LMS, LMS Trends, Corporate online learning trends, 2022 LMS trends

5 Must-Know L&D Trends for 2022

by Simon Cooper on April 28, 2022

Keeping up with trends in your industry is important. According to Award Staffing, a top employment agency, following industry trends can transform your business.¹

“While it can be tempting to stick with the tried-and-true things your company has done over the years, integrating trending things as they come up will set you apart and keep you in the know about your industry,” Kristina Smith, Marketing Coordinator at Award Staffing, wrote.

Smith listed the following benefits of staying up to date with industry trends:

It helps your company forecast what’s to come for your industry, helping your organization effectively plan for the future.
Other businesses will see your company as an authority. This will give your business a competitive edge.
It leads to better branding and business ideas.
It will enable you to keep up with other industry leaders during business conversations.
Participating in new industry trends will introduce you to new skills, people, and events. This can ultimately benefit your company.

Ready to learn about some top L&D trends for this year? Read on.

L&D Trends Dominating 2022

If you’re not familiar with the up-and-coming L&D trends for 2022, now’s the perfect time to learn about them. In the blog article 3 Corporate Learning Trends to Expect in 2022, we cited learning at the speed of change, personalized training, and greater need for security awareness training as some of the top trends for this year.

Learning at the Speed of Change

It’s important that employees learn at speed and keep up with the quick pace of training. Employees need to be able to rapidly access critical training resources. This is vital as companies change how they operate (for example, going remote or implementing a hybrid work model).

Personalized Training

Workers’ training needs have changed, and company leaders are personalizing training to boost learner/employee engagement and knowledge retention. One way they are personalizing training is by regularly assessing the needs of individual learners and tweaking training to meet those needs.

A Greater Need for Security Awareness Training

Due to the pandemic, organizations are at a greater risk for cyber attacks. Remote work has made networks vulnerable to cybercrime and caused data breaches to increase. Business leaders are offering more security awareness training to keep sensitive data safe, which helps protect a company’s bottom line.

5 More Corporate Learning Trends You Should Know About

New L&D trends are cropping up quickly. According to an article by Training Magazine by Chris Tratar, Director of Product Marketing for Inkling, a digital learning solutions provider, these 5 corporate learning trends will become prominent this year²:

1) Fusing business with learning and development - For better business results, businesses must integrate with L&D. That’s exactly what organizational leaders are striving to do. Tratar stated,

“...executives are more interested in how they can align training and knowledge with their business objectives because they have seen the direct correlation between business success and developing critical skills in the workforce and retaining employees. Learning will continue to move closer to, and even be absorbed by business units and lines of business.”

The article said organizations should expect to see the fusion of business with L&D in manufacturing, sales, insurance call centers, claims departments, and more.

2) Delivering a top-notch learner experience - To align your company with one of 2022’s top L&D trends, aim to deliver a better UX for learners. Learners’ needs vary, and each employee deserves a great experience with training that meets their needs and improves their skill set.

Tratar explained that although businesses have done a good job using the newest technologies for individualizing the customer experience, they haven’t done the same for employee training.

“Modern learners seek a more engaging, intuitive, interactive experience; one that mirrors how they use technology in their personal life, including a simple, mobile-first design, powerful search capabilities, clearly organized libraries, easy access to video content and so much more,” Tratar wrote.

Stay ahead of the competition by delivering a better-than-ever learner experience this year.

3) Acclimating to a hybrid work model - Most employees have had their work model disrupted by the pandemic. Due to health and safety issues, it was necessary for many companies to implement remote work during the height of COVID-19. However, things are changing now.

As the virus has become better-controlled and new treatments have been developed, some organizations have adopted a hybrid work model. Tratar said hybrid work may be a permanent thing, but that employees still want to collaborate with others. A hybrid model allows individuals to work from an on-the-job location some of the time. They can carry out training in this type of location when necessary.

“...essential employees in healthcare, retail, hospitality, and other industries are required to be in the workplace and need ongoing training. The sheer variety of workplace scenarios is accelerating the need for, and use of, digital platforms that bring learning to employees – wherever they are – so they can get the training they need and apply that knowledge immediately while on the job.”

Implementing an online learning platform is key for organizations that use hybrid work and training. TOPYX Quick Start LMS includes everything you need to launch an L&D program for up to 500 learners.

Request a free LMS demo to learn more.

4) Transitioning to online learning - Working from home, even part-time, means training from home. Employees can’t train and learn from home without having access to online learning. Tratar referred to transitioning to online learning as “the digital transformation of learning” and said,

“Today’s employees want to quickly find what they need to learn, learn it, and apply that knowledge immediately as they do their job. Digital learning involves more real-time, interactive elements, including videos, games, podcasts, and augmented and virtual reality. This model works well for operational learning and can be useful for reinforcing knowledge and refresher training.”

Tratar said online learning improves business agility, lowers costs, reduces mistakes, and increases customer satisfaction. That’s why it’s a dominating L&D trend for 2022, and that is why your business should adopt it.

5) Emphasizing ROI - Making ROI for training a priority isn’t new, but it is trending this year. The pandemic has financially strained numerous businesses, so organizations are doing all they can to get the best return on investment for employee training. Tratar wrote,

“Increasingly, organizations are asking their teams to track metrics with the same rigor demanded of other parts of the business. When adopting a modern digital learning platform, it’s critical that it includes tools to track employee learning progress and provide metrics the C Suite needs to understand the importance of L&D to the overall business.”

To support this trend, online learning platforms must have LMS reporting functionality that enables administrators to track key metrics to determine ROI for training.

With the TOPYX LMS reporting feature, administrators can easily navigate reports in their intuitive and customizable dashboard. The dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of KPIs, which helps executives and management teams track progress.

With TOPYX, administrators can email or export reports in Excel, PDF and many other formats, communicate facts to executives easily with direct reports, and quickly pull data on user activity and performance. TOPYX LMS reporting also gives learners access to transcripts, report cards, and competencies.

Participate in Top L&D Trends with TOPYX Quick Start LMS

Fusing business with learning and development, delivering a great learner experience, switching to a hybrid work model, transitioning to online learning, emphasizing ROI - all of these L&D trends for 2022 require an online learning platform. TOPYX LMS is ideal for companies that want to align with these trends. The following features enable TOPYX users to stay in-step with the trends mentioned earlier:

Mobile learning - TOPYX mobile learning gives learners on-the-go access to training, anywhere, anytime, and on any device. Mobile learning helps increase employee training participation, as well as learner engagement and training-related ROI. Also, most employees prefer to pace their own training, and mobile learning promotes self-paced corporate learning.
Microlearning - TOPYX microlearning enables businesses to deploy bite-sized chunks of training and learning, as well as knowledge checks to validate understanding. Like mobile learning, this can improve ROI for training, as well as boost learner participation and engagement. Microlearning also improves on-the-job training, fosters knowledge retention, and facilitates faster learning, freeing up time for workers to be more productive.
Certifications - As more organizations acclimate to blended work and training, certifications management is becoming increasingly important. Industry-specific rules and regulations are changing quickly, and so are compliance training needs. The TOPYX certifications feature helps administrators easily manage Continuing Education Units and other certificates and use embedded e-signature to capture learner verification for compliance and auditing.