‘Channelize’ your eLearning Strategy

 

According to Statista, Youtube has 2.1 billion users in 2021 and according to the company, their users spend an average of 1 hour on the platform daily. Netflix on the other hand has 203 million+ paid subscribers and the company has seen 21.9% growth over last 12 months. eMarketer estimates that Netflix accounts for 25.7% of daily digital video time among US adults. This means that the average US adult spends 30 minutes a day watching Netflix.

 

 

These overwhelming numbers, do make us question the strategy behind such extraordinary user engagement? Is it just good content that keeps their audience glued or makes them come back for more or is it something else? Experts are of the opinion, that it is the suggestion engine that is driving the numbers, along with the presentation of that suggestion.

 

 

Youtube and Netflix are not just video streaming platforms anymore. They have now become content suggestion engines with the radical advancement in machine learning and artificial intelligence. These platforms are analyzing the user’s interaction with the content on the platform to suggest relevant content as per the user’s preference. The suggested content is further segregated into various categories based on the user’s past views on the platforms, their choice of language, geographical positioning, peer’s choice and so on. The user’s visit is incentivized by this service the platform is providing and their engagement with the platform increases with the sense of hyper-personalization. Netflix rakes in USD 1 billion each year by ensuring strong customer retention with the use of recommender engines, or the channel approach.

 

 

Now imagine, having the same strategy implemented for your learning delivery. Given the user’s behavior on these OTT platforms, one can safely bet on the effectiveness of a similar channel-based user interface on a learning platform. In 2018, Josh Bersin said that research has found out that employees have on an average 24 minutes to dedicate to learning. Learning providers have to strategically make most of this time and also create an affinity towards learning. The Netflix-like channel-based UI on a learning platform revolutionizes the way a learner receives content and consumes it. They not only receive the most relevant content in one glance, but the admin can push the most important courses, assessments, videos etc according to priority.

 

 

Sayan Guha, Product Head – Learning Technologies, G-Cube is a big advocate of this channel-based approach and says ‘When we talk of the Learn Tech industry, the scope is unimaginable for using the channel approach for learning personalization. Based on the learners’ interest, training history, and content consumption choices, the recommender algorithm can throw in incredibly useful training suggestions which will most definitely increase engagement and effectiveness of training. Our channel-based approach is driving high learning adoption for all kinds of learners, from leadership to sales teams to customers.’

 

 

How does channel-based approach facilitate learning?

 

• It helps categorize the learning content automatically based on keywords which also helps in keyword-based content search. For example – When a learner types/search a keyword- for example, ‘mobile hardware items’ they will find, anything related to it available on the LMS, even from the ‘recently uploaded’ or ‘about to expire’ items on their channels. Having this feature helps learners save time and effort.
• The channels are rule-based which means that once a new learning content is uploaded on the platform, the content will get automatically segregated in the relevant channel.
• Learning courses, assessments, certifications which must be completed within a certain date or have to be renewed can be highlighted in separate channel with alerts to the user.
• As the channels are programmable, admin can edit the channel placement through simple drag and drop to put the channels on the top whose content needs attention from the learner.
• Learner can see the recommended content based on their job roles, KPIs, past learning records and peer activity, all segregated into separate channels. Just like Netflix, G-Cube’s LMS home page looks different for different profiles as the learner can see content relevant to their profiles and recommendations.

 

 

AI advancements has taken over all aspects of digital experience of human beings – starting from how we listen to music to how we navigate our way to work. That is the level of efficiency and comfort your learners deserve in their learning journey as well. To know more about the programmable channel-based G-Cube LMS, write to us.

How is GCube’s Pharma LMS 21 CFR Part 11 Compliant for Audit Trail Management?

Our clients in the USA, have complained of sleepless nights due to the fear of receiving FDA 483 letters. So, even before we start the conversation, we understand your pain. As many as 429 organizations have received warnings from the FDA for non-compliance related to creating or following SOPs and problems with record keeping. In our endeavor to build a pharmaceutical specific LMS, GCube has built a learning solution that not only manages your audit trails and learner records effectively but is also in compliance with 21CFRPart11 guidelines.

