Skillsoft Reflects on Digital Learning in the Year of Living Virtually

In a year defined by shifts and surprises in every walk of life, online learning providers found themselves in a somewhat enviable position: at the center of a global discussion of their craft.  While every organization learned lessons on agility in 2020, online learning found itself front and center, thrust into the spotlight overnight by the sharp spike in demand.

Source: Skillsoft Reflects on Digital Learning in the Year of Living Virtually

 As the world looked for new ways to learn amid the global pandemic, digital learning pioneer Skillsoft suddenly launched into new territory: responding to skyrocketing demand and accelerated virtual learning strategies while helping evangelize—and reinvent—leading practices for online education.

With 180,000 courses, videos, and books as well as the world’s largest catalog of IT, business, leadership, and compliance training materials, Skillsoft knows online learning. Like most organizations, the entire educational technology company moved to virtual operations in March 2020, then immediately picked up the pace to meet new demand for coursework and expertise.

Skillsoft Chief Content Officer Mark Onisk says the experience has been as gratifying as it was unexpected. “Digital learning has gone from something people were mostly curious about to the preferred and primary mechanism for meaningful skill development on a global scale,” he says. “Quarantine easily advanced digital learning by two or three years as our customers accelerated the rollout of digital learning strategies and moved into full-scale adoption.”

Skillsoft has overseen a 300% increase in consumption of its products since the onset of the pandemic. “We’re not unique in that,” emphasizes Onisk. The increase in pure usage has been accompanied by other shifts Onisk strongly believes will endure.

Online Learning as ‘Social Glue’

Historically, corporate learning has served two primary purposes: to offer professional development and upskilling opportunities, and to meet compulsory training standards or legal requirements. While the business and career benefits are clear and well documented, training also contributes a more subtle but perhaps equally valuable intrinsic benefit. Training programs provide unique social and networking opportunities that can help shape company culture and strengthen connection, loyalty, well-being, and overall satisfaction.

Onisk says the pandemic has only magnified this role. “In our virtual learning workshops, people were grateful to have the connection as they adjusted to working from home.” He was struck by how remarkably different it felt. “I thought, wow, this is much more than online training—it’s part of the fabric holding this organization together and helping people focus in a time of shock and disruption.”

Skillsoft quickly expanded offerings and redesigned programs specifically to meet more of the social and cultural opportunities the online training format presents. “In our monthly Leadercamps, we now facilitate discussions on wide-ranging topics that generate networking and the interaction people are craving.”

The online format provides the connection and opening to vent, express opinions, and sometimes just share human experiences more comfortably than might feel doable in person. Onisk describes one memorable class during which someone shared a COVID-19-related experience. “People were rallying around the individual, offering condolences and sharing how they’ve been personally affected. We didn’t see that in live workshops and webinars before COVID-19.” As personal and professional lives blend, and many people crave interaction and community, learning forums have become an even more integral and important source of social and professional connection—a shift Onisk expects will stick.

New Training Needs, New Online Offerings

Skillsoft has naturally adapted product offerings and featured content to meet new business realities, adding dedicated channels and new curriculum on hot topics such as virtual leadership, business continuity, and digital skills as well as updating perennially popular courses on time management, project management, conflict resolution, presentation, and communications, among others. But Onisk says the most profound change the company made was shifting its annual spring conference to virtual.

Hosted in Orlando or Las Vegas, the event typically draws 1,000 attendees, mostly from corporate learning functions. In the past, Skillsoft recorded segments and made them available afterwards, but the company had to decide—quickly—if it could effectively virtualize the entire experience. As an all-digital company, it faced a high bar, but the opportunity was too enticing to pass up: On May 12-13, 2020, Skillsoft held the first-ever virtual global customer event in its 20-year history. Universally accessible, with no attendance fee, the event was promoted through social and education channels, including higher ed.

In the past, the event had attracted traditional HR, learning, and development professionals interested in networking with peers, presenting, and focusing on their own professional development. The virtual format and open enrollment drew individual learners—people who just wanted 24 hours of continuous professional development with opportunities to learn, reflect, and access a variety of speakers. “The ability to interact easily online was huge,” Onisk says. “You could go into the chat, virtual lounges, and breakout rooms to connect with learning leaders and people familiar with the material and content.”

The 24-hour event was transformative. “It was like a TV news network,” recalls Onisk. “We went online at 7 p.m. and ran through 7 p.m. the next day. We attracted more than 14,000 participants—far beyond the number and variety of professionals our in-person conference drew.”

The event was so successful, Onisk can’t imagine reverting to an exclusively physical conference. “We’ll do some blend that captures the spirit of this event, with the focus on learning opportunities for everyone. That’s where the virtual format made all the difference.”

Success Hinges on the Learner Experience

Learning leaders often report that people just don’t have time for learning, but Onisk dismisses this claim. “It’s not that people don’t have time to learn: They feel it’s not worth it to them. We need to create an experience that’s more worthy of their time.” Onisk points out that people have been streaming hours of content every week during the pandemic. “Presumably, if they felt they were going to gain marketable, valuable skill enrichment, they would be willing to go online and invest the time in training.”

Onisk uses popular streaming services as benchmarks and models for creating equally compelling online corporate learning experiences. “Our content needs to be valuable enough to make someone choose to spend five or six hours with us a week building skills for the future—opting for self-improvement when they could watch incredibly entertaining content instead. In many ways, we’re competing for the scarcest resource: someone’s time.”

While value to the learner and compelling content remain the standard-bearers for all learning, the past year has been a litmus test of remarkable proportions for online learning. But Onisk believes the global move to virtual took digital learning past a tipping point. “It’s gone from a lower-cost alternative to a better way to learn just about anything, and I don’t see us completely pivoting back.”

—by Dr. Gerald C. Kane, professor of information systems and faculty director, the Edmund H. Shea Jr. Center for Entrepreneurship, Carroll School of Management, Boston College; Rich Nanda, principal, and Anh Nguyen Phillips, senior manager, Deloitte Center for Integrated Research, both with Deloitte Consulting LLP

Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of conversations with leaders for an upcoming book, “The Transformation Myth,” a collaboration between Deloitte and academics from Boston College and Northwestern University, to be published in 2021 by MIT Press.

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