch a
video or review text. Scheduling ceases to be a
challenge.
Also, learning isn’t measured by full days. A
quick, 10-minute video lesson may be all the
student needs to move onto the next stage of
the job. Time commitment is minimal.
Next, this type of learning allows for
personalization. Rather than the instructor
deciding what needs to be taught next, the
student is in the position of choosing what to
learn next, making it a more active experience.
03By Nick Etlar Eriksen
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How to Change Your Content Production Paradigm
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03The ability for the student to communicate
with others through social channels enables
him or her to combine knowledge gain with
context to deepen the learning, allowing
work to be accomplished even as the
training goes on.
Finally, the cost is greatly reduced because
there’s no travel involved, no time out of
the office, and learning time becomes more
productive. You can easily cut down your
training costs by 50 to 60 percent while
actually improving quality. The investment in
this type of learning quickly pays for itself.
There are just three components you need
for success:
• A user-friendly learning management
system;
• Robust digital content; and
• Management support.
The learning management system or LMS is
a dedicated application that allows you to
maintain course content—videos and other
e-learning materials—and manage the user
Why It’s Time to Throw Away Your (First -Generation) LMS)
In first-generation use of LMSs, companies frequently did not realise that the LMS
came without content. When it came time to deliver training, as a result, many
scrambled to purchase digital lessons sold by third-party service agencies that
specialised in creating training videos. This training often used actors to portray staff
and may have had high production quality. But too often, the content was generic—
made for any business, for example, that was using a particular version of a software
program. Or, if budget was no object, the company might contract to have custom
training videos produced (with the obligatory high price). However, when the work
process changed or a new version of the software was deployed, the training was
no longer relevant. The company had to choose between forcing their employees to
watch outdated materials or to wait for a new version of the training to be released.
Neither approach was optimal.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 13
How to Change Your Content Production Paradigm
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03experience. This is where the learner logs
in to gain access to the learning materials.
He or she works through a lesson—reading,
viewing a video, taking a quick assessment
to measure understanding—and can then
return to the job at hand or continue
with additional lessons. The LMS tracks
advancement to keep the employee on
target and to report progress to the team or
manager.
In an environment where you have multiple
groups that require different forms of
training, a well-designed LMS gives you a
simple way to organise those divisions and
give them access to the right training. In the
case of compliance training, the LMS keeps
track of who has gone through the training
and completed it successfully and will even
follow up with laggards automatically to
remind them to get it done by your chosen
deadline.
Digital content is a separate entity from the
LMS. Whereas the LMS provides the “home”
in which your online learning resides, the
digital content makes up the “furnishings”—
what will be used by your workers to gain
the job skills needed to fill your skills gaps.
Fortunately, a new generation of LMS has
emerged that allows companies to create
their own training videos and other digital
materials rapidly. This type of LMS provides
simple and effective authoring tools that
allow training programs, including videos,
to be set up by anybody in the company
and to modify them as the need arises.
Materials can be updated, videos replaced
and learners notified as work needs change.
A new generation of LMS has emerged
that allows companies to create their
own training videos and other digital
materials rapidly.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 14
How to Change Your Content Production Paradigm
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03(You’ll learn more about the optimal features
and functions for the LMS in Chapter 8.)
I liken the use of online learning with an
LMS and digital content to Lego bricks.
Every brick is independent, but it can be
put together with a number of other bricks
in a thousand different ways. Your training
catalogue can be a huge mountain of Lego
bricks that you update and put together
very easily and effortlessly. Then people
more or less design the models they’re
using. You should think of learning as the
bricks and the skills you need as the model
you build.
By applying online learning, you can develop
a really huge skills directory. Then you can
tap into those skills and build the models
that you need.
Also Crucial: Leadership CommitmentThe third requirement for online learning is
leadership buy-in. Without that, there won’t
be the requisite investment needed to put
an effective LMS in place. But even more
importantly, if staff does not perceive that
executives value the skills development
being offered, they will not put time or effort
into the training program.
How do executives communicate that
bridging the skills gap is important to
the organisation? By participating in it
themselves. If you have a manager or leader
telling other people to do training, but they
don’t do it themselves or they make fun
of people learning new things, then you
have a problem. Slowly, you degrade the
value of training. In my opinion, if you build
up a culture like that as a company, you’ll
eventually go out of business.
Nick Eriksen is the Chief
Technology Officer and Co-founder
of Eurekos. Since the mid 90’s
he has developed and improved
online experiences and solutions
in a wide range of industries and
business areas for both the public
and private sectors.
Outfitted with a well-designed learning
management system and the management
commitment to invest in and adopt online
learning, your organisation will be ready to
tackle the next part of the transformation:
developing the digital content that will help
your people gain the skills they need to
move your company forward.
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Building a Lasting Learning Culture
Organisations that
can build a learning
culture today and
tap into learning
trends will prepare
their current and
future workforce for
whatever is coming
next and keep skills
gaps at bay.
The future workforce is now sitting in a
classroom somewhere. And soon enough
organisations will be hunting down those
students to fill jobs we don’t know that we’ll
need because they don’t exist yet. How do you
fill that kind of skills gap and get them trained
quickly so they’re useful as soon as possible?
Similarly challenging, as huge numbers of our
employees head into retirement, how do we
retain the knowledge they’re walking out with as
they leave our companies?
Maybe instead of putting the focus on
onboarding, we should turn our attention
immediately to offboarding — making sure that
from the day people start inside the company,
we begin capturing their learning so that when
they leave in four (or 40) years, we have a way
of continually passing on those experiences to
others inside the organisation who need the
lessons too.
This calls for creation of a learning culture.
Inspiring a learning culture starts by
understanding how knowledge travels in your
organisation, which may differ from unit to unit
or team to team. Knowing who people turn to
in times of need will help you identify those
trusted individuals within the various divisions
who can serve as “ambassadors” (also referred
to as “change agents,” “learning culture agents”
or even “lighthouses”) to pave the way. Their job
is to show others how to share what they know.
They’re the ones you want creating quick videos
to record the steps for using that new software
program or tuning the new equipment; they’re
the ones who think to pull out their smartphones
and interview participants after an important
project meeting to briefly answer the three key
questions that others will find useful when they
get involved in the same project.
Those “learnings” can then be posted onto
a platform where they’re easily tagged for
searchability and made accessible.
04By Soren Raagard
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Building a Lasting Learning Culture
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04Then it’s time for testing a hundred different
approaches and seeing what works. Iteration
is important. Besides documenting how
anybody does a given job in the company,
it’s important to add something to it—to
make it better for the next person doing the
job.
Those who can share their expertise aren’t
just giving something; they’re getting
something back. Because they know they’ll
be showing others how the work is done,
they’ll approach it with greater pride, and
they’ll feel sharper and more alive. Too often
people get protective about what they know,
as if that’ll protect them during the next
round of layoffs. If you can persuade them
that they alone understand things worth
passing onto others now, in the present,
you’ll have gone far in achieving the learning
culture.
