As global connectivity soared and the business world started evolving at a rapid pace,  Gen Z did everything possible to fuel that change. To start with, Gen Z is more inclined to gig work rather than traditional full-time roles. According to Forbes, they are the “most extroverted generation.” 

One of the other critical factors about Gen Z is their diversification. The New York Times quoted Gen Z as “the most diverse generation in the American history.”

But do you wish to know what drives this kind of change in GenZ? Of course, there are some characteristics that are typical to Gen Z. 

Characteristics of Gen Z 

The common thing is that most people confuse Gen Z with millennials. However, there are some striking differences — the first being their buying habits. Unlike millennials, they do not focus on price tags and always look for quality over price. 

Some of the other characteristics of Gen Z could be highlighted as below: 

• Active online network 
• Decision-making independence 
• Risk-taking mindset 
• Flexible 

5 ways in which Gen Z can impact your business 

• They always focus on value

Organizations can no longer make the cut if they focus only on their sales and marketing strategies. They need to offer real value to their employees. For example, you will notice many small businesses run a blog where they share helpful tips and suggestions related to their industry and products or services. 

• They come with strong collaboration skills 

Though the millennial generation comes with the largest number of college degrees, Gen Z prefers to have colleagues who know how to collaborate and work together. They prefer someone at work who would partner with them and bring out the best at work rather than someone who works equally hard as they do. 

This is also an opportunity for the employers to take note of this collaborative revolution and offer them the tools and technologies that facilitate this kind of environment at work. 

• They prefer to embrace and adopt new technologies 

As they grew up in a digital environment, they always feel the need to be exposed to a stream of constant feedback in the form of likes, comments, and shares. 

This also implies they demand much lesser opportunities for engagement. And these opportunities could go well beyond the modern intranets or instant messaging platforms. Hence, the future of workplace might include VR, robotics or wearables. 

• They always like to be transparent 

With Gen Z, it is critically important that the organizations reflect their transparency more than anything else. This implies they will not put up a picture that they are perfect even when they are not. They will talk about their shortcomings and upcoming plans to work on improving their products or processes if there are any issues cropping up. 

• They demand greater personalization 

With Gen Z, it is critical that their career journeys are personalized and they are not offered something off-the-shelf. In fact to attract this generation, the employers must offer a robust training curriculum or programs that have a tangible focus on diversity. The employers could also consider offering them an internship program and then match them with a suitable role within the organization. 

Conclusion 

Gen Z is at the forefront of change and totally making an impact on the way the world does business. 

Robin Sharma, the renowned author of several bestsellers, said, “ The best in business spend far more time in learning than in leisure.” When talking about value and collaboration, a reliable Learning Management System (LMS) can make your journey totally meaningful. 

Book a call today to get a full-blown demo of the Totara LMS. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post How Gen Z Is Changing Your Business appeared first on Webanywhere.

Retailers are currently moving away from traditional learning management systems (LMSs) and are considering newer “experience” platforms to complement them, which focus on personalized, social learning experiences — a.k.a. social learning platforms. Now that millennials are the largest generation in the workforce, especially in retail, they demand new modes of delivery for their learning and value it more than ever.

What is Social Learning?

According to Bersin by Deloitte, “social learning is a blended learning model that uses social media to enhance the learning experience.” Social learning platforms deliver rich, engaging and collaborative content to the learners. Social learning can:

• Build teamwork skills such as communication, conflict resolutions and leadership abilities.

• Improve online learner participation and engagement, since it appeals to our social needs.

• Facilitate peer-based feedback, which helps employees identify areas of improvement and bridge performance gaps.

• Give employees a sense of community and purpose.

Additionally, social learning platforms have the ability to create personalized experiences for the users. For example, clever technologies such as machine learning enables the platform to learn more about your preferences as you click. Think about how Netflix gives users different ratings based on programs you watch, or how eBay suggests similar products.

What ISN’T Social Learning?

For example, enterprise collaboration platforms such as Yammer, Slack, Salesforce Chatter and Facebook for Work are all for communications. It could be argued there is an overlap between the two. Within a platform like Slack, an employee could post a question, a colleague could then comment on this and provide a link to a useful resource, a perfect example of social learning. The challenge for these new enterprise collaboration platforms is that they haven’t been designed for learning.

Why is this important in retail?

The key to success in retail is twofold — standing out from the competition and keeping up with the fast-paced environment. To ensure your millennial workforce can retain important training such as product knowledge, Point of Sale (POS) and/or customer service in order to meet these expectations, it needs to be effective. This is where a social learning platform comes in.

