Why Your Boss Expects Daily Online Learning

If you thought that gaining the necessary qualifications to enter your chosen career was the end of your education – think again! According to an article on Businessinsider.com, AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson said that if his employees don’t spend five to ten hours a week learning online, they will make themselves obsolete. And he’s expecting at least some of that training to happen outside of work. Sound harsh? Maybe. But he knows that if his development, sales, and marketing teams don’t stay up to speed, the company will lose out to the competition. Employees who do take up the gauntlet to continuously top up their knowledge and skills through microlearning will reap the benefits. It all depends how hungry you are.

What constitutes online learning?

We’re not talking formal, elearning programs. Learning online can include:

• Reading industry magazines to glean the latest insights
• Reading the business and technology sections of online news outlets
• Watching videos on:
  • Competitors’ products
  • Improving marketing skills
  • Improving selling techniques
• Your target market and how to solve their problems/meet their needs
• Seeking better sources of targeted contact data
• Interacting on forums
• Networking on LinkedIn by joining relevant groups to gain knowledge
• Asking and answering questions on Quora.
• Following industry experts on Twitter to see what they’re excited about

Knowledge sharing

Of course it’s unlikely that all your online learning will be via your smartphone browser. Product training can be delivered via a platform designed specifically to help develop skills and knowledge. In organizations with rapidly changing product inventories, your teams will need somewhere they can easily access everything they need to know about new product lines. A CRM that quickly shares new knowledge in an engaging way is ideal for learning on the go. With ‘nuggets’ of learning available via mobile devices 24/7, it means that workers can opt in when it suits them. Having this resource will turn your sales and marketing teams into product ‘gurus’. A sales force that knows a product inside and out, and fully understands how it can solve your target market’s problems is a genuine asset to the company.

So the next time you’re browsing on your phone, remember to log it as mLearning!