New Forms of LearningIt’s a given that learning should happen just
in time—when people need the information
and not months before, when a trainer was
available. Making that learning accessible
through a mobile device means it sits in the
pocket or purse of every employee, ready
to access when they need the knowledge.
Likewise, learning needs to be personalized,
made available in multiple formats. Some
people want to watch; others are hands-on;
some still prefer reading.
But there are other trends in learning worth
considering. All three of these are being
tested out in companies that Eurekos is
working with. And they all will influence how
the learning culture operates in the future.
Learning needs to be personalized and
made available in multiple formats.
Some people want to watch; others
are hands-on; some still prefer reading.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 17
Building a Lasting Learning Culture
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04Bringing Augmented Reality to Life
Although virtual reality—the replacement
of the physical world with a virtual one
that’s viewed through a headset—gets most
of the attention right now, the future of
learning belongs to augmented reality — the
imposition of virtual aspects on top of the
real world.
Imagine a windmill operator that has to send
its employees to the top of giant turbines
for various repair and maintenance activities.
Why not have the most experienced
workers wear augmented glasses to record
a video of what they’re seeing and doing
to enable others to learn how to do the
work too? Maybe a specific technician has
even perfected some aspect of the job that
others would benefit from. By identifying
and tagging that person’s learning and
calling special attention to it, the educational
experience is enhanced for the next person
who needs to head up a windmill.
Useful Artificial Intelligence
The typical approach for staffing a new
project is for the manager to hunt around
and find those people who are sitting on the
bench, not doing much and assigning them
for some part of their schedule to the new
work. Or a manager may know that specific
people work well together, so they’ll push to
bring them together for the next project or
the one after that. But what happens when
that manager leaves or those people have
gone in different directions? Using personal
experience isn’t always the best way of
creating an excellent project team.
Forward-looking organisations are flipping
around the normal equation. How does
this work? For a company experimenting
with the use of artificial intelligence. They
maintain data on what education their
people have, what projects they’ve worked
on, what skills (hard and soft) they have and
who’s available. The AI platform suggests
what would be an optimal mix of individuals
for any given project.
AI will also eventually provide “smart”
assistance. Instead of the user having to pull
out a mobile device to hunt down whatever
training is needed, a virtual assistant will
make itself available, off to the side of the
email, the conversation, the ERP system—
all the platforms being used—to deliver
The future of learning
belongs to augmented
reality—the imposition of
virtual aspects on top of
the real world.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 18
Building a Lasting Learning Culture
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
04whatever information is required to finish a
given task.
Advanced Gamification
Among the activities supported: Teams
work together against the clock to
solve challenges. The intention is to
show participants the importance of
collabouration and to demonstrate that
every member of a team—from the highest
role in the hierarchy to the humblest—has
something to contribute.
The room idea is part of a movement to
add “gamification” or elements of gaming
to learning. The best game makers have
learned how to create narrative that push
players to try and try again without making
them so frustrated, they give up. The best
learning does the same: It gives workers
enough of an edge to keep them moving
forward without throwing up their arms and
walking away. A big part of gaming involves
recognition—through leaderboards or digital
badging. The idea is to publicly recognize
those who have contributed the most. In
this context, there could be a leaderboard
broadcasting those who have uploaded
the most learning modules, thereby helping
others who need to do the same kind of
tasks.
When Everybody Becomes a TeacherThe ultimate goal is for everybody in the
organisation to consider it part of their job
to share what they’re learning and to teach
others. I’m not talking about creating a
procedure, slideshow or spreadsheet where
people document what they’re doing and
then store it on a site where nobody can
find it. In a learning culture, the output is
intended to serve as educational content
and materials.
If everybody in the company becomes a
"teacher", that makes for a lot of
knowledge generation. It also sparks a lot
of job satisfaction. People realize their
unique qualities and feel pride in what they
know.
Instead of keeping knowledge apart from
those who need it, a learning culture builds
trust inside of the organisation, among its
members.
Soren Raagard is the Vice
President in charge of business
development and partners at
Eurekos, which produces a highly
popular learning management
system and helps its clients create
learning with impact by speeding
up the creation and delivery of
learning content. Previously, he
served as the Director of digital
strategy at LEGO Digital and
LEGO Education. Soren leads from
London.
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 19
Empower Your People to Create Rapid Content
You already have
much of the
expertise you need
to develop online
learning content.
Here is how the
process works on
the ground (or, as it
were, in the air).
Filling the skills gaps within your organisation
requires you to identify the learning outcomes
needed by your workforce and developing the
lessons they need—along with the work activities
that will give those lessons meaning and help the
training stick.
Let’s take an example. Imagine that your
organisation has adopted a new tablet-
based alert system to notify workers when
the production process has reached specific
thresholds. The system’s goal is to minimise
maintenance downtime by applying digital
technologies—sensors and software—to capture
and relay problems for quick attention before
they cause a production delay. No longer will
employees rely strictly on “gut instinct” to know
when to act.
You could haul those staff members into a
classroom for a day or two of training on the
new system and hope they remember everything
they are taught. You could allow them to
learn through trial and error (and write off its
necessary costly mistakes). Or you could provide
them with a set of digital lessons directly on
those tablets.
After a brief introduction to show employees
how the tablets work, they could return to work.
Then, each time an alert cropped up, they could
be directed with a link to a specific video in
which a co-worker shows them how to interpret
the alert and respond accordingly. An advantage
of this approach is that you can grow your
inventory of learning content to keep one step
ahead of the experience level of your workforce.
And when individual staff members have
expanded their knowledge beyond the lessons
you’ve made available, you can turn them into
the content experts and have them produce the
next generation of learning materials.
This chapter lays out a new approach for
building the lessons your workforce needs—by
tapping into their own expertise and allowing
them swiftly to create the training modules for
your online learning system.
05By Omeed Aminian
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 20
Empowering Your People to Create Rapid Content
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
05Building the Vision for LearningWhere do you start? We recommend the
use of a “learning blueprint” to document
the learning needs of the organisation. The
blueprint examines the following areas:
• What learning problems need to be
solved;
• What the benefits will be for solving those
problems;
• What the future will look like after those
problems are solved;
• How those benefits can be quantified
through key performance indicators or
some other measure; and
• What resources—people and technology—
are available to provide learning content.
This document is intended to serve as
a roadmap to help you mark progress,
whether that is for the purpose of regulatory
compliance or to fill the broader skills
gaps your organisation needs as it makes
its digital transformation. The details will
also help you understand what lessons
need to be learned on an individual basis
and what learning should be tackled as a
group activity through social channels. This
The Need for Nimble Learning
E-learning consultant David Patterson, who runs Learning Light, a centre of
excellence in the use of learning technologies, recalled a global ferry operator that
had a learning & development unit focused on health and safety training and an
external agency to which it outsourced all other learning content.
