In a globalized and increasingly interconnected world, the prophecies of the gurus of the 70s are being fulfilled, including Alvin Toffler and Marshall McLuhan, who anticipated a world where speed in communication and technological development would be constant. Business training is not alien to these evolutionary processes, which has been understood by large corporations and companies in general as an instrument that allows to significantly increase productivity. We are witnessing the transition from face-to-face training to virtual training, but what implications will these new learning models have in the coming years for companies and people? This is precisely the question that I will try to reflect on in this writing.
For about 15 years now, the topic of virtual training has begun to interest human resource managers and many companies spend generous budgets annually to strengthen virtual learning platforms, in such a way that what began as an experimental process it has become a complementary tool for face-to-face learning, which will not be totally displaced due to the circumstances mentioned below.
A. Training and its scope
The purposes of training in the organization are mainly oriented to:
- Improve performance in the workplace Increase the productivity of the organization Strengthen the results of work teams Build management models according to the needs of the company.
To do this, those responsible for designing, executing and evaluating the training, training and development processes in companies establish some factors that allow them to meet the identified needs, among them we can mention:
- Know the company and its products Identify, train and develop the skills required for each job. Update your collaborators on the regulatory and technical aspects necessary for the operation of each of the processes in the company. Develop models of accompaniment, monitoring and management control.
B. the culture of self-training
One of the great difficulties that the promoters of virtual learning processes encountered had to do with:
- The scarce development of robust and practical technological platforms that would allow an e-learning experience The initial little diffusion of the model in companies and educational entities The resistance to compromising the learning results to software development The high costs of virtual training solutions and their little effectiveness proven in previous experiences. The little discipline of those who participated in this new learning scheme.
Little by little the connectivity difficulties were overcome and the solutions were increasingly robust and practical, however it is still evident that a culture of self-training has not been fully developed since the access records to the system to develop interactive works They still have to be accompanied by a tutor who motivates, regulates and controls the income to the system in order to comply with the development of the different programs offered on the intranet or in e-learning schemes, virtual classroom and other schemes that are supported on the web and developed by training companies and universities.
C. Advances in virtual training
The global trend in terms of business training has to do precisely with the strengthening of virtual courses, which can be accessed by recipients from anywhere in the world and at the time they deem appropriate. For large corporations it has represented the opportunity to unify criteria in the company's own issues and establish corporate training plans. In some companies, induction and reinduction programs are being enabled so that those who are linked to companies, know the general aspects of the organization and also the scope of their jobs, including the management indicators with which their performance will be measured. performance.
On the other hand, we can mention that also, in the educational field, universities have made significant progress in this matter and offer courses, diplomas and MBAs in a virtual way, an example of this is the offer that the UNAD (National Open and Distance University has).
D. The future of classroom training
The reality of companies in Colombia, represented by the fact that 9% of the business park are SMEs, 81% are micro companies and only 1.1 are large companies (1) * and, Internet access is increasingly growing and the number of users grows exponentially and they suggest that some years will pass where virtual training will have a very important role to play in the training and organizational development processes.
Companies still have a long way to go in the search for new methodologies that allow recognizing and measuring the real contributions of each of the seminars, workshops, courses and other training events has to the purposes of the same.
The future of face-to-face training will be determined by the increase that technological development has in companies and the interest in accessing new learning models by those who make training decisions in companies.
E. Implications for companies and the employee of the future.
The easy and necessary access to technology by companies and the increase in virtual offers on training topics will undoubtedly lead to processes that will allow the implementation of virtual training platforms that will contribute to the achievement of the purposes of all training.
There are still questions to be answered about how the impact of virtual training will be in the future, among them are:
- The development of a culture of self-training The ease of accessing virtual programs Accompanying the learning process The budgets required to implement technological solutions at workstations Measuring the impact of virtual training processes vs face-to-face.
Finally, I consider that both types of training, face-to-face and virtual, have their times and spaces, are complementary and together they will be able to safely develop new learning alternatives that will strengthen work skills that will help create organizations where knowledge management will do part of the corporate strategy in the search for greater competitiveness.
Source:
1. FUNDES. The reality of the Colombian SME.
