Stefan
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This article are my thoughts around the topic of corporate training. I spent some time researching this sector while working on Google’s Search product. I am a PM for Google Analytics. Below are my personal thoughts.
MOOCs suffered. Then they figured things out. Namely how to be profitable. Gone are the days of changing the world for everyone, and here we are with the hunt for higher completion rates. It’s tricky. If it’s free, behavior is wasteful. That is the norm for every product, at least every one that I have seen. If you can scale income through usage (like all ad-driven models do) you are in luck – your waste is golden. If you can’t make money purely based on usage, the clock starts ticking. You have 3-5 years (often 6 months) before investors will drop you, if you are very very lucky. Most runways are way shorter, and founders will need to start looking for nuggets of gold in the vast piles of usage sand.
And it looks like prominent providers of MOOCs have now found the answer: moving closer to big businesses, which have deep pockets. The question has been: what is their problem which can be aided through a MOOC system? Well, there might be many answers here, but one that stands out is rooted in what I would call a ‘macro trend of our modern workplace’: an increasing need in a changing skillset across a larger number of employees. In other words: employer sponsored training.
The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.
Henry Ford
Naturally, employers see expenses and risks, where an optimistic product mind would sense opportunity. So we have work to do: help employers see solid proof for the value of their investment in employee training. In other words: If you would run a company, what would convince you to spend a couple of grand a quarter to have your employees sign up for an online course?
Let’s take a look at some of the foundational aspects first:
- According to a survey, employees are more optimistic about their future in the workplace than their leaders recognize [source]
- In addition, workers seek more guidance from their employers to help with this task [source], and they call out management for not providing enough opportunities
- These characteristics seems to be especially pronounced in blue-collar and manufacturing jobs
So that is good news, meaning employees are receptive to this type of process. But in exchange, is this worth the employers time and money? Documented benefits we can see include:
- Increased completion rates for online courses – meaning employees are more likely to actually attain the skills if the course is sponsored [source]
- Saving costs on hiring new employees with a different skillset – retraining is up to 7 times cheaper according to some statistics [source]
- Cope better with the increased pace in required skills to master a certain role – complex problem solving is the #1 skill needed in many jobs Today, which means a form of ‘top down’ management will likely not work or become increasingly expensive over time.
Even Sebastian Thrun – founder and CEO of Udacity, the revolutionary MOOC provider – sounds more like a CEO when he said in an interview with Fast Company: “At the end of the day, the true value proposition of education is employment.” Since the interview, this trend has been pronounced for all I can observe. In 2018 Google sang to a similar tune, stating in a Blog post that it is working “…to help people find useful information about the skills and training they need for a job.” I believe that many of us are looking to receive help with our needs for training and education, especially when our work environments are changing so much.
Personally, I love what companies such as Walmart, Coca Cola, and Farmers Insurance have done. They looked at the training needs and how they could help their employees with those needs. Walmart built a VR solution preparing employees for the crazy time around black Friday – spooky. But hey, if it works, I am all for it.
How are you planning to leverage the rise of MOOC platforms, the increase in availability of digital media & content to support your workforce with their training needs?
References
- https://hbr.org/2018/01/can-moocs-solve-your-training-problem
- https://hbr.org/2019/05/your-workforce-is-more-adaptable-than-you-think
- https://www.patriotsoftware.com/payroll/training/blog/cost-training-employees-average/
- https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/massive-open-online-courses-started-out-completely-free-but-where-are-they-now-1dd1020f59/
- https://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-uphill-climb
- https://www.blog.google/products/search/introducing-pathways-job-search/