Frustrated with the slow response to a request for a specific module of training, one
compliance manager took matters into his own hands and created a lesson for all
staff, warning them to “shut the storage warehouse when you leave to keep the rats
out.” The learning “was pretty rough,” Patterson added, “but he was able to build
it quickly and checked out that everybody had taken the course.” The result: The
compliance manager “solved his rat infestation problem.”
“progress report” will also serve to keep your
online learning efforts moving forward and
your executives motivated to continue their
own participation and ongoing support of
the program.
Identifying Your ExpertsOnce you have this vision of learning in
place, it’s time to begin developing your
catalogue of online lessons—either from
external or internal sources. Embedding a
learning culture calls for the organisation to
expand its definition of who the expert is.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 21
Empowering Your People to Create Rapid Content
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
05You may decide that the experts should be
external sources. If your company has just
adopted the use of a new application that’s
widely available and all the staff needs is
some basic lessons, or you want them to
develop “soft skills” in standardised areas
such as communication or writing, you
could easily find expertise freely available on
sources such as YouTube or Khan Academy
and embed links for those videos into the
learning management system (LMS). The
disadvantage here is that the lessons would
be highly generic and may not apply as
closely to your corporate situation as you
would prefer.
Depending on the subject matter, you
could also license training content through
international services such as the Eurekos
Content Marketplace, OpenSesame,
LinkedIn’s Lynda.com, Coursera, Udemy,
360training, Pluralsight or HubSpot
Academy. The Eurekos LMS, specifically,
can host any of the lessons from these
content providers to make it look like it is
being delivered right from your company,
simplifying access for the learner.
A third route—the one we recommend—is
to develop your internal subject matter
experts (SMEs), especially for content
that is specific to your organisation. These
SMEs are individuals who have excelled in
their jobs and proven themselves willing
to share what they know. Outfitted with
a smartphone camera, for instance, these
experts can quickly put together short
videos explaining a specific task. Once those
are placed into your LMS catalogue, others
can access them on an as-needed basis to
solve their problems. The result is employee-
We recommend you develop your
own internal subject matter experts
(SMEs), especially for content that is
specific to your organisation.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 22
Empowering Your People to Create Rapid Content
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
05to-employee learning, the existence of
which accelerates development of a learning
culture.
Your company may have dedicated subject
matter experts; but relying solely on them
to provide learning materials can create a
bottleneck. On the other hand, you have a
lot of people in the field. If you allow them
to build courses and contribute to the
content side of things, you exponentially
grow the number of people contributing
to a company’s structures and knowledge.
Then your formal subject matter experts or
the learning department can dedicate their
time to validating that, where required by
regulations, the learning meets compliance
levels, quality measures, or standard
procedures before it’s added to the LMS for
distribution.
Capturing and Converting Knowledge Into LessonsA massive amount of knowledge already
exists within your organisation. Often, it’s
just not very well documented. The key to
succeeding with online learning is to capture
what these “homegrown” experts know and
to convert it into lessons.
Take the example of a crane operator. Who’s
the best person to do training about how
to handle a rope change on a crane? That’s
the guy who’s doing it as part of his job and
is the most skilled at it. So why not let him
create the e-learning and allow the subject
matter expert to validate that the way he
does it is exactly according to the quality
manual and the standard procedures?
The funny thing is that people who really
love their job, those are the people who love
to tell other people how to do it. They don’t
feel like it’s a burden. Sometimes if you ask
an overburdened subject matter expert to
produce more e-learning, he or she will really
feel the stress—whereas the person who
does this activity every day sees it as an
opportunity to be known as the best at their
job. Often, the only thing holding them back
is software licensing or software that’s too
complicated for them to use.
Another benefit: You do not need to figure
out how to get a crew 30 meters into the air
(or whatever the specialised environment
is) to produce the video. You can train the
crane operator how to use the camera and
make a small film. Once that person is down
from the crane, you have your movie.
The same is true for numerous other
settings. If you want to do a demonstration
of a new device, a new piece of medical
People who really love their
work—those are the people
who love to tell other
people how to do it. They
see it as an opportunity to
be known as the best at
their job.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 23
Empowering Your People to Create Rapid Content
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
05equipment, get the people who actually
know how to operate this machine to show
it instead of a sales person or actor. We are
finding that people don’t really like these
polished movies or interactions because it
feels too much like a commercial. They want
the real stuff. They want people who know
stuff because it’s a lot more credible. It’s
really about making learning objects that are
authentic.
In a setting where the training involves
software, the expert can be taught to turn
on a screen capture function that records his
or her voice as well as the on-screen steps
taken in the program to handle a specific
operation.
No matter what the type of activity that
needs to be explained in the lesson, by
turning to these skilled workers, you can
quickly populate your learning management
system with content that’s relevant and
specific.
Another benefit is that by relying on internal
experts, whenever the training needs to
be updated, you can call on that same
individual to redo the recording and replace
that part of the lesson that is out of date. It’s
no longer a big deal involving production
companies, scripting or makeup artists.
Developing Other Forms of Online LearningYour organisation can also use text and
diagrams from reports, whitepapers, web
content and other company sources to
create interactive content to accompany
the videos. A well-designed learning
management system provides the tools and
features needed to convert those materials
into digital content that can be used to
amplify and support your video learning.
The same is true for social media. People
are already interacting with each other
outside of a classroom. By building similar
capabilities into your learning program,
you can allow them to maintain their
conversations that extend beyond the
immediate lessons at hand and continue the
emphasis on growing a learning culture.
Omeed Aminian is a Senior
Consultant with Eurekos, helping
customers to develop and
transform their learning cultures.
Eurekos is a European-based
company that produces a highly
popular learning management
system and helps its clients create
learning with impact by speeding
up the creation and delivery of
learning content.
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 24
How HU Created 400 Digital Courses in Just a Few Months (and 1700 in Three Years)
As the experience
of this organisation
shows, anybody
can become expert
in creating training
content fast.
Hogeschool Utrecht faced a big problem The
Netherlands-based university of applied sciences
needed to train a lot of teachers for their
certifications—and fast. The challenge: These
particular Dutch educators were situated 7,800
kilometres away on three Caribbean islands that
had just become special municipalities of the
country.
Fortunately, the institution was already working
on a solution. With the use of the Eurekos
learning management system (LMS) subject
matter experts set to work building online
courses. Armed with the right processes and
technology, the university accomplished the
production of 400 digital courses in a few
months and 1,700 courses in just three years.
