How Australia’s Workplaces are being Transformed by Technology

G’day everyone! For more than 25 years I’ve been doing consulting work with companies across Australia and I can tell you that, when it comes to how we learn at work, everything has changed. I was recently sitting with Jennifer, one of these operations managers, at a manufacturing company in Newcastle, watching her team take online safety courses on tablets on the factory floor next to the machines they would soon be running. That’s when I realised how far we’d come from the dusty training rooms and stale instruction manuals that I remember from the early 2000s.

Here’s what I’ve learnt about how technology is being used to change workplace education, and most important, how to make it effective for your team:

Breaking Down the Old Barriers

Remember when training meant you were all in the same room at the same time? I certainly do. These include, for example, the mining company in Western Australia where I worked, in which workers were flown from the extremely remote locations in which they were based, to Perth, to undertake a three day training course. It was expensive, and half the team was jet lagged and distracted by being away from their families.

Flip to today, and that same company is training the job with virtual reality headsets right at the mine. Dangerous strategies can be tested out in a completely safe environment, without workers even having to leave their own communities. It’s not just about the cost savings (they have cut training costs 60 per cent), it’s about putting learning at the fingertips, for everyone, anywhere.

Teaching used to be tied to the laws of geography and restricted by geography, but now technology has blown away that myth. Whether you’re a project manager in Darwin or one man small business in Hobart, your people have the same access to top notch training as someone in Sydney or Melbourne. It’s truly democratised workplace education.

Meeting Everyone Where They Are

One of the most breathtaking things I think I’ve ever seen is that, with technology, you can reach all these kids right where they’re at. And then going to Emma’s graphic design company in Adelaide. One of her employees, Marcus, scored abysmally on conventional workshops yet excelled in interactive design simulations. Another team member, Patricia, listened to podcasts in her car as she commuted to the office and learnt that way.

We can differentiate for visual learners (infographics, videos), auditory learners (podcasts, webinars), kinaesthetic learners (simulations, other interactives) all through the application of technology. It is a bit like a personal tutor for each worker, who knows how to teach each best.

The effectiveness of just in time learning really came home to me when I worked with a busy chain of restaurants. Their employees worked in shifts, and spoke English on a spectrum of fluency levels. Traditional group training was, for all intents and purposes, out of the question. Now waitstaff can get a teachable moment on new menu items in bite size video lessons between shifts, and kitchen staff can spruce up on safe food handling in any language when they need a refresher.

Making Learning Engaging Again

I’ll tell you, that traditional corporate training can be pretty boring. I sat through a lot of slides in PowerPoint before my eyes went glassy! Yet technology has inspired a renaissance in workplace education.

I was in Queensland, where I did some work with a logistics company last year and they made a game out of their warehouses. Forklift drivers were able to accrue points by finishing up safety modules, and warehouse teams went head with virtual challenges. Throughputs had increased 25 per cent, but just as important, people were excited to learn again.

Interactive sims, too, have been game changers in their own right. In Melbourne, I watched airline maintenance crews practice complex repairs on virtual airplane engines. They could make mistakes and learn from them, then just do it again, without having to worry about breaking expensive machinery or putting their lives at risk.

The Smart Investment Choice

I can hear some of you thinking: “Marcus, this sounds like expensive stuff!” But let me provide you with some numbers that may surprise you.

A retail chain in which I consulted to in Brisbane used to blow $150,000 a year on flying their regional managers back to HQ for training. Now they can offer it online for less than $30,000 a year. That’s a discount rate of 80% and their training completion rates actually went up because managers could learn at their own speed.

The benefits in efficiency are also beyond expectations. Instead of plucking workers from their jobs for full day classes, companies can give learning out in bite size pieces. I’ve seen assembly workers completing a safety update in the short interval of time they take for lunch, and sales staff brushing up on product knowledge between calls to clients.

Navigating the Challenges

There are, of course, bumps in the road. I am the digital divide. At a construction company in rural Victoria, innovation in learning technology was a bridge too far for some of the older workforce. The solution? Matching them with junior employees who were tech savvy and played the role of informal mentors. It was beautiful relationships and it left no one behind.

There’s also a reasonable question of data security. My advice is for companies to select technology companies that have credibility and that also have policies about the gathering and storing of employee learning data. Trust is a prerequisite to learning and employees must believe that their privacy is being respected.

What’s difficult is balancing that. Tech should bring people together, not set them apart. The companies I work with that have been most successful spend a lot on what we call “blended learning” efforts, which use online tools to complement face to face contacts. The value in talking our ideas out with our peers and learning from experienced mentors is, of course, still immense.

Looking Ahead with Optimism

The future of workplace learning is really exciting for me. Artificial intelligence is beginning to create truly personalised learning experiences, adapting content to an individual’s learning pace and style. I was recently demoed AI that realised one of the people going through its courses picked up financial concepts by way of sports, so it starting tuning its content in that direction.

The training is now more interactive given the use of virtual and augmented reality. Electricians practising their wiring on a virtual building, surgeons practising on virtual bodies. The possibilities are endless.

The practice of Microlearning, feeding in information in small, concentrated pieces, appeared to be very appealing for a world that moves rather fast. Instead of dragging training out into hourlong sessions, employees can learn in five or 10 minutes and a coffee break.

Your Next Steps

If you are a business leader reading this, take baby steps. You don’t have to fix it all overnight. Pick a place you can see your training is definitely not working now it’s hard to make happen, difficult to deliver, or people didn’t use it. Then check out what technology can do to solve that problem.

For employees, embrace the opportunity. Yes, it’s a bit intimidating initially when you feel like you have to relearn how to use a new technology, but the upside is grand. You’ll also have more control of when and how you learn, better tools to work with and skills that will pay dividends throughout your career.

It also demonstrates that technology in workplace training isn’t meant to replace the human touch, but to build upon it. These are the kinds of topics where it’s so important to provide everyone else the same kind of opportunity to grow, to make learning more interesting and more effective, to create organisations where you’re not just able to develop yourself, but where it’s fun, and to make that possible.

Concluding Remarks

Reflecting on my time in business in Australia, I am actually quite bullish about where we are headed. Every time I speak with progressive leaders like Jennifer, Emma and many others, I feel a growing confidence that technology, done right, can reset not just how we learn at work but also how we live, and grow, as professionals and as people.

The future of workplace learning is so bright, and it is happening here and now. It’s not a matter of whether technology will change the way we learn at work, it already has. It’s just a question: are you ready to utilise the doors that it unlocks?

Dr Marcus Clarkson is a Business Consultant for an Australian Consulting Firm with a focus on organisational development and workplace learning. As a psychologist, Marcus has supported businesses across Australia and internationally for more than 20 years to improve employee learning and development.