Agrippina lay on the floor of her office, stunned. They had it. Prostrate, she recalled the heyday of her adolescence. The holidays. The girlfriends. The boys she liked (and the others). The blockages in high school for a just cause (and also a bit for not going to class). The arguments with his parents. The teachers were all mocked, the messages sent during the endless and painful hours of class. The absence of concern for anything other than the activities mentioned above.
His state of mind had not changed much since then. Student evenings. Naps at the back of the auditorium. A diploma won despite everything. A job that seemed right for him: colleagues to laugh with, unlimited coffee, messages passed during the endless and arduous hours of professional training.
She enjoyed this great breath of nostalgia. Then he rebelled. Finally, a course is a course! It's a long time, we are bored, we deploy treasures of energy and creativity to do nothing, tradition, what!
Until mobile learning arrives.
Still on the ground, Agrippina shivered.
Mobile learning will give your employees too many choices
Traditional training takes place at a specific time, on a specific date, in a specific location. Well, already, it provides all the Agrippines in the world with a reference to call in sick at just the right time. But that is not the point.
The mobile learning, among other characteristics, is a very flexible training course, accessible anywhere, anytime and on any device. In other words, If we ask ourselves the question of whether, right away, it is possible to train, the answer is almost always yes. From there, here is a new element to integrate: where do you put training moments in your schedule?
Training moments, yes. Because mobile learning has another important characteristic: it uses microlearning, and therefore in (very) short formats. Each module generally takes less than five minutes to complete. And so, this nagging question is always asked in the heads of your poor collaborators: “a second coffee or a moment of training?” ; “call back this unbearable customer right away or for a moment of training?” “listen to my colleague talk about his misfortunes for the umpteenth time or for a moment of training?” ; etc., etc. These are all choices that would not be appropriate with traditional training.
If only that were the only problem!
Let's take a training course on, for example, the main trends in your business in 2020-2021. It will be divided into capsules, which are in turn subdivided into modules. Often, it's a number of sessions lasting about five minutes...
... which you can choose from at will! Starting an attractive capsule, completing two modules, starting another capsule, or on the contrary always completing the one you started, the choice is, again, vast. And then depending on the learner's job, how he organizes his work, his mood of the day, he will have to decide which module will be the most useful.
We are almost in the overabundance of choices, a concept developed by Heidi and Alvin Toffler in 1970, in their book Future Shock. Roughly speaking, if an individual is faced with too many choices at once, with options that are each more appealing than the other, the situation will become mentally burdensome for them.
In fact, it's like being in a candy store and having to choose only one. A real torment.
Mobile learning will make your employees addicted
It's time to talk about gamification, the third thief in the mobile learning - microlearning - gamification trio. It's about integrating game mechanics into your training plan. Most, if not all, mobile learning platforms offer functionalities to make training more fun.
And who says fun says more engaging. Because how do you recognize a game? Not in its format, there are plenty of them. Not in its name: nothing in the name of a game indicates that it is a game. Yahtzee is a game; Yakult is a drink. Sims is a game; Pim's are cakes. Etc.
No, you recognize a game because you have fun playing it.
How? Do they take you for fools to explain to you that playing is fun, and that funny things make you laugh? Not at all. It is simply a reminder of one central thing that leads to another: What amuses engages. Games make you want to participate!
(Except ping pong. I hate ping pong, with its ball bouncing everywhere except where you want to send it. I have been waiting for years to be able to get out this cry from my heart: ping pong sucks. That's it, let's move on to the next one).
So what's fun is appealing. Already in 2013, when gamification was starting its crazy rise, the American operator T-mobile had noted impressive numbers linked to the implementation of a gamification layer in its internal collaboration platform: employee contributions would have increased by 583%. 583%! Isn't that a bit too appealing?
And then, well, we talk about your collaborators, but don't think you're safe. A mobile learning platform - which you will have your own hands on - can be full of features that will entertain you too. You will realize that your simple LMS is not enough, or even outdated. This will plunge you into the throes of questioning: what mobile learning strategy adopt? Should we give up e-learning? You thought your work was already exciting, you haven't seen anything yet.
Your employees will be the loyal customers of your candy store, but you will be the one who will control the stocks.
Although...
Mobile learning will destroy your business
Have you ever heard of User Generated Content ? A mobile learning platform can allow learners to share their own business tips and other knowledge. Practical sheets, videos, articles and other tutorials can therefore come from your collaborators. And they're going to love doing it. Who doesn't like to talk about their job?
On your side, you can encourage your employees in this process. Through gamification, for example. We've been giving you a metaphor for a candy store just now, but you can make it concrete, organize Challenges that will allow the most creative and/or productive learners to win real candy. Or chocolates. Or bottles of vintage champagne, whatever you want, not everyone likes sugar.
Do you think it will end there, with learners who produce content? How naive. There is a mobile learning ally that we haven't told you about yet. It's about social learning. The contents are shared. They can be noted. Loved, or rather liked. The topics covered can be discussed, via various messaging systems (and even around the coffee machine). Peer approval: the ultimate carrot for motivating most human beings. And, in this case, for good reason: learn from others and share your knowledge.
For your part, your interest in your work is not likely to decrease, since you will also have a role to animate these various conversations, to highlight the content, to monitor the progress (meteoric!) of your learners...
Well, now, as you've read the title of this part, you're probably wondering how your business is at risk of destruction. It was a bit daring, sorry. Retraining would be a more accurate term.
Think: by dint of learning and sharing knowledge about their jobs, your employees will no longer have time to practice them, these jobs. You will end up with an army of specialized trainers who are potentially freewheeling. Eh yes. So at that moment, you either stop your activity (that would be a shame), or you become a content production company about your business.
Beware of mobile learning.
Agrippina had calmed down a bit. Someone was going to come and help him, that was for sure. She called for help and then waited. She remembered the first one, the one who made her dive. She remembered her world before, when all she was interested in working as a sales manager at Harido was getting back her share of candy production.
And then the training department launched this whole mobile learning story. In spite of herself, she got caught up in the game, especially when the rewards started to pour in. Small goodies, a candy jar with her name, the right to taste prototypes that might never be put on the market... She had shared infographics and video tutorials on the use of various internal software. His colleagues liked it. She had become “the girl of info tutorials”, she was part of all the afterworks, where she discussed content creation with other fans.
One day, to stay in the race, she decided to go further. And she bought a book on marketing techniques. Her first. She had taken a liking to reading, and she had started her collection, never satisfied. Collection that she had just stored in a freshly poorly assembled shelf. Shelf that had collapsed on top of her. She called for help. His roommate was going to end up moving.
She could have gotten out by herself, but someone absolutely had to film her to integrate the scene into her next tutorial!