This article lays out the journey my university
followed to develop those processes, describes
the technology needed to achieve the project
and provides advice on how to emulate the
success. What’s important about Utrecht’s
example is that it’s easily translatable to the
rapid creation of learning content in any type of
organisation.
Getting StartedUtrecht’s School of Education had already been
testing the use of online learning to reach two
groups of students.
The first was made up of those who lived
elsewhere in the Netherlands and couldn’t move
to Utrecht for their master education, being
actual teachers. The students didn’t want to
come to Utrecht each week, so we had to find a
different solution for teaching them. There was
demand from the market.
06
By Hans van Bergen
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 25
How HU Created 400 Digital Courses in Just a Few Months (and 1700 in Three Years)
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
06The second group of students were those
enrolled in specialized degree programs
that had too few students to sustain on
their own. For example, there weren’t
many people pursuing careers as German-
language teachers. But by collabourating
with other universities, those small programs
could be brought together to make a group
of learners sufficiently large to sustain and
support.
In both scenarios, digital learning provided
an alternative to the expensive and time-
consuming travel burdens of in-person
instruction. Most important was that the
learning process of the students was
supported, not disrupted, by the digital
component.
If Utrecht had been a company instead of
a university, that first group of students
might represent employees in remote
offices; and the second group could be
employees from outside the organisation
that need the same training as employees
inside—such as individual franchisees,
customers, sales representatives and support
and maintenance service providers. It’s
logistically and financially difficult to bring
those individuals to a single location for
instruction on new products, procedures
and regulations. With the right technology
in place, you can deliver online training to
them and bring them up to speed anytime,
anywhere.
While a few people had been dabbling with
digital course creation, the university had
been struggling with a Microsoft SharePoint
deployment to make those training modules
available to students. But the pedagogical
concept of the teacher training department
was not at all supported by this SharePoint
solution. To promote “lifelong learning,”
we developed an educational concept at
Hogeschool Utrecht that used blended
learning and strong social interaction
between teachers and students.
At that time, I served as consultant for
educational innovation. The university asked
me to design a digital learning platform
based on our pedagogical needs that used
video content and other learning materials
and could support learning teams. Nick
Erikson, the chief technology officer and
co-founder of Eurekos who worked with me
in that first phase of the project, understood
very well what we needed and was able to
translate my instructional design into real
working digital solutions.
Sure, teachers were used to standing in front
of students and delivering the content in
person. As they told Nick and me, “You can’t
do my material digitally.” Working together,
however, we created 15 weeks of classes in a
matter of days.
Those of us who were early “test pilot”
faculty members developing digital content
for the digital learning courses served as
ambassadors among the other instructors at
the School of Education. Suddenly, faculty
were very willing to make courses. We told
many teachers, “You can do this next year.”
But they lined up in front of my office saying,
“I want to do it now.”
About that time, those three Caribbean
islands, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and
Saba, became special municipalities of
the Netherlands. The Dutch Ministry of
Education, Culture and Science dedicated
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 26
How HU Created 400 Digital Courses in Just a Few Months (and 1700 in Three Years)
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
06funding to recruit and train educators
for island schools, which were facing a
considerable teacher shortage. Suddenly,
Utrecht, which is one of the major
universities for training teachers, was called
on to expand its pedagogical concept and
make it available immediately.
The university administrators understood
what we were doing and supported the
implementation with time and resources.
That enabled us to develop what now is
known as Eurekos, a real Next Generation
Digital Learning Environment. Because the
courses have been developed in an inductive
way, support from teachers and students
is very high. Both roles are involved in the
development of the platform. After all, both
the teachers and the students wanted those
courses. And the technology was supporting
it. In short order, students were taking
courses online and meeting with university
instructors once every six weeks to complete
their training.
While the university set up on-campus
production studios where faculty could
go to create the videos and other kinds of
content for their courses, many instructors
chose to do it from their office or home in
spare minutes.
Within a few months, the original 20 or 30
courses grew to become 400. Within three
years, that count had more than quadrupled.
Each course consists of instructor videos
lasting between 5 and 10 minutes, videos
produced externally and made available to
students, as well as animations, gamification,
quizzes and textual content, among other
components.
Within a few months, the original 20
or 30 courses grew to become 400.
Within three years, that count had
more than quadrupled.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 27
How HU Created 400 Digital Courses in Just a Few Months (and 1700 in Three Years)
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
06Now the students who took those courses
from the university are using the same
technology and processes to create lessons
to use in their classrooms too, as they work
as interns. Their students can watch videos
on their own and come to class ready to
join in on discussions, projects and other
learning activities, all within our scope of
personalized, blended learning.
In business and government, new programs
are continually being introduced. While the
largest corporations may be able to turn to
an in-house learning and development unit
to develop training on those new programs
or contract that work out to a training
production firm, most companies don’t have
access to those high-priced luxuries and
sometimes it takes much longer. However,
every organisation has internal experts,
people who would be willing to help their
fellow staffers learn how to follow the new
procedures or use the new equipment if they
just had a little bit of training on how to do it,
along with the right technology.
The Secret to the Fast Production of Training ContentThe secret to quick content creation is
using the right platform for content creation
and distribution. For Hogeschool Utrecht’s
School of Education that was Eurekos, an
LMS that specializes in helping people do
rapid course and content creation. It takes
just a few minutes to set up the course
structure in Eurekos and then add the
content—those videos and other elements—
that learners will interact with.
Among the features of Eurekos that have
proven most useful to us:
Collabourative content creation. Sometimes
content needs to be created by people
working together from multiple locations.
Eurekos enables them to co-create and
maintain learning content with page locking
and version tracking.
The ability to clone courses and modify
them with localized information. One of
the advantages of the way Eurekos works
is that you can easily make copies of an
existing course and work with that copy. If
you have one course that fits, you can make
a copy of it and continue working on that for
subsequent courses.
The capacity to keep courses fresh.
Maintenance is an issue with content.
It can go out of date quickly and for all
kinds of reasons—regulatory changes, new
processes, new management preferences.
With Eurekos, users can make universal
The secret to quick content
creation is using the right
platform for content
creation and distribution.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 28
How HU Created 400 Digital Courses in Just a Few Months (and 1700 in Three Years)
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
06
Five Ways to Speed Up Course Creation
1. Find enthusiasts to help spread the
word.
Identify those people in your
organisation who are willing to create
training modules for their purposes
and then serve as beacons to let
others—who might be sceptical—know
that it’s doable. Once you realize that
subject matter experts are all around
and you don’t have to wait for training
professionals (or actors) to tackle
the work, your content creation will
accelerate dramatically. People will
teach each other and start to utilize
each other’s content. They don’t all
have to start from scratch. Then it will
spread like rings in the water.
