Category Archives: Remote Working

Employee-Training, Game-based learning, Game-based Learning Infographics, Gamification, Press, QuoDeck, Remote Working

People More Motivated By Entertainment Than Traditional Learning Constructs: Kamalika Bhattacharya, CEO and Co-founder, Quodeck

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Anyone who runs a digital business recognizes the need for interesting and interactive content to attract and retain customers, train employees, and gig workers, and engage value chain stakeholders. This is precisely where QuoDeck comes in. A B2B SaaS Digital Learning and Engagement Platform, QuoDeck enables organizations to use interactivity and games to engage audiences. Founders Kamalika Bhattacharya and Arijit Lahiri experienced a moment of insight on a routine visit to a mall. “We found that in between scanning visitors, the security guard was playing candy crush,” exclaims Bhattacharya. “That’s when we realized that people are more motivated by entertainment than traditional learning constructs,”

QuoDeck began as a game-based learning system but now offers a complete digital engagement suite, called the QuoDeck Interactive Cloud that promises engagement, speed, mobility, regionalization, data, and security. QuoDeck has been awarded a fellowship by the Royal Academy of Engineering, London and Newton Fund and selected as a winner at ET Power of Ideas.

Today, QuoDeck caters to over 5 million users across an enterprise client list that includes Unilever, Vodafone, Flipkart, Dabur, etc.

Role of gamification in the workplace

Gaming is all about stimulating people, driving a healthy sense of competition among them, and ultimately rewarding them. Rooted in psychology, it can be used to drive any kind of activity or function in the workplace. It works particularly well in the field of learning and enablement by adding an element of fun to propel interest and engagement. This is often achieved by using points, badges, rewards, and contests to create a sense of competition and winning around learning and knowledge consumption.

Studies have shown that through gamified learning and training, retention of information is longer and has high recall value due to the fact it is generally imparted through an audio-video medium. Gamification is also an excellent tool to test participants. It can be used to assess how the participants manage time, prioritize and respond to social cues, among other key skills.

Nowadays, many organisations are shifting towards gamification, making the corporate process smooth and easy going for both HRs and employees.

Gamification is used at workplaces to add a fun element and to increase the level of interest of employees in their day-to-day tasks. It is used in many corporate practices such as onboarding new employees, training, employee engagement & motivation.

What is the scope for job creation through Gamification?

Educational, training, and recruitment platforms are increasingly leveraging the fun elements of gaming to help engage people in jobs. It follows then, that the reverse can also be true – gamification can be used to impart basic skills to people before they are hired and also upskilling them after they are hired. This should impel better outcomes for people looking for work opportunities, effectively making them more job-ready.

Also, an increasing proportion of the workforce that companies are going to hire in the near future will be gig workers. According to a 2021 report by Boston Consulting Group, gig workers have the potential to service up to 90 million jobs in India, or 10 percent of India’s roughly 900 million-strong workforce in the near future. Companies across sectors are banking on the rise of the gig economy to scale fast but quickly hiring gig workers and training them is a huge challenge for enterprises. Gamification can solve for this challenge and maximise job creation. Entertainment and gaming platforms are hugely popular among gig workers to alleviate boredom. A platform that leverages this entertainment factor with high-quality UI can help companies hire and train staff in a highly scalable manner.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

QuoDeck tracks event stream data continuously and uses Machine Learning methods to figure out trends that prove effective for people. The data is aggregated, co-related, and filtered in real time to help create personalized recommendation algorithms that evolve based on what users prefer to consume. As for Artificial Intelligence, that finds applications in learning content creation such as question generators and chat bots that are used to mimic real-life situations as closely as possible.

Where does India stand versus global trends in the adoption of Gamification?

If you look at the numbers, the global gamification market is expected to grow exponentially to USD 38.3 billion by 2027, from a mere USD 9.1 billion in 2020. Things are a little slower in India. While the adoption of gaming is widespread, the use of gamification mechanics in businesses is still at a nascent stage. Moreover, gamification seems to be geared more towards the internal customer than the external. Most Indian apps have yet to gamify their customer, partner or vendor onboarding process as well as their loyalty programs even though these are known to have a tremendous impact.

Working with fortune 500 companies

As India’s largest digital learning and engagement platform, QuoDeck works with several Fortune 500 companies such as Unilever, Vodafone, Flipkart, Tata Consumer, Dabur, and Britannia. These companies have been quick off the mark in recognising the potential and benefits of gamification for their external and internal audiences. Gamification is particularly effective for training and upskilling full-time employees as well as gig workers. Moreover, given the large audiences these companies need to address, digital platforms are the only scalable option for them as they allow standardization and big data collection.

