In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, change is inevitable. This means that businesses and organizations need to learn how to manage it. Business leaders, including the PMO, can harness a wide range of tools and techniques for effective change management, including eLearning. In this article, we will explore the benefits of eLearning—specifically, why and how to utilize remote learning methodologies to facilitate seamless organizational transitions.
The PMO and Change Management
For project-centric organizations, the PMO serves a critical role in successfully managing projects, programs, and portfolios. This can sometimes mean implementing new tools or processes, which can lead to disruptions in a project team’s workflow. But change management can be quite the long-haul effort—even more so if it’s not supported by sustainable PMO practices.
Understanding the Benefits of eLearning
One of the practices gaining popularity in recent years is online Learning. Not just for online university degrees and individual career certificates, the benefits of eLearning can and do extend to workplace change management.
eLearning extends beyond traditional training. It encompasses digital platforms that enable continuous learning, skill-building, and mindset shifts required for effective change management. It has the potential to influence change management efforts positively and to contribute to successful outcomes.
The many benefits of using remote learning in change management include:
- Accessibility, with the ability to connect anytime and anywhere. eLearning has no place or time limits and will let employees decide where and when they learn.
- Self-paced learning: Learners focus their time and energy on their areas of improvement instead of following the pace of a classroom.
- Enhanced employee engagement: Employees value their career development. Yet they want training to be flexible and relevant to their roles. Remote learning programs allow businesses to create relevant training that provides the skills employees need to succeed.
Many companies have seen the benefits of eLearning in driving cultural shifts, fostering alignment with new values, behaviors, and ways of working. Another common area of application is that of tool adoption: online learning helps transition employees to new technologies, mitigating resistance and enhancing proficiency.
3 eLearning Strategies for Successful PMO Change Management
A recent Gartner survey showed that employee willingness to support organizational change fell to 38% in 2022, compared to 74% in 2016. Integrating key best practices into your remote learning strategy can buck the trend.
The Benefits of Creating Customized eLearning Paths
Your remote learning programs should be tailored to your employee culture and habits. They should also address the specific change management issues and goals of not just your PMO, but the larger organization. Any good change management plan starts with an audit of the existing knowledge gaps and of employee expectations. The goal is to ensure that employees soak in the knowledge and skills they need to adapt to new processes, technologies, or cultural shifts.
Make eLearning Interactive
Traditional training modules, which focus on lectures or ask employees to read text, might not be appealing to some individuals. In fact, the most effective remote learning frameworks support individual learning styles and needs (visual, reading, etc.). Explore techniques to create interactive eLearning experiences. You may consider including quizzes, simulations, gamified content, and case studies to further engage learners.
Focus on Communication and Collaboration
Integrating communication and collaboration tools within eLearning platforms is essential to foster peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing. This should also boost community support during change initiatives. You can harness the functionalities of professional Learning Management Systems, which are designed to serve as centralized hubs for eLearning content, tracking progress, and assessing learner comprehension.
Don’t hesitate to solicit employee feedback to assess the impact of remote learning on their ability to adapt to change. This will help you improve your change management strategies over time.
The PMO and Change Management: In a Nutshell
eLearning is a versatile tool. It makes it possible to transmit knowledge, but also to encourage involvement and adherence to organizational change. For more information on distance learning, ask us about Sciforma’s eLearning sessions. Better yet, if you are already a Sciforma customer, come and attend the 2023 Vision and Product News presentation by David Nérin, Director of Professional Services at Sciforma, on November 7, from 10am PT to 2:45pm PT. If you are interested in participating in this presentation, please send us an email to ibouscatie@sciforma.com