Hold up… Is this replacing my LMS?

If you’re in retail, you’re probably familiar with compliance or OSHA training. This training is required and is often repeatable at multiple times in the year. Learning management systems (LMS) still need to exist since it’s a requirement in the compliance world. To be clear, social learning platforms aren’t meant to replace the LMS, only compliment it.

For example, here at Webanywhere we have worked on numerous projects where our clients are looking different platforms based on their audience type. We generally provide a LMS (Totara) along with our experience platform Promatum or Totara’s social learning platform, Totara Social.

Conclusion

The experience learning space is an interesting one and growing fast. Many large companies such as Caterpillar, Visa, Sears and GE are already using them. But these haven’t necessarily replaced their LMS, instead they are complimenting them — adding richer, more engaging learning experiences for their employees.

Considering a social learning platform of your own? We invite you to check out our case studies and contact us. Our team is excited to show you what we do can to help you gain that competitive edge with a social learning platform!

This blog was originally published on our UK site and rewritten/edited for the US site.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Why You Should Consider Social Learning for Retail appeared first on Webanywhere.

By: Mike Hogeorges

Why consider video as part of your next eLearning or in-classroom L&D project? Well, 90% of the information our brains process is visual, and video viewers are 65% more likely to retain that information because they don’t have to visualize it themselves.

Adults in the US spend approximately 5.5 hours a day watching video. It’s what we watch at home and at work, on traditional TV, the internet and via social media. Video is everywhere, and it’s just what we expect! Easy access to video via digital devices means that use of video should no longer be an afterthought or a “nice-to-have” as you plan your next online or in-classroom training.

Utilizing video in your training:

• Keeps employees engaged in learning. This is key to building a learning culture within your organization. Video can help make learning memorable and accessible.

• Increases learner retention.

• Visually depicts demonstrations, processes, personalities and behavioral interaction.

• Presents a consistent message with scenarios that mimic real-life situations.

• Makes learning available on-demand.

Here are the top 10 tips I’ve compiled for creating engaging video for training.

Tip #1: Plan before you shoot

For the best videos, even if they’re only a series of visuals, begin with a script. The script should include what you’ll need to shoot, all spoken word or graphics content and what the flow is of the finished piece.

Tip #2: Think about how you’re going to use it

Think about why you want to utilize video as a medium for training. Do you want to show or convey:

• Physical steps in a process?

• An activity or product?

• A story?

• Behavioral styles?

• Human interaction?

• Emotion, dramatization of a serious event, motivation?

• Humor to support an entertaining learning experience?

Tip #3: Decision-making scenarios

Video is great for use in branched training scenarios where the learner must make a decision and the decision has consequences. When the learner sees the results of their decision, it can have a lasting and memorable learning impact.

Tip #4: Keep it short

Keep video segments short and to the point. Think in terms of 2 to 5-minute video segments at most. Short sentences in dialogue also work best.

Tip #5: Utilize professional voice-over and/or talent

Professional voice-over talent or actors may make your presentation not only more believable but easier to understand and remember.

Tip #6: Consider capturing real employee experiences

Sharing personally created, positive on-the-job examples what learners have accomplished via phone video can be a great way to encourage peer-to-peer learning.

Tip #7: Ensure your video is compressed

Ensuring that video downloads or streams quickly at high quality is very important, as you don’t want to disrupt the learner’s attention. There are lots of free video compression software options out there, such as Handbrake.

Tip #8: Add animation and graphics

Adding sound effects, graphics and animation over the video can make a huge difference. It can highlight important key points to ensure that information is retained, and keep the learner engaged. If you can’t do this in-house, there are lots of talented people out there that can help you.

Tip #9: Hire video production professionals

Almost everyone is capable of recording video on their phone, but that’s not always the best choice. Consider using production professionals when you need to present a professional example. Take into consideration the camera work, lighting, editing and execution that needs to be done to create a quality video. Good production values are what we don’t notice when they actually exist. When video is poorly conceptualized, written, shot or edited, it can get in the way of communicating and teaching.

Tip #10: Make your video interactive

You can use video standalone for your training or in an eLearning module. But did you know you can make it interactive with hotspots, multiple choice questions and more? H5P plug-ins for Totara has interactive video authoring, and our very own rapid content authoring tool Promatum has this feature as well.

Webanywhere specializes in custom eLearning solutions and provides a myriad of media services including video production, animation and photography that can be used in your next L&D project. We invite you to check out our services to see if there’s anything we can help you with!