What would it take for smaller companies to adopt Gamification?

Smaller companies need bite-sized platforms and a content-ready approach to spur them to adopt gamification in their businesses. Reducing the cost outlay and providing customized platforms that can go live in a matter of days will certainly make gamification more widely acceptable.

How far away are we from a future where every company prioritises this?

Most companies already realize the need for scalable platforms to train their workers. A field-based workforce requires an approach to training that is different from the traditional classroom, workshop, or on-the-job model. Gamification makes the process of learning entertaining, pull-based and relatable, thereby allowing for maximum adretention. Businesses can no longer afford to ignore the importance of gaming and gamification as effective tools for audience engagement and training; embracing them fully is not too far away in the future.

What are QuoDeck’s plans and goals?

Modern-day businesses across the world are dealing with the challenge of reaching their geographically widespread workforce. This challenge is a huge opportunity for us. We plan to go global with our entire suite of services and work with companies in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. While we pursue this goal, we need to ensure that QuoDeck remains the market leader in its category as it is today. We hope to keep it so with constant cutting-edge innovation.

This was first published on BW Gaming World

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e-Learning, Employee-Training, Remote Working

5 new trends in driving engagement for remote employees

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The world of business has inevitably changed since 2020. Today, besides having vision and innovation, you have to make investments and adopt a new approach. This approach must stress on gratifying an employee so that they are happy and satisfied. Whether they are a leader or a manager, employees must feel connected to their purpose.  

The future engagement of employees depends on the five new trends that embrace flexibility and technology. Many recent trends have appeared, with some working and some not. But here’s what we have for you: the five engagement trends for remote employees. These will help you make informed decisions and battle the current crisis like a boss. 

  1. Focus on the channels of communication 

Suppose you have workers working on-site. You must brief them well on their roles.  And inform them about the colleagues that will work with them. Install rapid communication channels so that they stay in touch with each other, regardless of where they are. We must admit that meet-ups have worked wonders, especially for discussions relating to project issues and progress.

  1. Measuring engagement alone wouldn’t do – go the extra mile! 

As per the latest data, organizations spend 720 dollars million to gauge engagement.  But according to an American analytical company, only 36 per cent of the workforce is occupied. The rest 64 per cent is going through a gamut of emotions or feeling plain miserable.  

Your company is a breathing and living entity. Thus, you cannot manage performance directly. Hence, you must understand the areas that drive employees’ behaviours and directly impact their performance. Measure the conditions that matter. These conditions include alignment of personal strengths, psychological safety, and intrinsic motivation.  

When quantifying an employee’s prosperity levels, you should find out whether your organization is excelling with its people. 

  1. Improve the workstation of your employee, be proactive 

On identifying the positions that fit remote working best, you must give your employees an alternative. Not every person whose job may call for remote working, can do tasks remotely. Thus, do not expect the employees to brush their problems under the carpet. We suggest rethinking the entire journey of an employee and supporting everyone through this challenging time. Approximately 50 million jobs can be done from the comfort of a home, however, some cannot. Thus, we suggest that you furnish remote workers with all the software and hardware needed to work remotely. These small steps will help create a flexible environment amidst the pandemic.  

Adapt to the scenario of digital work but do not expect this new work wave to speed up as it advances.  

  1. Focus on talent development  

Before the coronavirus smothered us, the threat of talent shortage already rocked the business world. According to a US survey, employers confessed that they struggled to discover the talent they needed.  

With slashing of budgets and layoffs, re-skilling employees has become the need of the hour.  

One way to counter this problem is by developing your company as a marketplace for talent. This marketplace will have employees as the network’s segment. And once they are a part of the network, you can allocate them to new teams whenever you require their skills.  

  1. Get employees on the board with big, all-embracing goals 

When employees have understood their roles, are comfortable in their set up, and know what to do, get them on the board. Discuss the overarching goals of your company so that you can trade again.  

When the trade picks up and profits start pouring in, job insecurities and other fears will be eliminated. People will roll their sleeves up and do their bit to boost the success of the business. Encountering a shared tragedy or trauma has a fantastic way of dragging employees together towards success and survival. 

Conclusion  

A business may break, but it can heal as well. Each of these trends that drive remote employee engagement will be crucial in your company’s recovery. We hope these trends ensure that people under you remain engaged, productive, and cared for during and beyond a crisis.

Corporate Learning Best Practices, e-Learning, Micro-learning, Online Learning, QuoDeck, Remote Working

REMOTE WORKING: IS IT TIME TO GO DIGITAL ON LEARNING?

