WFH, LFH and the E-learning Revolution

Alongside the established heavyweight acronyms of LOL, GWS and GSOH arrives the definitive acronym of our time.

Prior to Covid-19, WFH occupied a niche space in the acronym world …

World Federation of Healing

Wartime Flying Hours

Wages For Housework

Weep For Humanity (which might be pushing hard for top dog WFH status)

… but as we’ve been forced to adapt to lockdown, WFH has emerged as the acronym of choice and embedded itself into our everyday vocabulary.

Alongside this move to WFH has been a spike of activity and interest in E-learning and Learning from Home or (wait for it) ….. “LFH”.

Short Pause Here …

Before proceeding with this article I want to briefly acknowledge an increasingly heated debate taking place on forums like Linkedin, between people who want to use every lockdown minute for “upskilling” and those who don’t.

During this unprecedented crisis, just do whatever works for you. If you want to sit around all day in your pyjamas eating cheese and onion pringles, then please just do it. 

But if you’re yearning for a little eLearning, now is the time to fill your boots.

And so, without further ado, we present you with CTO Academy’s quickfire guide to E-learning and LFH;

1. E-learn at your own pace. 

Classroom learning will generally proceed at the pace of the slowest and when it came to anything technical or language based, that was often me. 

E-learning enables you and your employees to pace themselves and as students can access the material anytime they want, and anywhere they are, they can set a pace and training schedule that suits their lifestyle and demands.

You don’t need to follow the pace of the group and you can skip what you already know or don’t need to add.

At CTO Academy we create personalised learning paths based not only around the skills our users want to build but also the timeline and schedule that works best for them. 

2. Find the Right Lecturer. 

Traditionally you paid your money, signed up to a course, arrived the first day and met your Teacher or lecturer. If the set up felt wrong then it could be quite a challenge and cost to change.

With online learning you normally get a chance to taste first, buy later. 

You can study your lecturer(s) and their style of delivery before deciding if you like the cut of their gib and making that commitment to buy.  

3. How to Manage Distractions. 

One negative about eLearning is the risk of distraction.

Things that often distract me  … 

– 6 year old daughter

– Chocolate hobnobs

– Social media

You definitely need to instill a discipline to your schedule, your space and what you want to achieve from each session. Food grazing and family interruptions need to be kept to a minimum.

You can also look into ways of collaborating online with people of a like mind who can foster a collective focus and accountability.

As an example, members of the London Writers Salon meet each weekday at 0800 around the Zoom hearth.

But this is not your standard Zoom conference call. 

Nothing is said between 0805 and 0855 but instead, similar to working in a library and enjoying the benefits of that mutual conspiracy of cerebral silence, we motivate each other just by being amongst like minded people and making ourselves accountable.

My writing focus has been transformed. 

4. Find Niche, Enjoy Experimentation.

E-learning enables you to drill deep into a particular topic, find experts in the smallest of niche and listen to A list celebrities explain how to make a movie.

It also allows you to experiment and try something completely different, probably for a very small outlay and from the comfort of your own home. 

You don’t have to be searching down some dark lane for a late night evening class, after an exhausting day at work.

Today you can turn on, tune in, and never get out of your slippers.

5. Technology Changes Everything. 

Technology is transforming education (for adults and children) with an expanding range of E-learning tools transforming what is possible away from the traditional class or lecture room.

The current lockdown for many parents = home schooling and accessing a range of online tools that help us manage and teach through this crisis. It’s been a wonderful experience personally though I appreciate now more than ever, that patience is a prerequisite of good teaching and not something you can hand over to technology.

From a corporate perspective the quality of E-learning analytics and measurable outcomes is improving all the time with data that enables participants to measure different aspects of the learning process and effectiveness such as completion rates (notoriously low with online learning), grades, engagement. 

6. Employee Retention.  

Cutting edge training and E-learning programmes are absolutely key to maintaining employee satisfaction and retention.

The fight for talent requires many incentives and you cannot afford to neglect the training requirements of your teams.

“The only thing worse than training employees and having them leave, is not training them and having them stay” – Henry Ford

Conclusion

These recent changes of behaviour with WFH and LFH are driving growth and innovation into the E-learning market, for personal and professional growth.  Learning tools are becoming more sophisticated and aligned to a user’s lifestyle and ambition.

It’s a market that is adapting constantly to try and make the material sufficiently engaging to deliver a deeper impact on the student.  

Features such as gamification, branching scenarios and simulations are being added so that material is more interesting and engagement rates increase (always notoriously low with E-learning platforms).

If you’ve not been yearning for E-learning before now, what’s stopping you?