2. Consider auditions.
You may need it. People don’t have to be
instructional designers to know how to teach
others. Some people have a knack for it and
they have an excellent view of what content
is meaty or meaningful, based on their
subject matter expertise. Or they might have
a knack of presenting things in a specific
way. Your goal: to unleash the potential of
your organisation by finding those people
who want to make that effort.
3. Monitor the data to avoid wasting time.
The best learning management systems
provide reporting on what’s being used and
for how long. Focus on creation of those
items that gain traction among your learners.
If nobody is watching the introductory
video that explains what every other lesson
contains or few people are participating in
the discussion forums, dump those from
your courses and move on.
4. Use integrations.
For example, H5P is a set of standards
that simplifies the sharing of interactive
lesson modules that can be easily
integrated into eLearning to make
training much more engaging. If you
have a source for learning content that
you can bring into your own courses,
using an application that supports
integrations will save you the effort of
having to create it yourself.
5. Choose a partner wisely.
There are large companies that promise
their learning management system will
work in any situation—as long as you
change your processes to fit with their
technology. It’s better to identify a
learning management system provider
that is responsive to user needs and will
jump on good ideas and make them a
reality as quickly as possible.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 29
How HU Created 400 Digital Courses in Just a Few Months (and 1700 in Three Years)
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
06changes throughout the content as required.
Here’s a simple example. At Hogeschool
Utrecht, many instructors share YouTube
videos with their students as part of their
course materials. When YouTube changes
how it presents links to videos, it would be
a tedious job to have to update every link
manually that was posted in the course.
Eurekos allows changes to be applied
universally.
A user-friendly interface. Users just point
and click to set up their lessons. That is, of
course, a great advantage of this platform.
Instructors could do it easily, and it was fun
to do, and they had good results. That’s why
it was easy to get big numbers of courses
created.
Support for social learning. It’s very hard
to sit at your kitchen table and do learning
all by yourself. It’s better if you can meet
people and learn together. Eurekos facilitates
social interaction through standard LMS
features, like discussion forums, and takes it
a step further by offering seamless access to
Twitter and Facebook within courses.
Mobile-readiness. Content that’s created
in Eurekos works with any display size
immediately. There’s no need for users to
worry about technical details. And learners
can use whatever mobile device they have
available—laptop, tablet or smartphone—to
do their training on the go.
Solid administration. On the back side,
the learning management system includes
administrative tools, such as the ability to
lay out the path of learning for a particular
student based on level of expertise, role, or
interest. A learning analytics component
enables the student to track his or her
progress and address specific skills gap.
For instructors or managers, the system
also reports data about progress and
performance.
The advantage of Eurekos is that if you have
an idea, you can realize it quickly. People are
enthusiastic about creating their own online
courses because technology is not hindering
them.
Hans van Bergen specialised in
the use of IT in education for more
than 25 years. First, he created
e-learning courses in music for
primary school teachers. Then he
was involved in developing and
implementing a digital portfolio in
teacher training for many years.
And finally, he was a consultant
for innovation in education at
Hogeschool Utrecht. Hans has
presented his ideas on blended
learning at Dutch universities and
other educational institutes all over
the world. Recently, Hans retired
from Hogeschool Utrecht and
is now senior partner at Creblz
International.
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 30
Making Learning Stick
Supercharge your
organisation’s
training with social
and collabouration
to make the
learning memorable.
Arguably, supporting people through behavioural
change is one of the most important drivers
for Learning & Development teams today. But
it doesn’t just happen because someone has
attended a course or clicked through some
digital learning. The only way to truly understand
if people are changing is through feedback
from others, which is why a continuous, social
approach to learning has become business-
critical for L&D.
What Do You Need to Make Learning Stick?Change is the watchword now. People need to
learn at ever increasing speeds in ever changing
environments. According to Fosway research,
over 70 percent of organisations are already
underway with their digital transformation of
learning, but more broadly, the world of work is
changing and along with it, working habits and
worker expectations.
The millennial cliché is overplayed, but the
demographic of the workforce is undeniably
changing. Gen Z is on its way, but actually the
aging workforce is a bigger trend that needs
L&D’s attention. (See Figure 1)
The different profile of workers (and therefore)
learners coupled with today’s technology means
that people are demanding to work and learn in
different ways. And that desire to learn should
not be underestimated. It really matters. In fact,
having the opportunity to always learn new
skills is the #1 reason why people want to join
organisations today, according to our latest HR
Realities Research. This represents an exciting
opportunity for L&D. Coupled with the fact that
nearly 90 percent of learning professionals see
skills gaps becoming more significant, demand
for L&D to show what it can do should be at an
all-time high.
07By David Perring
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 31
Making Learning Stick
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
07
50% 50% On Their Way...
BABY BOOMERSPost WWII baby
boom, bornroughly
1946-1964
GEN X GEN YBorn early mid
1960s toearly 1980s
Often calledMillennials. Born
1980 to late 1990s
GEN ZBorn early 2000s
and on
A
B C
The war for talent is as real today as it was
when McKinsey first coined the phrase in
the 1990s. And if the L&D team can grasp
this opportunity to show its impact, then it
a should be positioned as a key component
of an organisation’s employee value
proposition.
But the reality is that L&D currently does
too little to create truly great, continuous,
collabourative experiences that change
behaviour, drive performance and make
learning stick. From this year’s “Digital
Learning Realities” research we found that
organisations aren’t necessarily maximizing
their training efforts. (See Figure 2)
The focus on content and one-off
interventions (whether digital or face-to-
face) continues to be pervasive in L&D.
Coaching, mentoring, social, ongoing
collabouration and connecting to experts
are not features that are built into learning
experiences from the outset often enough.
Ironically, after the learning intervention is
when learners need help the most, such as
when they’re trying to apply new skills on
the job—but it is at this point they are all
too often abandoned to get on with it by
themselves. Not helpful or likely to make
learning stick.
How to Make Learning Stick1. Know that all the best learning is really
“social learning,” and design it around
collabouration.
The concept of social learning has been
debated by education experts in more detail
than we can do justice to here. Interestingly,
Figure 1. The changing workforce demographic.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 32
Making Learning Stick
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
07
since some have begun to apply it in an
organisational/corporate context, it is
increasingly interpreted as “social media for
learning,” which is a growing trend but not
quite the same thing.
Ultimately, social learning can occur in lots
of different ways, both online and offline.
Sharing tacit knowledge of what works, how
to get things done, enabling continuous
improvement and providing feedback has
been around for millennia.
It’s important to step back from the hype
and the tools in order to think about how
Two-thirds fail to systematically support learners’ application of learning in the workplace
Less than one-third look to sustain learning in the workplace
More than 55% fail to consistently measure learning progress
60% are failing to systematically drive the development of mastery and expertise
Only 1 in 4 routinely adopt multi-channel learning delivery.
WORKPLACE
TEAM
L&DEXPERT
PERSONAL
LEARNER
Aquire
Practice
Do
Figure 2. Where organisations are failing in their learning strategies.
