Technology is Changing. Employers have long searched for employee benefits that improve morale and retention, while offering productivity benefits for the company. Few hit all these marks as well as continuing education opportunities sponsored by employers. Employees consistently cite these opportunities as attractive benefits in the workplace, and employers directly benefit from helping their workers expand their skill sets. Offering employee education programs is a win-win.
While employee continuing education benefits are nothing new, they are changing, and that evolution is largely driven by technological development.
Technology and employee education
Developing technologies are playing a promising role in pushing employee education into the future. By enabling new ways to learn, these technologies can enhance employee learning capabilities and make the experience more engaging.
For example, augmented reality (AR) offers an immersive, guided training platform in a quasi-digital environment. AR, which involves overlaying digital and interactive objects on a user’s physical environment, can help employee’s follow along with a step-by-step tutorial that guides them through the intricacies of a new process. For example, an employee that is learning how to fix a machine for the first time can use AR to see the process directly on the machinery. Plus, that employee can simultaneously connect with a remote colleague who has the experience to help advise them. The same could be true for learning to navigate new software.
“[Augmented reality] brings lessons and learnings to life with videos, photos and audio, giving employees a new way to learn and visualize ideas while fostering collaboration,” said Liv Allen, an account supervisor at Codeword.
Allen pointed to examples in medical education and software training for employees in the banking industry as successful use cases for AR.
