Learning Experiences 2020: An Interview with Nolan Hout

As the year 2020 begins, many are now wondering what kinds of training trends will take hold this year. The world of L&D is constantly changing, but one thing is certain, positive learning experiences are high in demand.

76% of employees want opportunities for career growth [1].

7 out of 10 people say that training and development opportunities influence their decision to stay at a company [2].

56% of HR managers consider training to be crucial, but don’t think they are doing enough to increase training opportunities [3].

To find out more about this year’s training trends and how they will impact learning experiences, I spoke with Nolan Hout the Vice President of Marketing at Infopro Learning. Nolan spends most of his time performing marketing research in the L&D industry to better understand the most common and pressing challenges in the world of corporate training.

Many of the training trends in 2019 significantly impacted learning experiences. I started by asking Nolan if he thinks any of last year’s trends will continue to have an impact throughout 2020.

“I think this year we will see a continual push towards making content accessible on any device mobile, tablet or desktop versus just trying to go all-in on a mobile platform or behind the computer.”

Last year the focus was on mobile alone and they found the results varied from case to case. What they learned was that the platform employees prefer is highly dependent on the individual and their specific roles.

Nolan explained that the push to place training content on mobile devices in 2019 is likely to continue, but the focus will be on accessibility. Ideally learning content will be mobile responsive and accessible on every device. Providing training content that is accessible will ensure employees can participate in training in a way that is comfortable for them which will remove barriers and promote higher rates of engagement.

AR VR technologies were also starting to become more popular in corporate training last year. Nolan also expects this will continue. He said companies are starting to look closer at specific use cases to determine whether or not the technology will enhance the learning experience for employees.

“There was a company that used VR for fire training. If you are required once a year to have a fire drill think of how long, it takes your employees to do that. Instead, if you can have somebody do that virtually in 10 minutes in front of the computer, you’re saving quite a bit of time and money. I think as we start to find these interesting use-cases we’ll see AR VR really take hold in 2020.”

We then began to discuss continuous learning another rising L&D trend that greatly impacts learning experiences. Many organizations plan to focus on building a culture of continuous learning this year. But what really makes a culture of continuous learning successful? Nolan explained that continuous learning is all about culture and accessibility and is most effective when the culture starts from the top down.

“You need to be an organization in which people feel they have time to learn, explore and understand new things. I am seeing more and more organizations understand this and giving more time to employees.”

Nolan said that organizations that are looking to create a culture of continuous learning this year should look at creating a unified experience for learners.

“They need to be able to access learning and training content at a moment’s notice. If there’s any barrier to entry, if there’s any friction to that, it’s going to degrade that continuous learning culture that you worked so hard to build.”

When asked about the biggest change for corporate training in 2020, Nolan answered without a moment’s notice:

“I think the biggest shift we will see in 2020 is that L&D teams will double-down on their commitment to delivering programs that focus on improving employee performance. We’ve been inching in this direction for years, but I think now we are poised to make giant strides in connecting our training programs to the bottom line.”

Key Takeaways

Learning experiences will continue to improve throughout 2020 in three major ways.

There will be a push for accessibility this year. L&D professionals have realized that it is important to place training content on multiple platforms.