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The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic forced nations of the world to go into complete (or partial) lockdown. As a result, industries worldwide either shut down their operations or switch to remote working. 

Organizations and people have struggled to stay productive while working remotely due to the lack of social life or personal touch. It is debatable if the new-normal will stay normal even after the lockdown measures are entirely lifted. However, there will be a significant fundamental shift in the work cultures of organizations across the globe

Remote Working: A Necessity

Remote working was desirable with the majority of the population even before the pandemic, though not most of them got it. Few companies were digitally ready to implement the work-from-home strategy as they used to practice it pre-pandemic. However, companies worldwide were forced to move to full-time practice of remote working and struggle.  

To stay functional and productive, organizations help their employees with all sorts of information and training, which is also done remotely. At least some of these practices will probably go on even after the pandemic is over. Fortunately, there are tools of digital learning that can ensure success. 

The Changing Mindsets 

Before the pandemic hit, most managers believed that it is impossible or way too challenging to achieve high productivity levels while working from home. For them, there were no two ways for it. However, they are now beginning to see a change in their long-held believes, as they see the results of the employees working at their own places. It is more apparent now that the employees will perform when they are trusted for responsibility. 

The managers can now see that any mandate of having all of the employees in one place together is pointless. People still work well when they do not see each other all the time. Besides, did we always meet everyone in the office on a daily basis? 

Although there are jobs that require people to meet and work together, we might not need to meet our colleagues or our teams daily. We may still gather, but not with the same people every day. 

Digital Learning: The key enabler 

For an organization to succeed at these fundamental shifts in an organization’s culture, the employees are at the core. The companies have to create a collaborative and learning culture for their employees to be efficient at these. On top of that, the companies need to change  the learning style from the one-size-fits-all format to a more personalized mode for the employees. Engaging learning integrated into the day-to-day work is even better. The rise of digital tools is making learning shift towards the concept of individualized learning. 

Traditionally, digital learning has been dull, even after being a revolution. One could not imagine oneself being involved in digital learning regularly, more so on a daily basis. A teacher in front of a camera, running through a series of PPTs, has been the norm. Fortunately, there has been much evolution in this area – game based learning and mobile learning. Learning is now interactive, engaging, at the learners’ convenience, and as a part of their day’s work. 

Few companies were enabled with the WFH model, and others were forced to adopt it. In both cases, the usual 9 to 5 daily office routine is likely to be disrupted with remote working becoming a part of the norm, if not the norm itself, with the employees demonstrating productivity at the comfort of their homes even more than they did being in their cubicles. The corporates will have to deliver the training that is personalized to the employees to keep their employees up-to-date, engaged, and skilled digitally.

Remote Working, Sales, Start-up's

Sales Training Best Practices: Prepare Your Sales Team for Success

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Sales training improves the performance of sales reps that has a direct impact on the bottom line, from product knowledge to sales skills. Therefore, sales enablement training is at the top of the list of areas in which companies invest.

Questions that most sales teams may want answered are:

  1. What will captivate your sales audience? 
  2. What will motivate your employees to complete your training and make sales?

Some of the most efficient sales enablement strategies we’ve discovered include keeping it short, providing learning at the point of need, and incorporating some friendly competition.

We’ve compiled a list of effective sales training practices and techniques from industry experts to assist you in developing compelling and effective sales enablement training programs.

  • Emphasis on essential soft skills

Soft skills are effective as it allows meaningful conversation with potential customers. Soft skills such as communication, persuasion, boost your marketability. 

The best salespeople are those who want to help their customers; they listen, are pleasant, and are upfront about whether a product or service will benefit their prospects. They cultivate relationships with their clients and get to know them. While some sales representatives are naturally good with people, it is critical to train soft skills such as listening, communication, and phone etiquette. Salespeople have a bad reputation for being pushy and abrupt. Including soft skills in your sales enablement plan will assist your reps in softening their approach, making them a pleasure to work with for both customers and you.

  • Training about customers perspective 

Sales enablement strategies emphasize product details and messaging, at the expense of explaining the buyers’ needs and challenges. Make the buyer’s journey a bigger part of your sales enablement training, both for new hire onboarding and learning reinforcement for your existing sales force. This can be accomplished by ensuring that buyer persona details, such as key business challenges, success metrics, and pain points, are included in your training curriculum (and then assessing your reps’ mastery of them). 

You should also outline effective ways for engaging buyers at each stage of the buyer’s journey. Share persuasion techniques that can assist buyers in moving through the decision cycle. Is the prospect sold on your solution and trying to persuade other decision-makers to buy it? Outline sales enablement strategies for shortening the time it takes to make a purchasing decision.