In our analysis of the problem of FDA fines pertaining to audit trail management that we were trying to solve for our pharma clients, the few major challenges that came up in our scrutiny were as follows.

Manual Management

The audit trails and learner records are usually maintained on excel which of course is does not suffice when the scale of the records that needs to be maintained grows. The traditional practice of paper-based record keeping is also discarded due to the inefficiency and manual errors that is kind of obvious. As this practice made audits a tedious process due to lack of data availability, the FDA mandated e-record keeping and e-signatures.

Secured System

In a real-life situation, a big Pharma company’s drug got cancelled because an official mistakenly put a backdated signature on a document. The lack of a secured system that does not allow any backdated activity and maintains a rigid audit trail for the authorities is a necessity to avoid any situation that may lead to a compliance failure.

Huge MIS

Auditing happens of not only procedures but for each job role related to the procedure, training, process documents, hardware and software, external agencies, changes, and modifications in the process. It is herculean a task, to even visualize the gigantic amount of data that has to be tracked and monitored to avoid issues with the authorities.

We have solved these challenges with customization of the GCube learning management system and here’s how.

•  The QMS and DMS are integrated with the LMS to create a single repository of processes, documents and training related to the same.
• All the records in the system are validated; no invalid record is stored in the data stores (Database, Files etc.) even temporarily. Any invalid input is rejected, and system asks user to re-enter the valid input.
• A combination of login code and password is used as e-signature at all the instances. To every record which is added to the system, the id of user who has added the record is maintained. This id is linked to the user account profile which contains its login code and digital signatures.
• Every change in the system – addition, modification or deletion of the entity is tracked in respective audit trail. These audits are non-modifiable and cannot be deleted, however can be archived by the authorized users.

• The records once added can be updated or deleted only by authorized users. No one else can access the record for any modification. The system also limits the access to feature(s) only to the valid users. Only the authorized users are to view screen and modify the authorized objects.
• An approval process is there before finalizing the learning objects, hence, maintains sanity of the data. For ready retrieval of data, there are multiple standard reports and custom reports.
  
  

With our 20+ years of industry experience, R&D at GCube is always client-centric and practical. With a host of industry specific customization, our Pharma LMS has helped multiple clients from the industry avoid multiple training challenges, including non-compliance.

To know more about our solutions, please write to us at info@gc-solutions.net.

Making Pharma LMS GxP Compliant

 

A regular admission of our Pharma Solutions team is that they get requests from clients for an LMS which complies with GxP requirement. And it is interesting to see that even with such a large demand base, there are few products that are customized to their needs. While the need is such, traditionally the LMS and the DMS/QMS are maintained separately and the perennial client complain remains that this leads to higher overheads and vulnerabilities in compliance monitoring.

From our exploration as an LMS provider trying to figure out the optimal solution for GxP in training systems, the challenges identified were as follows:

• System maintenance, risk analysis and record keeping
• Regular system checks and a plan for business continuity
• Information security guidelines being followed based on rules of the country of operation
  
  

Based on the same we have a list of recommendations for your Pharma LMS to ensure long term GxP compliance.

System Qualification for IQ, OQ and PQ validation

For a manufacturing unit to claim to be compliant to GxP, one has to have the information of IQ, OQ and PQ and the concurrent validation available for the LMS. and creating a system qualification of the software becomes an important step to ensuring future GxP compliance.

Service Patch Records and Risk Analysis

Like any software, your LMS has to be updated regularly. However, to remain compliant, it is important that records of all service patches and risk mitigation steps are recorded on the LMS to show to Auditors that all possible steps have been taken to avoid major incidents.

System Checks and Business Continuity Planning

The LMS should come with a process for regular checking of the system. It is also required to have alternate documentation available in case of a single point or multiple point failure of BCP.  It is always advisable to store SOP and Quality guidelines in a backed-up server or the Cloud to remove on-premise vulnerabilities to knowledge or break in process. This storage also needs to come with the highest levels of security but should be accessible so work can continue at other facilities in case of one facility being affected by any major incident whether man-made or a natural disaster. There are many different options to select from including but not limited to AWS and Azure. Auditors love a good Business Continuity Plan that is secure and scalable.