Mike is a Senior Instructional Designer at Webanywhere who has worked with clients including Allstate, Brunswick Corporation, Deloitte, Ford, Shell, and Philips throughout his career. In addition to his work as an ID, Mike also has more than 20 years of experience writing, producing and directing videos for a broad range of corporate clients.

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The modern learning and development landscape is shifting from an environment of learning management to learning engagement by embracing informal, social and collaborative trends. According to a study by CARA, a corporation that focuses on human performance solutions, found that more than 70% of what we learn in life and the workplace is the result of informal and social situations, like searching for a solution using Google, or watching a “how-to” video on YouTube.

Here are four steps to make your eLearning more discoverable so you can leverage informal learning in your organization.

Step #1: Break it Up

Breaking up your content into bite-sized chunks, (a.k.a. microlearning), makes learning easily digestible for your learner. There’s a huge need from your learners to quickly access smaller, more focused morsels for a specific point of need.

Step #2: Make it Accessible

Ensure your content is HTML5-ready and tested for quality assurance on mobile devices so that your learners can access their learning from anywhere, anytime. A mobile workforce needs mobile accessibility.

Step #3: Make it Engaging

Simply ‘digitizing’ content from the physical realm is not enough to hold attention. You also need to add rich media and interactions to make it engaging, as 90% of the information our brains process is visual, and video viewers are 65% more likely to retain that information.

Step #4: Use a Social Platform

According to the same study by CARA, 98% of respondents said social media is altering the way employees access information and learn. A social platform, which complements your existing LMS (not replaces it), plays a vital role in making your content discoverable. These platforms can also work with your repositories to automate tagging of your learning content and help you develop personalized learning paths for your learners.

For example, a platform like Promatum gives learners the ability to bookmark, search for or filter by key terms and content types and ‘like’ and share content via email and social media.

Need help with content creation? We can do that for you, too! We’re experts in both learning platforms and training solutions design, which extends to standalone content creation and H5P in Promatum. Contact us today for a demo of Promatum or our custom training solutions today!

Jessica Arenz brings out the best of both worlds as an Instructional Designer and Marketing Executive at Webanywhere. She’s passionate about proper brand messaging and retail training and development. Throughout her career she has worked on eLearning for companies like Walmart, Sam’s Club, Kroger and Saks Fifth Avenue, to name a few. Jessica is one of many talented individuals on our team ready to collaborate with you on your next learning solution.

The post 4 Steps to Make Your eLearning More Discoverable appeared first on Webanywhere.

For anyone who’s had their head stuck in the sand over the last few decades, you may not be aware of the 70:20:10 training model. A team of researchers in the 1980s (McCall, Lombardo and Eichinger) studied a group of successful managers to see if they had any learning and development experiences in common. What they found led to this training model, which is now becoming widely adopted.

70% – On the Job / Informal

Not having heard something is not as good as having heard it; having heard it is not as good as having seen it; having seen it is not as good as knowing it; knowing it is not as good as putting it into practice. (Xun Kuang, Confucian philosopher, 818AD)

Nearly two-thirds of knowledge and skills should be acquired through hands-on training. Allowing people to learn through experience helps them retain more and gives them the opportunity to develop and refine key skills. Through decision-making and overcoming challenges, employees have opportunities to practice critical thinking – a crucial skill for any manager worth his/her dollar.

Learning on the job doesn’t mean letting an employee work autonomously; a mentor or real-life coach should be assigned. An effective mentor shouldn’t suffocate the trainee. Micromanaging should be kept to a minimum, ie only when it’s clear that intervention is necessary. Mentoring also allows for continuous feedback and appraisal, which is much more effective than an annual review.

In addition to practical training, it’s essential that workers have a bank of knowledge on tap that they can access when and where required. Concise chunks of learning can be effectively delivered through interactive video. As 65% of people are visual learners (Social Science Research Network) learning content that consists mainly of video and infographics will have more impact than text alone. Video content could involve real-life scenarios and actual personnel, to make the experience more relevant to the individual trainee. Interactive elements could include quizzes and CTAs.

20% – Social Learning

This type of learning is unstructured and ad hoc. Collaborating with peers can generate encouragement and feedback, both of which should motivate the learner and get him/her to continuously reassess goals and set into motion plans to achieve them. Interacting with colleagues and a mentor can modify the employee’s behavior to more closely fit the desirable attributes for the role. Even connecting on social media and forums can be an opportunity for social learning. Multi-player games can help to practise or develop skills and logical thinking. Incentives in games such as awarding points and reaching new levels are excellent motivating devices, which is why game-based learning and gamification elements are big buzzwords in training.

