Mobile Learning is Perfect for Just-in-Time Learning: An Industry Example

E-learning is being adopted by all leading industries in the world. The Banking and Financial Industry has been an early adopter of technology-aided learning. Over the last few years, increasing competition, newer regulatory bodies, as well as a tremendous impact of information technology has changed the way this industry conducts business. There is a growing demand for newer products and services, which has brought on significant changes in the operations as well as thestructure of the BFSI. 

Many BFSI organizations have already adopted mobile-enabled solutions by providing pre-loaded hand-held devices for their employees – particularly, the sales staff. However, there is another benefit that can be derived out of mobile devices – that of training and learning. Mobile learning solutions can be developed, keeping in mind the needs of the learners as well as the strength of the mobile platform.

E-Courses via Mobile Learning Management Systems: Creating a Mobile Learning Management System makes learning accessible to the learners at all times. Thus, an appropriate development tool should be chosen to build the LMS, which ensures seamless accessibility across varying mobile devices. A mobile LMS developed with newer technology like HTML5 can be uniformly accessed on a laptop, smart phone or tablet even if these devices run on different OS or have different web-browsers. This makes learning easier to access for the learners. For the BFSI sector, which often has to train extensively within limited timelines, it is the easier and cheaper option to enable cross-platform delivery of media-rich mobile content. In addition, the employees of the BFSI sector come from a higher educational background and are well aware of the technological developments in IT. They have to come to expect the same from their learning as well. With intuitive design strategies like floating panels and tiled structure, it is possible to create a compact yet visually attractive UI that enhances the learner’s experience with the platform and takes it to the level of other IT-enabled platforms that learners often work with.

Video/Audio based learning solutions: Both audio and video align very well to the mobile platform. Contrary to popular belief, creating audio-visuals does not have to be a very expensive proposition. Short videos can be created very easily, with the help of modern animation tools. These provide an opportunity of impactful visual learning and can be developed easily, even on minimal budgets. Even when the learning time is limited and there are plenty of external stimuli, an impactful video can impart knowledge successfully. This makes it most suitable for mobile learning delivery, even when the topic is complicated or dreary. Similarly, audio can also be utilized to create mobile learning solutions. Though, listening to a podcast might not be as impactful as watching a learning video, audio can be utilized well when external stimuli is limited – like waiting for a sales call. This is the time when most learners need to refresh the learning and an audio learning solutions will be apt for this situation.

Social learning on the Mobile Platform: Sales personnel spend a lot of time outside office and there is a definite lack of peer interactions, which can create gaps in learning. The mobile platform provides a forum of learning together as well as from each other. BFSI employees can share documents or files with pertinent information on their learning – customer feedback or selling techniques, which have worked for them. To encourage increased sharing behaviour, video/audio sharing can also be included. This saves precious time and effort as learners can simply record short videos or audio on their mobiles and upload them on to the platform. From time to time, managers and higher management personnel could also share organizational beliefs and visions as well give the learners a morale boost.

By adopting the right combination of technology, learning strategy and delivery mechanism, mobile learning solutions can becreated for the learners across diverse industries – as illustrated in the example above.