Figure 3. Learning experiences need to be designed
around an Agile learning mix that puts learners at the
centre.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 33
Making Learning Stick
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
07to facilitate this approach. It’s what people
often naturally do anyway; L&D just needs
to help them along a bit by engaging
learners not in L&D but in what they can do
actively with their teams and experts in the
workplace. (See Figure 3)
2. Think “learning cycles” and how they can
power continuous learning.
Thinking about learning as an ongoing cycle
instead of a series of one-off events is a
useful way to appreciate the opportunities
that exist to reinforce learning and really
make it stick. The Fosway PLASMA Learning
Cycle is a very simple way of looking at this,
with the learning process starting in any one
of the segments shown in Figure 4.
The PLASMA learning cycle encompasses
these phases:
• Plan: What do I need to know/
understand/be able to do?
• Learn: How can I learn that knowledge/
develop that skill/build that proficiency?
• Apply: How am I using my learning?
• Sustain: What am I doing to consistently
achieve the right levels of skills and
performance?
• Measure: How well am I doing? Am I on or
off target?
• Analyse: Where should I be going next?
As simple as this model is, it is very flexible.
It can apply to situations that only last a
matter of minutes or cover a process that
lasts months. The challenge is to keep the
learning cycle moving for as long as it is
necessary—until people reach the desired
levels of confidence and competence. And
hard-baked in is an expectation of being a
social learner, showing that you know and
getting feedback from peers, experts and
anyone who touches your work.
3. Nudge learners at each step of their
learning cycle to build and develop
higher performance.
Thinking about learning as an ongoing
process or cycle in this way helps to
build more engaging experiences, based
on actions, nudges, jeopardy and social
pressure/support and personal motivation,
even gamification and recognition through
scoring boards or digital badges. Each stage
can be designed to incorporate nudges to
keep the learning process going. And these
aren’t just for learners! Managers, peers and
other colleagues could—and should—be part
of the process to generate the feedback
Analyse
Plan
Learn
Apply
Sustain
MeasurePLASMALearningCycle
Figure 4. The on-going cycle of learning.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 34
Making Learning Stick
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
07an amazing pace in recent years. So, there
are already useful reference models for what
is possible.
4. Think of learners like consumers and
touch them when they need help most—
when they are applying and sustaining
learning in the workflow.
What L&D should be doing is thinking like a
consumer brand; using insights into learners
as individuals to trigger engagement and
to build the habits that make learning a “go
to” destination like so many mobile apps
(such as Strava) have become. This means
managing a relationship with learners and
learning actions across the whole learning
cycle, not just managing learning events and
digital resources.
It isn’t enough to say you’re swapping to
an informal or social approach to learning
and declare that formal learning is dead.
It’s not enough to talk about simply moving
from courses to resources or adopt a
70:20:10 approach that merely trades one
content type for another. L&D needs to
support the whole learning journey. To truly
supercharge learning, we must act now to
create meaningful journeys between learning
independently and reflecting, acting and
socialising learning! Learning will only really
change people’s behaviours and deliver
transformative impact for organisations
when it supports continuous learning across
the full cycle, rather than glib titles and
marketing type—be that social learning,
mobile learning, learning experience,
and social elements that will help learners
progress.
Historically, too few learning platforms have
supported this vision. Basic communication
tools have served to broadcast rather than
foster an ongoing learning relationship or
dialogue. The result: Organisations have
found it challenging to create social learning
programmes, learning campaigns or a
continuous learning journey.
What is needed is an approach that treats
learners like consumers, and helps create
a relationship with their needs, desires
and habits so that learning becomes
compulsive—for example, nudging learners
like a sports tracking app might do. There is
an opportunity to create “learning coaches”
that use artificial intelligence and behavioural
frameworks to drive our engagement and
stimulate us to take our learning to the next
level. Strangely, it’s not something that there
aren’t good reference models for. Digital
marketing has been taking this revolution in
managing consumer experience forward at
It isn’t enough to say you’re
swapping to an informal or
social approach to learning
and declare that formal
learning is dead.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 35
Making Learning Stick
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
07informal learning, 70:20:10 or something
else—because each of these can become
barriers to the creation of effective, ongoing
learning and get in the way of making
learning stick.
Getting StartedThe challenge is to prove that social learning
can impact learning effectiveness and
ultimately drive behaviour change and
impact organisational performance. But L&D
doesn’t have to throw the baby out with the
bathwater.
• Focus on specific use case scenarios.
Find an opportunity to apply the
PLASMA model, incorporating social
learning elements that sit outside the
formal deliver “learning” label. Maybe
even slide under the radar and call the
project “performance management” or
“continuous improvement” to get things
off the ground.
• Focus on a proof of concept. Assess the
lessons learned from executing a new,
more social approach. Choose carefully as
pilots often turn into the blueprint for how
things become “done around here.”
• Remember senior stakeholder demands.
However much of a nice-to-have this
approach might be, there are business
objectives that must be met. Risk ignoring
these at your peril! The goal is to get
stakeholders to buy in to what you’re
doing, not tune out because the ball has
been dropped elsewhere or this new
approach puts too much of the status quo
in jeopardy. Take people on this journey
with L&D, regardless of their department
or business silos.
• Understand spaced learning—and how
to lay down deep long-term memories in
compressed timeframes when acquiring
knowledge.
David Perring is the Director
of Research for Fosway Group,
Europe’s #1 HR analyst. For over
20 years, Fosway has analysed the
realities of the workforce market,
providing insights on the future
of human resources, talent and
learning. Fosway analysts work
extensively with corporate clients
to understand the inside story of
the challenges they are facing and
their real experiences with next-
generation strategies, systems
and suppliers. The consultancy’s
independent vendor analysis also
provides a vital resource when
making decisions on innovation
and technology.
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 36
Identifying the Best Kind of Learning Systems for Closing Your Skills Gap
The shopping list
for your next-
generation LMS
starts with a high-
quality content
creation experience
that makes it simple
to build content and
courses fast.
The final link in developing an online content
strategy that will help you close your skills gaps
and keep it closed is to choose software that
supports the building of content in a process
that’s easy and intuitive. That’s where the
selection of the learning management system
must be carefully considered. What you need is
a next-generation digital learning system that
includes easy course authoring and supports
interactive, collabourative engagement of
learners in an online setting. The following
summary provides a checklist of features that
stand out as the most important.
High-Quality Content CreationThe experience provided by the LMS can
either be an obstacle or a passage to creating
and accessing online content. If the process
for uploading new lessons into the software
is difficult, people may put it off long enough
that your experiment in online learning will fail.