10% – Formal Learning

While the majority of academic educators may recoil in horror at this small percentage, the model maintains that 10% of structured, formal learning is adequate to produce a successful manager (in conjunction with on-the-job training and social learning of course). Where no knowledge exists, there has to be a starting point. A solid foundation of learning must be established, along with some form of assessment structure to ensure the minimum attainment is met. Regulatory compliance training, for instance, is more suited to a structured program, particularly if these are government-set requirements. So despite the small ratio, the formal learning component of training is every bit as important as the 70 and the 20. While doing may lead to the greatest retention and understanding, without the initial backbone of prescriptive learning, it’s unlikely HR’s goals will be met.

It’s worth noting that according to a recent survey, 40% of employees who don’t receive adequate training leave their jobs. The Millennial generation and later expect a lot from life and are keen to climb the career ladder as quickly as possible. A lifelong learning mindset expects excellent training, enabling them to reach their goals. Organizations who are keen to recruit and retain productive workers should take a good, hard look at their training models.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Why Adopt a 70:20:10 Training Model? appeared first on Webanywhere.

Components of good sales product knowledge training

Features and Benefits

It’s very easy to parrot a list of impressive sounding facts and figures, but if the customer does not understand the benefits of those attributes to him or her, then it may just sound like waffle or jargon.

“It does this, so you get that” is much better than “It does x, y and z”.

Understanding Customer Challenges

Being able to link those features to benefits requires an understanding of customer personas. What is the likely demographic and what do they need / want / expect from your kind of product?

Competitor Analysis

So you understand the customer and how your product can tick all the boxes, but what if the competition’s can as well? If your customers are likely to be shopping around, it can be very powerful to train sales staff on the relative strengths of your products as well. If the competition is cheaper, what is the downside to the customer? Is your product of higher quality…?

Market Environment

How are external influences going to affect a customer’s choices? For example, if new tax legislation had recently been introduced on larger vehicles, would car retailers suddenly have greater success pushing their smaller or hybrid ranges?

USP

A unique selling point in a product can make it untouchable by the competition. Perhaps a prospect visiting the car retailer above is in the market for a hybrid. If that customer would really like a sunroof and you offer the only hybrid with a sunroof, then maybe you have the deal-clinching USP.

Adaptability

Does your company offer a growing or frequently updated range of products? If so, you need a way to quickly and easily keep this up to date. That means that large, glossy training manuals are inappropriate, because the content would be to slow and expensive to update and roll out.

This can make an elearning solution particularly effective for retailers, as online product knowledge training can be updated within the learning platform, without the need for print runs or train the trainer programs to be planned and completed.

Accessibility 

Do you run multiple stores, perhaps across multiple towns, states or countries? If so, you may want to ensure that product knowledge training does not become a huge cost to your business – especially as retail is traditionally a sector with high staff turnover. Making training materials accessible to new recruits without the need to book trainers and facilities can enable them to start selling and helping you to generate profit much faster. Again, a retail elearning platform can be a huge time and cost-saver in this respect.

Multimedia

Different people learn best in a range of different ways – through text, audio, video or interaction – and in any mix of these. A long list of product specifications may suit some of your staff, but for many, this could be too dry and boring to take the information in effectively. Having text alongside relevant images or video explanations could help many staff to learn much faster.

Collaboration

Interaction between staff during the training process helps you to leverage the relative strengths between different staff, and the knowledge of your more experienced sales staff. Social learning is a huge growth area within the field of training, and many companies are working well to make use of the rise in social media to enhance the performance of their sales teams. Social media involves technology that many of your staff are already using and comfortable with, so it makes sense to make training accessible via these platforms when appropriate.

Sales Success

In retail environments, especially those with high staff turnover, it is common to place a great deal of emphasis on ensuring that sufficient headcount is in place and what you are recruiting people with a good sales pedigree.

However, the effectiveness of training is sometimes overlooked. Good product knowledge training will enable your staff to develop greater confidence in their customer interactions. This should bring greater customer confidence in the competence of your staff and your company in meeting their needs, and in turn, bring greater sales success.

Our Work

Webanywhere has implemented major retailers in the US and Europe in improving sales product knowledge with the best in open source elearning platforms. Our clients include the likes of Texas Instruments, Safeway and Domino’s Pizza. Read our case study on how we created a social learning platform for Zara – one of the world’s largest fashion retail companies.

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The post Improving Product Knowledge Training for Sales Success appeared first on Webanywhere.