You can combine sales enablement training with coaching exercises that need representatives to think like buyers on the spot.

  • Highlight Trends in the Industry

It’s possible that your salespeople aren’t reading 30-page research reports on the state of B2B selling or your target markets. However, a 600-word blog post on current social selling tips is an excellent addition to your sales enablement strategies. Providing continuous education to your sales representatives is an essential part of sales enablement training. Incorporating outside perspectives into your training is critical because it reminds your employees that the profession is changing and encourages them to stay current.

For example, you can use sites like Quodeck, you could embed relevant research and news articles about target industries as required courses or attachments into training courses to ensure reps review them to complete their training. You could then include a knowledge-testing component that quizzes salespeople on key findings.

  • Focusing on one area of expertise

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. There is no one skill that always closes the sale. In reality, sales representatives tend to lean toward specific skills and turn them into strengths. Curating sales enablement strategies that foster a culture of ongoing support. However, encouraging specialization and promoting those talents is the beginning. Your team also requires training to further develop those skills and ensure that their weaker areas are addressed. Try Quodeck for ideas on what topics and specialties to focus on and to generate sales leads and grow your business.

Conclusions

In conclusion, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to sales enablement training for success. However, the underlying foundation should point to learning and training culture.

Consider what kind of post-training reinforcements you’ll provide your team to help them continue their journey, and empower your sales team to succeed by encouraging continued growth. Make it the real goal of your sales team to learn how to absorb and apply new techniques, make changes, and track their results.

Corporate Learning and Development, Corporate Learning Best Practices, eLearning Develpment Best Practices, Employee-Training, L&D professionals, Micro-learning, Mobile Learning, Remote Working

6 tips to integrate micro learning in your courses for rapid learning

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Micro-Learning can be defined as a skill-based approach in education as well as training that delivers the information in small, ‘bite-sized’ chunks. This is useful as the learners can quickly assimilate the knowledge that they need to perform a particular task without having to spend long hours learning about it. Thus, it creates an opportunity for the learners to engage with the content exactly at the moment they need it.

In recent years, Micro-learning has supplemented and in many cases, even replaced the traditional method of learning which was time-consuming and primarily focused on theory. Microlearning, on the other hand, focuses more on the application and is largely self-driven, thus, producing effective and measurable results.

This is why many training programs are now utilizing the micro-learning principles to generate rapid learning and make the process engaging and successful.

Let us look at the 6 tips to integrate micro-learning in your courses for rapid learning:

1) Gamifying Learning Content-

Learner engagement is one of the most important aspects of any training program. Without effective engagement, content retention or recollection is not possible. Micro-learning principles can be utilized to create a game-based learning scenario that is interactive and interesting. Gamifying the learning content makes it visually appealing and engaging which can help the learners better understand and remember it. Incorporating gaming mechanics like compelling narratives, characters, badges, etc proves to be useful in making the entire learning process fun and effective.

2) Using Interactive Training Tools-

Using micro-learning principles in creating Interactive training tools like simulations and scenarios can effectively and rapidly teach a particular skill-set. Simulation, in particular, can be really helpful in creating a virtual situation where the learners can apply the knowledge they have gained to solve a problem or achieve a certain goal. Thus, focusing on the content application instead of theory can help increase its intake and retention. A time-based decision-making scenario is also helpful in testing the learner’s capability in handling work pressure. Thus micro-learning principles offer a unique experience in a training program that may not be possible by following the traditional way.

3) Creating Instructional Videos and Podcasts-

Instructional videos can be a great way to give information as they are engaging and brief. Micro-learning can be used to create short videos about a particular product or developing a needed skill-set, which can then be shared across a variety of platforms like the company’s website and Youtube. This is convenient as the learners can access it whenever required.

Similarly, educational podcasts make it easier for the learners to gain information from the comfort of their own house or while traveling, without taking up too much of their time during work hours. It makes the process more learner-centric as they have control over their learning and can easily set their own pace for receiving the necessary information.

4) Writing Blog Posts-

Micro-learning principles can be used to create something as simple as a blog post which can keep the learners informed about various topics. Blogs don’t take much time to read, and a large chunk of information can be easily condensed in the form of points which the learners can easily remember. Blog posts can also be easily accessible from any device and can be published on various platforms which makes it handy for the learners to read them as and when required.

