COVID-19 has changed enterprise learning approaches for good, and L&D leaders are placing an increasing emphasis on learner engagement/experience. Research in 2021 suggests that over 70% of L&D professionals believe learner engagement and experience to be a “high” or the “highest” priority. At the same time, 87% noticed existing or projected skill gaps that most aren’t sure how to address. Building a learning ecosystem could be an answer to this challenge. It prepares your L&D function for the future, and by meaningfully leveraging video as a key pillar of this strategy, you can further amplify the benefits of your learning ecosystem. Let’s explore further.

What Is a Learning Ecosystem and Why Does it Need Video Intervention?

A learning ecosystem revisits traditional L&D from a connected, integrated, and contextualized approach. Five key elements – people, technology, strategy, content, and the organization’s culture as a whole – together make up a holistic ecosystem that encourages continuous learning for maximum knowledge retention. 

Research by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology posits that a learning ecosystem is equipped to build two kinds of knowledge that employees require for their job and self-growth: basic knowledge and critical knowledge. In other words, employees can not only learn basic concepts and obtain theoretical information, but they can also engage in active learning activities that reinforce the knowledge and skills they have acquired. 

The problem is that traditional text-based L&D is ill-suited to drive a learning ecosystem. It is difficult to integrate text with real-world activities that reinforce knowledge. Also, text or traditional online courses aren’t sufficiently engaging to become central to the employee experience. Learners might consume the content out of compulsion or protocol, but there is no holistic intersection with the other elements that make up their surrounding ecosystem. 

Here’s where video plays a crucial role. 

Video has emerged as the no.1 preferred learning medium among millennial and Gen Z employees, who make up a sizable portion of the workforce. Also, its very architecture makes it malleable to different learning scenarios, short-form or long-form content, live or on-demand consumption, and a host of other use cases. This flexibility makes video a crucial pillar of an enterprise learning ecosystem that can effectively engage your employees. 

5 Benefits of Incorporating a Video Management Platform into Your Learning Ecosystem

It isn’t enough to simply create a stack of learning videos and hope for employee adoption. You need to position video as part of your learning ecosystem strategy, and a cloud-based video management platform is designed to achieve this. Here are the five benefits you can expect: 

1. Deliver short, microlearning videos that can be consumed in the flow of work

Microlearning videos break down the learning experience into short and digestible pieces, and a video management platform allows you to create videos quickly and easily. Employees can learn before they begin their workday, during their break, between two tasks, or even while commuting, choosing the content most relevant to the situation at hand. This intrinsically connects L&D with the rest of your business strategy and work processes. 

2. Use the cloud to infinitely scale your learning environment

A learning ecosystem has a plethora of short, targeted pieces instead of a handful of long-form ones. A video management platform is hosted on the cloud. You can add an infinite number of videos and support a large volume of concurrent viewers without straining the system.

3. Increase learner engagement through annotations and in-video navigation

In a learning ecosystem, content assets are dynamic and interactive so they can become meaningful parts of the employee’s overall workplace experience. A video management platform transforms a typical video that may be largely “boring” into an engaging viewing experience. Employees can learn about the visualized elements through embedded annotations, they can navigate to the specific video moments through highlights, and much more. 

4. Create a social learning environment to gain from peer-to-peer connections

A learning ecosystem builds on employees’ interpersonal relationships so they can inspire and learn from their peers (i.e., social learning). A video management platform enables peer-to-peer collaboration in the context of a video, turning the viewing experience into a social rather than a solo activity. Employees can even send videos as messages or access the content through other apps, driving a tightly-knit ecosystem. 

5. Track and analyze learning progress throughout the enterprise

The learning ecosystem must enable continuous upskilling and improvement. You can use a video management platform to benchmark learner progress and set new targets for the future. You can map course completion and engagement metrics for videos, to understand exactly which elements are working and what could be done differently. 

Pitfalls to Avoid When Building a Video-Enabled Learning Ecosystem

How can you reach the benefits we discussed above and build an organizational culture where learning is an experiential activity? Here are five pitfalls to avoid: 

• Fragmentation – Video learning shouldn’t be fragmented or disconnected from the rest of the workplace activities happening on the CRM, UC, and other systems. 
• An off-the-shelf, non-branded UI – The video consumption experience must be white-labeled and custom branded so that it feels like an organic part of the workplace experience. 

• Lack of event and live streaming support – In addition to an on-demand video repository, you need to support live streaming to deliver a 360-degree experience. 

• An overly complex editing studio – Finally, a complex video editing process will deter new content creation at scale. 

As the world adapts to a new set of skill requirements, the ecosystem approach promises radical advantages over an old-school, standalone blueprint. At kPoint, we address these and other priorities when building next-gen learning ecosystems for our customers through advanced analytics, intelligent video search, interactive videos, and other vital capabilities for L&D professionals. 

Contact us to switch to a learning ecosystem today!