ConnectSolutions Survey: Workers Want to Learn but Question Employer Training

by CoSo

February 21, 2017

Most Training Sessions Are Not Engaging, Workers Say

SAN FRANCISCO, February 21, 2017—ConnectSolutions (CoSo), a leading provider of highly customized and secure eLearning solutions, today announced the results of a new Learning in the Workplace Survey that suggests while workers for the most part are receptive to training, they feel sessions too often fail to engage them.

The survey showed while 98% of workers consider company-sponsored education important for their on-the-job training and overall professional development, three quarters say the virtual training sessions or educational webinars they participate in are not worth the time they lose from work.

Engagement seems to be one of the hurdles—56% said sessions are often sunk by presenters who fail to captivate—but despite the relatively bland presentation, attendees appear to be getting something out of their trainings. Nearly half of respondents find that 60% or more of training session/webinar content can be applied to their daily jobs.

“If there’s any one takeaway organizations should glean from our Learning in the Workplace survey, it’s that their workers value on-the-job training and really want their employers to help provide it,” said Glen D. Vondrick, ConnectSolutions CEO. “Although workers are getting something out of contemporary trainings, educators can take their sessions to the next level by delivering a greater ‘wow factor’ and making an even higher percentage of the time spent pertinent to workers’ day-to-day tasks.” 

Perhaps demonstrating again a strong desire to learn even in the face of subpar content, the majority of workers surveyed claim to pay attention to their virtual sessions at least 80% of the time. During that portion when they’re not engaged in the presentation, 42% say they tune out to complete a work-related task.

But when presented with the virtual classroom tools and features that training managers could be using to drive deeper engagement, learners responded as follows:

• 44% like the idea of more media-rich material beyond static slides—e.g., video, whiteboard, etc.
• 29% like the idea of incorporating games
• 29% like the idea of one-on-one interaction with presenters
• 27% like quizzes to check progress
• 24% value the ability to attend on their own time
• 20% want direct interaction with other learners
• 19% want the ability to participate from a mobile device

“While our survey suggests some areas where trainers can improve, some incredibly sophisticated virtual classroom technology solutions exist to help trainers engage workers like never before,” continued Vondrick. “With the continued advancements being made in eLearning, trainers can improve the relevance of their content and drive significant retention leading to higher productivity as has been found in other studies.”

548 U.S.-employed Internet users 18 years old and over participated in the ConnectSolutions Learning in the Workplace Survey conducted online during January.

About ConnectSolutions

ConnectSolutions (CoSo) provides secure and reliable virtual classrooms for its customers through its trusted private managed cloud platform services for synchronous training and collaboration. With over 9 billion collaboration minutes delivered for millions of end users, CoSo Cloud helps large enterprises, governmental agencies, and professional training organizations rapidly accelerate expert eLearning for large workforces to gain high productivity while lowering traditional training costs. Citibank, FEMA, General Motors, General Services Administration, KPMG, Raytheon and the Transportation Security Administration are among the enterprises and government agencies that rely on CoSo for their customized and SOC 2 Certified and FedRAMP-compliant virtual classroom experiences. For more information about ConnectSolutions, visit: http://connectsolutions.com.

 

Contact: Chris Blake

415-989-9000

chris@msrcommunications.com