Freelancers: the key to helping reinvent the corporate learning function

The freelance economy is on the rise. Just this week two new reports reveal the extent to which the freelance – or gig economy – is growing. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that this independent workforce consists of 162 million people working across the US and most of Europe. That’s 30% of the working-age population.

This is consistent with data from the Freelancing in America: 2016 report that shows 35% of the US workforce is now freelance. The study shows that the number of freelancers in the US has grown by two million in the last two years, from 53 to 55 million workers.

The trend is not a surprising one considering technology has made it easier for freelancers to find work. The job market is also changing as it adapts to what this growing, on-demand talent pool can offer. Highly-skilled freelancers can be found and hired on-demand and at a fraction of the cost of employing a full-time equivalent. It is the ability to access skills on-demand that is helping organisations respond more quickly to rapidly changing markets and economic trends. That’s why platforms such as Upwork, Task Rabbit and Uber are so popular.

So what do these trends mean for UK businesses and in particular L&D teams?

According to the UK government’s Office for National Statistics, there are 4.7 million self-employed workers in the UK representing almost 15% of the total working population.

The good news is that many freelancers work in the creative sector and are highly-skilled specialists. We have seen this reflected in the broad range of skills now available on the Jam Pan platform – ranging from digital learning skills through to a wide range of digital creative skills – from film making and animation to app building. These are the skills that L&D teams are looking for as they shift focus to digital learning.

Jam Pan has seen a sharp rise in the number of freelancers and agencies signing up to the platform as well as a large increase in the number of jobs that are being posted by organisations. We currently have more than 50 live jobs that range from elearning development work, app development and games to LMS management and performance support. These jobs reflect the diversity of skills available. They also reflect a growing interest by the industry in hiring skills on demand.

But it doesn’t stop there. One recent client used the platform to bring in a range of on-demand skills that have helped reinvent a major part of their L&D function. How? Starting with some business analysis, the client was able to identify the business need, create a business plan and design and deliver a new approach to deliver compliance training.

This was followed by help in identifying all content assets and duplication, re-engineering the learning management system to be able to deliver a new learning experience and introducing a new authoring tool to enable the organisation to create and update content as required, thereby no longer relying on costly third parties for ongoing content support.

All of this work was carried out by highly-skilled, on-demand freelancers. The small in-house L&D team was able to continue its work and the head of L&D was able to re-engineer how a large part of his function worked at relatively low cost and quickly.

The key here is that this client was able to tap into skills that were not available within his team. The team could focus on the business whilst freelancers plugged the gaps.

And because freelancers have a wealth of experience working across a range of organisations and sectors they are able to provide insights into how others may have approached a similar challenge.

Platforms such as Jam Pan bring a much broader range of skills to L&D teams and this is set to grow as the freelance market grows. Could your L&D team benefit from this freelance talent pool?

Ref Link: http://jam-pan.com/blog/freelancers-the-key-to-helping-reinvent-the-corporate-learning-function/

Elearning alert: time is running out to convert Flash to HTML5

By the end of this year, with the exception of 10 websites anyone surfing the web using the Chrome browser will not see content powered by Adobe Flash – such as such as video and animations. For a variety of reasons, including security concerns, Google is turning its back on Flash. This is significant because Chrome currently has 72.4% of the global browser market.

This is even more significant for businesses that have spent years developing elearning content in Flash. Although many internal IT systems still run browsers that support Flash, increasingly employees are accessing content on mobile devices which run newer browsers. The shift to HTML5 is a real headache for L&D teams that have invested heavily in Flash but it is inevitable if they want to promote mobile learning and/or Bring Your Own Device strategies.

The HTML5 standard supports all mobile devices and more recent browsers support it too. This means that you can build content once using HTML5 and CSS3 responsive web design and it will work seamlessly across all devices from desktop to tablets and phones.

But, as Blake Beus points out in Business 2 Community, there are real challenges in shifting to HTML5. “But what about those older legacy courses housed in the darker recesses of the LMS? Many of them are workhorses that are still an essential part of your employee onboarding strategy. You want to make sure today’s learners can access these courses from their mobile devices and browsers that don’t support Flash,” he says.

Beus suggests three approaches to converting Flash courses to HTML5:

1. Off the shelf solutions that provide a level of conversion.
2. Rapid conversion that keeps course content intact whilst updating it to HTML5. The caveat here is that more complex custom content will need to be reworked.
3. Finally, rebuild the content from scratch. This will be necessary with more complex content.

As Beus points out, each approach requires a different level of resourcing. Whichever approach you opt for, you will need to consider which content is most in need of updating, what exactly needs updating and then how to do it.

In her article, How To Make A Successful Migration From Flash To HTML5, Asha Pandey draws on her company’s experience of having already converted hundreds of hours of Flash into HTML5. She provides some excellent, practical tips on successfully converting Flash-based content.

For example, ensure your internal technology and processes can support HTML5. This includes browser support for HTML5, learning management system support for mobile learning solutions and updates to your security policy.

And understand the differences in the user experience as both technologies do differ. What worked in Flash may not work in the same way in HTML5.

Finally, Payndey suggests starting small and learning as you go. “Draw up the priority list of courses to be converted from Flash to HTML5. Begin the migration exercise by picking a small number of courses, migrate, and perform a user testing for the feedback. More significantly, assess if the impact you had envisioned is being created (that is, better learning experience for the learners),” she says.

Jam Pan is a global, On-Demand eLearning Services platform. For help migrating from Flash-based elearning to HTML5 contact: hello@jam-pan.com

More info: http://jam-pan.com/blog/elearning-alert-time-is-running-out-to-convert-flash-to-html5/