Information Security Guidelines

The regulatory bodies are very particular about Pharma companies demonstrating that the InfoSec guidelines related to the country or region. While choosing an LMS it is important to acquire one that has ready documentation available to avoid any kind of non-compliance incidents been reported during a GxP audit.

While these are standard procedures required for the pharma industry, clients face major time loss trying to get these customizations done to their LMS. We suggest being proactive while looking for an LMS, rather than reacting after getting one.   

At GCube, we have 20 years of experience and 80+ industry awards in learning technologies. To know more about products and services, please do write to us. 

Reducing of Time to Productivity

 

Large product portfolios with varying level of complexities for new teams with different levels of skills and knowledge. Have we been able to state the most basic issue of your life as BFSI leader? Our gut feeling is that we have. Longer time to productivity usually always means lesser time at peak productivity due to compliance mandates and certifications in your industry.

Thus, the basic and foremost requirement of any BFSI organization is to achieve shorter TTP and here are 5 steps to do the same. All you need is the right LMS.

Step 1: Pre-joining Engagement

The idea is to identify the skills and abilities of each individual right at the time of joining so there is no wastage of time and effort. The information can be captured on the LMS which can then deploy trainings according to the levels at which the employee currently is. A pre-joining training kit which may contain information about the organization, leadership, payroll etc also helps the employees settle down faster with the company with a sense of belonging.

The pre-joining involvement through the LMS creates the opportunity to deploy all the basic training modules related to the company’s products and key phrases or industry jargon so that your new-hires can hit the floor running. Of course, these will be material which are available on the public domain and are not proprietary documents. 

Step 2: Creating Personalized Learning Path

With information gathered and basic training deployed in the previous step, an effective LMS can then assign automated training to a new hire to bring them at par with others in their batch or even move someone to advanced batches if they are ahead of the others. Keeping in mind the different skill levels, talents and learning styles, a good learning management system can create a learning path for individuals based on multiple factors and help them to find what they are good at and truly enjoy doing. This in-turn helps them achieve peak performance faster.

As the learning is mapped to the job role or product an individual is handling, the LMS can throw up timely notifications required for certification or guideline updates which otherwise leads to confusions and loss of productivity.

Step 3: Create Immersive Learning Experience

The number of products in BFSI is extensive and often riddled with complexities that employees must navigate and be able to explain in simple language. This means they require in-depth understanding of the product, which is easy to deliver through interactive media via an LMS. Trainees are offered life-like simulations for scenarios, understanding of product combinations and with inputs from sales teams for real questions asked by customers. What they get is an immersive experience and are more confident to achieve peak performance faster.

Small learning nuggets can be sent to the employees at regular intervals, automated through the LMS. This ensures continued and reinforced learning which reduces knowledge loss and creates better customer experience.

Step 4: Segregate Experience Employees from new ones

Segregation of training programs and content based on who the audience is effectively reduces time lost in futile training or retraining. An LMS is again key to this step to achieve desired results. For example, the same product needs to have two deliveries. For basic level folks who need more detailed explanations and an advanced level for whom it can be a quick upskill intervention. As your LMS already has the learning data of each individual, it can help you identify the right kind of training required for a particular individual who is at a particular level of understanding or experience.  

Step 5: Make Learning an Agile Process

A company that has a tradition of agility will always find it easier to handle bumps in the road. Like most things, training processes and systems also experience fatigue and become outdated very quickly. BFSI companies need to invest in an LMS that are built to handle and respond to update needs in an intelligent way. A good LMS will allow deployment of changes, alerts to roles who need to learn or get certified, and also give leadership visibility to the status of certifications, especially those that fall under the compliance umbrella.