Likewise, if the newest or most relevant content
is difficult to find or access, that too will delay
your efforts to fill your skills gaps
What makes for high quality? On the creation
side the most important thing is having a library
of templates that content authors can use as
the foundation for setting up new courses. Also,
built-in editing tools and the ability to “book-
end” generic video content with custom content
makes for multimedia friendliness in an LMS.
All of these are functions are built into Eurekos,
a leading LMS developed in Europe for the
international market.
On the learner side, LMS platforms that borrow
elements from social media interfaces such as
Facebook or Twitter have an advantage because
they seem familiar to users, encouraging them
to dig in and find what they need quickly to do
08
By David Patterson
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 37
Identifying the Best Kind of Learning System for Closing Your Skills Gap
08
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
be used, as well, to create and manage links
with one-click inserts.
Social LearningThe best learning is often a collabourative
activity. But that does not mean it has to
take place in a physical classroom. Just as
important is the ability to schedule a virtual
meeting on the fly as people need to come
together to sort out decisions and share
ideas and concerns before, during, and after
training. Eurekos, as an example, allows
for scheduling of GoToMeeting webinar
their jobs. Eurekos, as an example, provides
a “playlist” for learning; a worker or manager
can set up a Netflix-style delivery to guide
learners through a progression of lessons
targeted for a job role or given situation.
Eurekos also offers a dashboard with a
calendar to help learners stay on top of
their classwork commitments. The same
dashboard displays information about
announcements, enrolled courses, team
members, and related conversations.
Keeping Content FreshDigital content doesn’t stand still. Yet
nobody has the time to cull through every
reference or link in a system to make
sure they’re kept up to date. Eurekos
automatically manages those kinds of details
through a tagging system. Should a product
name change, for example, the LMS will
sweep through the contents, locate every
reference to the outdated information, such
as a link that has been modified, and allow it
to be updated as a bulk operation or singly,
to keep it current. A dynamic link feature can
The best learning is often a
collabourative activity, but that does
not mean it has to take place in a
physical classroom.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 38
Identifying the Best Kind of Learning System for Closing Your Skills Gap
08
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
Integration also encompasses the capacity
to use content from other sources. As an
example, H5P is a standard for interactive
learning objects. Those learning components
that adhere to the standard can be
seamlessly imported and exported to and
from an LMS to set up a richer collection
of content. This is especially important in
a corporate setting where mergers and
acquisitions are common; training modules
can be shared from multiple sources to
quicken the pace of cross-training.
Responsive Web DesignPeople have personal training preferences.
Some want to grab a quick lesson on the
train during their commute while others
prefer to sit at their desk computers and
do it on the job as they face a specific work
challenge. The content you create needs to
be responsive from the outset so that no
matter what type of device is being used
to view the lesson, it comes across exactly
as it was intended. A leading LMS takes
responsive web design into consideration,
saving content creators from having to
check multiple screen sizes as part of their
development process.
Straightforward AdministrationI have great sympathy for those who need to
administer LMS platforms. For that reason, I
prefer those platforms that enable users to
create, update and manage digital lessons
quickly and easily. Content is becoming
increasingly volatile, and some of the
platforms I’ve reviewed lately make it very
difficult for people to update, manage and
curate content.
Administration also entails project
management functionality, such as the
ability to assign a team of people to create
course materials and then put it through an
automated review process as a workflow
before the lessons have been released to
the rest of the staff. The Eurekos LMS, for
example, includes a visualization feature that
lays out the course structure clearly and
succinctly. The person in charge of a given
learning project can view each module, unit,
chapter, session, and video in an outline form
for drag-and-drop management of all of a
course’s elements.
classrooms to facilitate these real-time
sessions and provides other mechanisms
such as discussion groups for asynchronous
communication.
The Eurekos LMS also provides news feeds,
gamification, Q&A, content ratings, sharing
and recommendations, to drive learners
to content that has particular relevance
and has gained popularity within the
organisation. Teams within Eurekos can be
self-organised to allow learners to gather in
smaller groups to focus on specific topics.
And assignments can be set up with a peer-
review requirement.
Effortless IntegrationThis takes several forms. First, there is
the integration that allows the learning
platform to be branded as part of the overall
architecture of the organisation rather
than as a separate program. For example,
if a customer relationship management
application is the mission-critical system for
staff, being able to integrate the LMS with
that is more inviting for users than having it
hung out as a separate program altogether.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 39
Identifying the Best Kind of Learning System for Closing Your Skills Gap
08
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
the learner’s role, expertise level, interests,
and other factors. Learning analytics will also
help you track the most popular learning
modules, which can be a clue to identifying
effective content experts and revealing
subjects that warrant development of
additional learning materials.
International SupportThe optimal path is to build learning once
and allow the software to handle translation
duties for menu structures, interface
elements and administrative tools. Eurekos
currently supports 11 languages: English,
Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish,
German, Dutch, French, Russian, Greenlandic
and Arabic. Additional languages can be
added quickly to expand the footprint into
other geographies.
The Importance of Choosing WellThe right learning management system goes
beyond the basics of serving as a repository
for courses. It really becomes a platform
for managing learning experiences that
can take place in many systems, situations
and processes. As you’re considering your
choices, don’t make the selection a checklist
item; be more holistic and choose an LMS
that will help you generate the kind of
learning organisation you aspire to have.
Finally, administration also needs to take
into consideration the different roles that
users have—whether on the backside as
overseers of courses or on the front side
as consumers of the learning. Either way,
Eurekos enables creation of various roles
that can be assigned permissions to run
the LMS or preserve access to learning
content. For example, whereas Eurekos
allows learners to self-organise creation of
“teams,” administrators are given the right
to define communities as an additional layer
of organisation, which may span a single
division or unit within the company or the
entire workforce.
Informative AnalyticsAs part of running a responsive blended
learning program, it’s important to collect
data to assess and measure learner progress,
whether for the sake of keeping compliant
with regulations or for the purposes of
employee reviews. Having access to this kind
of information can help you identify areas
where your members of your workforce
excel and struggle so together you can
address their skills gaps. From there you can
create customised learning paths based on
David Patterson runs the
consultancy services at Learning
Light, a centre of excellence for
the use of learning technologies,
based in the UK. He has 18 years’
experience in e-learning and
learning technologies and has
been with Learning Light since
2005. He also provides business
development advice to e-learning
and learning technologies
businesses in the UK and overseas
and publishes reviews of products
on www.learninglight.com.
Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 40
Next Steps for Mending the Skills Gap
To bridge the skills
gaps within your
organisation, it is
time to speed up
content creation
and the use of
online learning.
To maintain its competitive edge, your
organisation needs to understand where learning
can be injected into operations in a way that
will make a difference to business performance.
Development of digital skills and abilities in your
workforce is your best defence in helping your
company or organisation absorb technological
disruption and exploit the opportunities it
delivers.