5) Creating Self-Assessment Tools-

One of the most effective ways of using micro-learning principles is by creating self-assessment tools which can include online quizzes, questionnaires, puzzles, case studies, etc. They provide an excellent opportunity to gauge the level of the learner and quantify their progress and understanding. Instant feedback that is given, helps the learners in identifying knowledge gaps which they can then rectify. As the evaluation is quick, the learning also progresses at a rapid pace. Self-assessment tools are also helpful in judging the effectiveness of a training program as they test the learner’s understanding and retention of the content.

6) Using Multimedia Resources-

Micro-learning makes it easier to condense information into various multimedia resources to provide a variety in learning and make the process interesting and enjoyable. Online slideshows and presentations are a great way to deliver information in a few minutes as the learners can easily absorb the content. Micro-learning is also used to create infographics that provide a comprehensive overview of the subject in a way that the learners can quickly understand and recollect.

Thus, integrating microlearning into the regular courses is a great way to boost the productivity of the training program and generate rapid learning and better content engagement, involvement, and retention.

Corporate Learning and Development, Corporate Learning Best Practices, COVID-19, e-Learning, Employee-Training, Entrepreneurial Success, L&D professionals, Online Learning, Remote Working

The 7 Advantages of Remote Working

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People have always been drawn to the idea of a flexible workspace that provides them with professional and personal control over their career and life in general. While some corporate organizations were hesitant and sceptical about the concept of a productive remote working scenario, the current pandemic situation has forced many to re-evaluate their opinion.

The last couple of months have highlighted the fact that working from home is not only a great alternative to the routine office set-up, but also benefits both, the employee and the business organization. 

Highlighted below are the seven main advantages of remote working :

Increased Productivity

Many corporate companies are of the opinion that working from home can result in their employees becoming lazy and unproductive, but factually, the opposite is true. 

Distance work gives people the freedom to select their own workspace. They can choose to work in comfortable clothes, relax on a comfortable chair or even have their laptop stationed on the kitchen counter. This familiar and ergonomic workspace helps in reducing stress, thereby increasing productivity and performance. 

Moreover, people do not have to expend their time and energy in daily commuting to their offices. Not having to travel long-distance or suffer traffic congestion reduces the anxiety of being late or wasting too much time. People doing remote work are often, more inclined to start their work early or even extend their work hours due to not having to travel to their workplace.

Independence of Location

A flexible workspace allows people to continue working despite a change in their location without having to change their company or start over in a new organization. 

It also provides access to a broader range of employment opportunities that are not limited by geographical location. People can thus, avoid moving to a major metropolitan area with a high cost of living simply to have a career that they desire. 

Companies will also not lose their employees if they re-locate and can thus enjoy a greater degree of employee retention in their organization. 

Reduction of Expenses

Telecommuting can be a great way to save money and reduce expenses. Having a remote job instantly reduces the cost of petrol, vehicle maintenance, professional attire, daily meals etc. It also benefits the companies and allows them to save money as it decreases the cost of real estate and technology.

Inclusion of People

Digital workspace is not limited by geographical location and hence, it allows companies to hire people from different places. This enables greater diversity in the work environment as employees belonging to different culture, language, race, religion, etc., all come together and enhance the social dynamics of the organisation.

Moreover, it also provides an excellent work opportunity for people with disabilities and others who cannot work an on-site job, to follow their career goals without having to worry about external factors like work commute, etc.

Better work-life balance 

Telecommuting makes it easier for people to balance their career and family life. It reduces stress, gives time for recreational activities and improves personal relationships. In addition, the interaction between the employee and the employer is greatly enhanced without all the distractions and politics that come with an on-site job. 

Working remotely also encourages people to live a healthier life by eating well, having time to exercise and not being stressed or over-burdened by external factors.

Flexible Timings

Many remote jobs come with flexible timings where people can start and end their day as they desire, as long as the work schedule is not compromised. This factor is desirable to people as it allows them to take an active part in their family and still maintain their career. It allows them to balance time for their children’s school activities, family functions, medical appointments etc. Thus, an off-site workspace can lead to a more fulfilled and satisfying life.

Environmental Impact

Telecommuting not only benefits people on an individual level but it also proves advantageous to the world at large. When many people choose to work from their homes, it positively impacts the environment by reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases and saving oil resources. Reducing travel also helps in reducing pollution and carbon emissions which greatly affects the climate. 

Moreover, distance work negates the use of too much paper, air-conditioner, lighting etc in a corporate set-up which in turn can leave a positive impact on our globe.

 Although the current on-going pandemic situation has been the catalyst for people turning to a digital workspace, many are realizing its multifarious advantages. It is thus, safe to say that this  is one trend that isn’t going to slow down anytime soon