Knowledge is very liquid and relative, especially as the typical time in a role gets impacted by attrition, role change or promotions. Leaders need to be able to get more time per resource at peak productivity and the right LMS can be an ideal partner to help organizations achieve their Time to Productivity goals.

At GCube, we have 20 years of experience and 80+ industry awards in learning technologies. To know more about products and services, please do write to us. 

Fostering Continuous Learning Culture: Shifting Focus towards Implementing New-age Corporate LMS

In today’s fast-paced environment, companies are utilizing corporate LMS platforms to embrace continuous learning culture and remain competitive. For individuals, continuous learning is all related to browsing the web to watch webinars, read posts, or enrolling in a certification program. For workplace culture, continuous learning is about improving employee engagement, knowledge retention, and accelerating organizational performance. Online corporate learning programs cater to the pertinent needs of globally dispersed audiences by enhancing their skills and creating new growth opportunities.

Organizations adopt a continuous learning culture to keep their employees abreast of the latest LMS technology. So, modern LMS for corporate training plays a significant role in creating a learning culture through a plentiful of ways. These include-

• Content accessibility- Anytime and anywhere

To embrace continuous learning, modern LMSs support the availability of personalized training content across different mobile devices- laptops and smartphones. Mobile learning has gained huge traction in the past few years, with the rise of tablets in the corporate world.  Using a mobile LMS, learners can access relevant training material at their own pace of time, while at home, in office, or while on the go.

• Performance tracking- Real-time feedback

The leading corporate LMS providers deliver e-learning solutions to bridge skills-gaps, boost workforce performance, and enhance business productivity. Modern LMS integrates with other enterprise systems such as HRMS, CRM, and others to fetch employee data and create Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Based on the KPI scores, the LMS automatically aligns personalized training for diverse training goals- compliance, sales training, onboarding, and so on. Also, corporate managers can provide real-time feedback to their employees rather than waiting for annual appraisal cycles. As a result, employees can efficiently work on their weak areas continually, thereby saving costs and boosting overall productivity.

• Game-based learning- It can be fun

When training becomes dull and boring, it is essential to introduce engaging gaming elements with e-learning courses. Modern LMS supports the gamification feature by including interactive elements such as scores, leaderboards, and badges. Consequently, organizations embrace a fun-filled learning culture by encouraging employees through rewards, driving peer-to-peer collaboration, and gaining a competitive edge.

• Measuring success- Overall training impact

One of the significant benefits of modern LMSs is to bridge skills-gaps, boost engagement, and measure training effectiveness. By measuring different parameters such as skills metrics, training completion rates, test scores, and more, organizations can measure the overall impact of training on employees. So, this continuous measurement of training success ensures that learning caters to the bespoke needs of all.
A workplace learning culture is not a one-time done practice. With evolving training needs, the learning culture also needs to be continuous as well as personalized. Undoubtedly, continuous learning is reshaping the modern training landscape. New-age best corporate LMS adopts a game-based, mobile-aided, and performance-driven learning approach to provide a dynamic experience that hooks every learner. The traditional training model is falling away, and companies are shifting their focus to deliver training that is on-demand, personalized, and technology-aided. So, a continuous learning culture not only boosts your employee growth and retention but also aids businesses to grow and succeed.

Healthcare Learning Management System

Significance of Healthcare Learning Management System for Engaging Experience

To ensure optimum patient care and stay ahead of the curve, the healthcare industry needs to provide practical workforce training. A robust healthcare learning management system (LMS) helps to manage online learning courses, track employee performance, and boost overall efficiency. This industry must update doctors, surgeons, clinicians, and other professionals with the latest policies, procedures, and compliances. The deployment of the right kind of LMS tools boost workforce performance, increase training ROI, enhance the overall reach and brand value.