We hope you find our infographic useful:

Main Challenges

1. High Competition

– 80% of medical device organizations employ less than 50 people

– Google, Apple, and Microsoft are entering the medical device market

2. Affordable Care Act

As a result of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, physicians keep losing their ability to be final decision makers when it comes to buying medical devices.

• 35% of doctors are employed either by a hospital or in a single or multi-specialty owned by a hospital.
• 14% are employed by a privately owned single or multi-specialty clinic.
• The number of primary care physicians employed by hospitals increased from 10% in 2012 to 20% in 2014.

Medical Sales Success

1. Knowledge Sharing

Make sure your marketing and sales teams are exchanging knowledge and data through a knowledge management tool, like Promatum.

More than 60% of companies who invested in collaborative frameworks achieved big gains in knowledge sharing and communication accuracy between marketing and sales.
2. Mobile Devices

In conjunction with sales CRM systems and apps, mobile devices can boost the efficiency of sales staff as well as support employees and medical liaisons.

Being able to access proprietary information and training from anywhere at any time, Sales reps are always ready to craft an effective sales pitch.
3. Assessment

Track sales activity and training through your sales enablement tool to ensure your Sales Reps are ready before their sales pitch.

The post Selling in the Medical Device Market appeared first on Webanywhere.

A knowledge-sharing example

We asked Michael Weiss, co-founder of a multi-awarded company, C-4 Analytics, how his organization encourages employees to share their knowledge:

“Collaboration has to be baked into the corporate culture. The first step in that is removing yourself, as founder, president, CEO, etc., from the decision-making process. Give staff the autonomy to learn, recognize who has the ability to solve problems, then send people to that person so that they get in the habit of working with each other to achieve goals, rather than running to the C Suite whenever they have a question.

The second step is to formalize recognition of achievements. Each of our teams selects their best work each month and shares it with the company, either through our Intranet or at company meetings. We also single out people who have received specialized training, mastered a particular online platform or achieved exceptional results for a client. By acknowledging these individual success stories, we let employees know who to go to when they want advice or strategies.”

The Four-Process View

A knowledge-management system is also a great way to organize and locate necessary content for employees to address specific business tasks and projects. It’s important to remember, though, that knowledge management is a concept and not a technology. Jeetu Patel and Jeff Angus came up with a four-process framework of knowledge management, which was published first in Information Week. A good knowledge management system should integrate this process and produce a knowledge map – something standard LMS platforms don’t offer – and report by analyzing connections between content, people, and activity.

Webanywhere have identified a big gap in the market of knowledge-management tools and created Promatum, an easy-to-use platform that integrates the four-process view shown above. What makes Promatum different is the course-creation functionality, which allows users to design engaging content directly within the platform.

Promatum provides smart packages for all sizes of business, so get in touch if you’d like to see a free demo or to learn more.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Knowledge Management for Your Organization appeared first on Webanywhere.

Bitesize Learning

When the FDA approves a new drug for prescription, it’s vital that resellers and health professionals receive a comprehensive and expedited training session. Promatum is innovative knowledge management software that can be used with LMS platforms such as Totara. Instead of a structured, assignment-based course, Promatum can deliver bitesize learning for manufacturers, wholesalers, employees and clients. So when a new drug is available, everyone connected with the product can receive the necessary training, tailored to their needs.

As many hospital doctors and nurses work long hours, it’s not always feasible for them to take the time to attend courses on site. The beauty of Promatum is that it can be accessed remotely – even from a cell phone – so that training can take place when it’s convenient. And with built-in tracking and reporting to see who’s engaging with the training, it’s simple to see results and pinpoint who still needs to participate.

Compliance

For drug companies with operations in countries like China and India, maintaining compliance can be problematic. India’s government is now completely rewriting their Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1940 to improve the efficacy and quality of drugs and medical devices. Essentially this is being done to allow regulation of biologics, regenerative medicines and clinical trials. Needless to say, the impact on compliance training for pharmaceuticals will be immense.

Depending on the severity of the rewrite, training may need to take place as a formally assessed course via a platform such as Totara LMS, or it could be done in smaller, one-off units through Promatum. To keep the trainees engaged and performing well, it’s important to ensure that the content is interesting, varied and interactive. Incorporating different elements such as video, games, quizzes and other interactive activities will make the learning experience more endurable and even fun. This in turn encourages learning modules to be completed quickly and effectively.

Maintaining a best practice policy for training in the pharmaceutical industry is imperative for obvious reasons and acquiring an in-depth knowledge on all the new drugs available is no easy task. Incorporating learning software such as Promatum into your existing LMS can make training far more flexible, accessible and effective. Find out more.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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