By putting an online learning program in place
that delivers rapid content creation, you can
continually adapt the training your employees
need with minimal effort or expense as demand
evolves.
All that’s required is for you to contribute
two vital elements: a structured platform—
the learning management system—that helps
them develop their learning programs; and
management support and participation to
encourage creation of a learning culture.
From that starting point, your job is simply to
trust that your employees know—or have the
capacity for learning—what to do.
09
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 41Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
About Eurekos
Can You Imagine...
• An LMS that delivers exceptional content, fast
• Transforms learning into positive change with
retention-building tools
• A support team with one goal: To make your
learning programs world-class.
Introducing the Eurekos LMS
The Eurekos LMS includes an advanced content
builder that makes it so easy to produce content
that subject matter experts build their own
courses, eliminating bottlenecks and minimizing
production time.
The learning analytics engine drive a more
productive business and accelerated decision-
making based on real-time insights. The Eurekos
LMS identifies critical data to support continuing
skills development (CPD), competency
management, and compliance training.
Transform Learning Into Positive Change with Retention-Building ToolsTraining without practice is limiting, so the
Eurekos social hub integrates collabouration
and practice throughout the learning process.
Teams and communities encourage learners
to ask, advise, and share ideas and concerns
before, during and after training,s o learning is
put into practice.
GAPKNOWING — DOING
INSTRUCTION DIALOG DOING
70%
Practice, Blended Learning
BUILDING COMPETENCIES
Online Course
20%
Social Collaboration
10%
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 42Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
About Eurekos
The LMS that Delivers Great Content, Just-in-TimeThe Eurekos LMS provides rapid content,
powerful administration, insightful analytics,
and social learning.
Rapid Course Builder. Produce effective
content just-in-time with a one-of-a-kind
course builder that anyone can use.
Fully Integrated Toolbox. Everything you
need to quickly design amazing interactive
courses. Includes videos, gamification,
interactive learning tools, testing, etc.
Content CoCreation. Create and maintain
content easier and faster in collabouration
with subject matter experts, instructional
designers, users, and even customers.
Social Hub. Take advantage of in-context,
relevant social learning with news feeds,
discussion groups, gamification, Q&A,
content ratings, sharing, user-generated
content, file sharing, and recommendations.
Collabouration Tools. Put learning into
practice with collabouration between
teams and communities where learners
are encouraged to ask, advise, and share
ideas and concerns before, during, and after
training.
Learning Analytics. Deliver insightful
analytics for real-time compliance and
productivity. Empower learners to track their
progress and identify and address their own
skills gaps.
Content Marketplace. The content hub
consolidates courses and resources from
various internal and external sources, making
it fast and easy for learners to find content,
just-in-time.
Course Administration. Easily identify
skills gaps, customize learning paths, and
prescribe training by interest, role, level of
expertise and other personalized learning
objectives.
eCommerce. A simplified approach to
enterprise eCommerce with auto sign-up,
group enrollment, multiple secure payment
methods, tax support, and a fully integrated
booking system.
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 43Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
The Eurekos ExperienceWe know that great technology is only
part of the solution. You need services
that ensure your success, like efficient
onboarding, implementation and perpetual
support that goes far beyond what’s
expected. That’s the Eurekos experience and
that’s theEurekos promise to you.
Support
• Immediate support via phone, email, and
live chat 8-5 CET,M-F
• Support from three locations
in seven languages:
English,Danish,Dutch,Greenlandic, Arabic,
Ukranian, and Russian
Planning and Implementation
• Completely customized project plan
• Focus on your business objectives and
requirements
• Extensive LMS configuration options
Onboarding
• One-on-one coaching and training for
super users
• Thorough online help system
• Regular webinars and on-demand video
training
Our Customers Fill Their Skills Gaps in Record TimeHere’s what our clients say about working
with Eurekos:
“When we made the decision to use the
platform across all 6 facilities, we produced
more than 600 courses in 12 months, most of
which are over 140 study hours. In 3 years we
produced more than 1700 courses—2 years
ahead of our original timeline!”
—Hans van Bergen, Hageschool Utrecht
“Eurekos is an intuitive pedagogically
smart learning environment for people
who really care about learning design. Its
multi-language capability and integration
with social tools, such as Twitter, make it
a powerful tool for communicating and
engaging people across critical knowledge-
sharing channels.”
—Dr. Diana D. Woolis, Carey Institute for
Global Good
About Eurekos
Our Satisfied Clients
The Ultimate Guide to Closing Skills Gaps—Fast | 44Copyright © 2019 • Eurekos.comCopyright © 2019 • Eurekos.com
About the Authors
David Perring is the Director
of Research for Fosway Group,
Europe’s #1 HR analyst. For
over 20 years, Fosway has
analysed the realities of the
workforce market, providing
insights on the future of
human resources, talent and
learning. Fosway analysts work
extensively with corporate
clients to understand the
inside story of the challenges
they are facing and their
real experiences with next-
generation strategies, systems
and suppliers.
David Patterson runs the
consultancy services at
Learning Light, a centre of
excellence for the use of
learning technologies, based
in the UK. He has 18 years’
experience in e-learning and
learning technologies and
has been with Learning Light
since 2005. He also provides
business development advice
to e-learning and learning
technologies businesses in the
UK and overseas and publishes
reviews of products on www.
learninglight.com.
Kenny Munck is the CEO
and Co-Founder of Eurekos.
Previous to Eurekos, Kenny
founded Mentorix, a content
development and training
company. During Kenny’s
23 years in both the public
and private sectors, he has
spent much of his time on
corporate learning, IT, program
management and business
development. His last ten years
have been focused on building
innovative learning technology
and strong corporate learning
organizations.
Nick Etlar Eriksen is the Chief
Technology Officer and Co-
founder of Eurekos. Since the
mid 90’s he has developed and
improved online experiences
and solutions in a wide range
of industries and business
areas for both the public and
private sectors.
Soren Raagard is the Vice
President in charge of business
development and partners at
Eurekos. Previously, he served
as the Director of digital
strategy at LEGO Digital and
LEGO Education. Soren leads
from London.
Omeed Aminian is a Senior
Consultant with Eurekos,
helping customers to develop
and transform their learning
cultures.
Hans van Bergen specialised
in the use of IT in education
for more than 25 years.
First, he created e-learning
courses in music for primary
school teachers. Then he
was involved in developing
and implementing a digital
portfolio in teacher training
for many years. And finally, he
was a consultant for innovation
in education at Hogeschool
Utrecht. Hans has presented
his ideas on blended learning
at Dutch universities and
other educational institutes
all over the world. Recently,
Hans retired from Hogeschool
Utrecht and is now senior
partner at Creblz International.
www.eurekos .com
Phone: +45 71 99 44 54
Email: [email protected] Frydenlundsvej 30H, DK-2950 Vedbaek, Denmark
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