With an increasing need to adopt innovative technologies for corporate learning, modern LMS for healthcare is utilized to provide a personalized experience for all. Advanced healthcare learning management system also delivers mobile-enabled courses anytime and anywhere learning. With the advent of new medical equipment, drugs, and medical procedures, the scope of using modern LMS is also evolving. There are multiple benefits of using a learning management system in the healthcare sector. These include:

• Due to the short attention span of new-age learners, robust LMSs are utilized to provide quick to access content chunks across personalized mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. So, this enables doctors, nurses, clinicians, and other staff members to learn at their own pace of time and convenience.
• Online LMS in healthcare sector helps to improve training quality and workforce performance. Furthermore, doctors and nurses prepare themselves to promote patient care and comply with regulatory standards.
• The powerful LMS is 21 Part 11 compliant, which ensures the training platform to secure confidential data. It also generates automated reports and tracks performance at the end of compliance training to reduce manual intervention.

• Simulations in e-learning also aid healthcare professionals to understand complex real-life situations and how to handle them accordingly. These enable clinicians and doctors to become competent enough to avoid mistakes in critical cases.

• Short duration video nuggets on your mobile devices enable learning on the go. Healthcare professionals can access short bursts of information, thereby improving overall engagement, retention, and employee performance levels.

• Modern LMS seamlessly integrates with HRMS, ERP, CRM, and other enterprise systems to identify skills-gaps, collate KPI data, and create performance metrics of healthcare staff. Based on the need-gaps and KPI scores, the LMS automatically assigns relevant training to close those gaps and meet pertinent needs.

A feature-rich healthcare learning management system delivers a consistent training experience for learners with varied job roles- surgeons, nurses, clinicians, and other staff members. Today, most of the healthcare companies are shifting towards adopting technology-aided solutions to train the diversified workforce and stay competitive. Consequently, new-age LMSs serve as a viable solution to accelerate workplace performance, drive knowledge retention, boost performance, and improve patient care-at reduced costs.

UI and UX in Modern LMS Systems

Significant Role of New-age UI and Seamless UX in Modern LMS Systems

The significance of modern Learning Management Systems (LMSs) is continuously evolving for corporate training. With the shifting focus towards technology-aided learning, the scope of using the new-age LMS systems with an intuitive user interface (UI) is also increasing. The responsively-designed UI with icons, menus, search bars, and buttons ensure training delivery as per the personalized needs and styles. Also, user experience (UX) is another aspect to measure the usability and efficiency of an LMS. So, organizations deploy modern training platforms with interactive UI to deliver personalized learning for all.

The best learning management systems support easy navigation and interactive UI to attain success. The UI and UX of LMS systems play a significant role in deciding how learners interact with the platform. A poor UI with an outdated design lacks visual appeal. Also, a poor UX with too many clicks make the system complex and less engaging. As per the survey by Brandon Hall, 50.6% of organizations consider a bad UI/UX as an obstacle between learning and training goals. There are different factors which reflect the importance of good UI/UX to facilitate the learning experience. These include:

• The new-age learners prefer training, which is performance-driven and ROI-aligned. They access relevant training content to fulfill their pertinent needs to bridge skills-gaps, boost engagement, and workplace efficiency. A good UX in modern LMS ensures that the least number of clicks are required to perform a task such as assigning courses. Consequently, this boosts the overall levels of engagement and retention for seamless user experience.

• Modern corporates depend on powerful learning management platforms to measure and track learners’ performance. They deploy robust LMS systems to automatically assign e-learning courses as per the pertinent needs, styles, KRAs, skills, and learning habits. An exceptional UX enables organizations to align the right kind of learning to different training goals- compliance, sales, onboarding, and more.

• The mobile LMSs support a clutter-free UI and seamless UX. Due to the reduced screen size and need to learn at the point of need, the LMS needs to support advanced UI features. These include a touch screen, facial recognition, eye tracking, are 3D touch are vital factors responsible for improving the overall training experience.

A custom UI and seamless UX create some sense of familiarity among users with modern LMS systems. Furthermore, learners who access courses via an LMS are more likely to engage more, retain for long, and perform better at the workplace. Choosing the best training platform with an intuitive UI/UX is the most crucial decision for organizations. So, based on factors like visually-appealing UI and functional UX, organizations address personalized training needs and foster continuous learning & development.