Throughout the down economy, much of the discussion has focused on the plight of unemployed and underemployed Americans. It’s hard to find a group that hasn’t been squeezed—young people starting out, older workers delaying retirement, the “sandwich generation” with kids still in the nest and parents whose fixed retirement incomes leave them short. In the past, businesses outsourced crucial training first to high school vocational programs and more recently to higher education. Now, training is increasingly being billed as the responsibility of the individual worker, as big business and the government scramble to find a solution to the widening gap between the skills workers have to offer and the jobs companies need to fill.
    
Yet the familiar means of training are increasingly unreachable for millions of Americans. Many cannot afford the cost of going back to school because they already carry student loan debt, or were never able to afford higher education in the first place. Even those who could spare the money to go back to school have a hard time fitting a traditional class schedule into days already packed with multiple jobs or jobs at odd hours. So how are job candidates supposed to take control of their destinies and jump into a new field? eLearning is a ray of hope. It is adopted more and more in favor of older training methods that are slower and more expensive.
    
eLearning may bring to mind the online classes many colleges and universities have adopted, or big corporate training programs. But chances are, you already eLearn on a regular basis. Free software and other tutorials are easy to find online and have already been proven successful at teaching everything from commonplace programs like Microsoft Word and Excel, to the specialized like AutoCAD, and Maple computational software. Even if you don’t have a degree or certification, just being able to put on your resume that you have proficiency in a program or knowledge of a particular field can give you a leg up. Best of all, you can access all this information anywhere that has an Internet connection. If you are without a computer of your own, there are resources like public libraries, which you can access for free.

  
The huge potential for eLearning to help Americans through the recession is especially good news for the technologically savvy Millennials generation. Millennials are a hot topic of discussion right now because positions they would have taken right out of college are being filled by older, over-qualified workers caught in the job crunch.

But Millennials have one advantage, which is that they have been eLearning their entire lives, looking up whatever they need to know on the Internet and contributing to crowd-sourced information hubs like Wikipedia. They may not have the traditional qualifications of their more experienced competition, but they have a unique affinity for online resources that will help them gain much-needed skills and are increasingly important to helping businesses stay on the cutting edge.
    
Job candidates of any generation can take advantage of eLearning opportunities to make sure they go into an interview armed with the know-how to get a foot in the door. With a little self-discipline and technological savvy, you might find yourself qualified for a new and exciting position or demonstrate enough potential to benefit from further company-sponsored training upon hire. With so many free resources, now is the time to improve your game with eLearning.

For more information:
Can Retraining Give the Unemployed a Second Chance? By Drake Bennett

The Lost Generation By Peter Coy

Tough economic times have been frustrating for businesses too. They’ve had to lay off experienced, dedicated employees, but haven’t been able to hire the young blood companies rely on for enthusiasm and cutting-edge skills. There’s a huge gap between the positions companies need to hire for and the skills job seekers have to offer. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to help businesses get through what seems like a gridlock. eLearning is inexpensive, fast-paced, and allows companies to quickly retrain or refresh otherwise quality job candidates who are out of date or in the wrong field.

Job types that will see the most growth are technical and/or regulation-heavy (as many service industries are becoming), including “salespeople, food-preparation and food-service workers, and personal and home care” (Dollars and Sense). Additionally, “health-care and computer support are fields projected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to grow 22% and 30% over the next decade” (Bloomseberg Businessweek). While the skilled-labor positions companies need to fill often require hands-on experience and training, they also frequently have aspects that are more easily, cheaply, and conveniently taught through eLearning.

Pre-licensing, pre-certification, and other standardized requirements lend themselves perfectly to an eLearning format. For example, out-of-work Americans don’t typically stay up to date on HASMAT guidelines or safety and HR compliance training, but they are necessary for onboarding and continuing education. Continuing education pairs seamlessly with an eLearning format because employees don’t have to take time out of the office to stay current, and they can incorporate training in their day-to-day activities. By putting as much training as possible online, businesses save time and money by eliminating the cost of travel on certification and training that takes employees away from their desks. They are also able to tailor education content specifically for their businesses. Companies can more quickly adjust to industry changes or new training needs rather than relying on local colleges or outside training programs for content development and curriculum direction. In the long term, eLearning can even reduce the possibility of another skills gap crisis by giving companies more control over training that keeps up with their hiring needs.

Companies all over the United States have already started implementing eLearning programs as an alternative to old, out-of-date training models. In 2002, well before the recession hit, technology innovators IBM and Microsoft partnered with higher education institutions to implement special eLearning programs for employees to earn graduate degrees. Books-a-Million onboards their employees with a series of online video tutorials that teach company policy and procedure, as well as quarterly updates. Insurance leader Allstate has a growing eLearning program to unite individual Agencies under one company-wide branded training curriculum. eLearning isn’t sitting on the horizon waiting for forward-thinking companies to adopt; it’s already busy contributing to economic recovery.

Have you ever logged into woople knowing exactly what video you want to watch but had a hard time finding it? Maybe you could not quite remember where it was, or whether it was a course or a channel, or the exact name. Our most recent update is designed to make it easier than ever to find your favorite content.
We are happy to announce the release of the new woople Search feature to help you get to specific titles faster. You will be able to find the Search field in two locations: the right side of your dashboard and above the Library list on the right side of the Player screen. Enter any keyword and woople will show you all possible course and channel matches. When you have found what you were looking for, just click to begin watching!
Check out Search the next time you log in. Happy searching!

Sincerely,
The woople Team

Big corporations, small businesses, and the government are all beginning to see what an opportunity we have to change how Americans approach training, education, and career trajectory. eLearning is exploding at the exact time we are questioning traditional hiring and training practices as well as the role of higher education in career preparation. It’s a perfect match. eLearning offers a low-cost means to bridge the growing gap between the skills workers currently have and what businesses most need. It’s already being utilized to effect economic change all over the country.
 
Businesses, painfully aware of the mismatch between jobless Americans’ skill sets and their hiring needs, have previously turned to partnerships with higher education to close the skills gap. But higher education is a huge, slow-moving ship with too small a rudder to immediately address this situation affecting real people right now. Even community colleges, which are generally more open to creating vocational programs, suffer from a lack of speed and nationwide availability. Furthermore, going back to school for another degree may be impossible for those already strapped for cash, burdened with student loans, or forced to work several jobs.
 
Another idea to close the gap is for the government to spearhead and fund job-training programs similar to those in Germany and Great Britain. However, federal budget deficits and spending cuts leave the job-training issue mostly up to state governments to decide. Some organizations, such as Detroit’s Focus: Hope (whose original mission was to combat discrimination and poverty), have shifted their focus to tackle job skills training and interview preparation. But students who already have a degree are not always the target group for these programs whose first priority is to help marginalized groups who would be behind even in the best of times.
 
eLearning is a solution that can benefit both employers and job seekers. It is a positive remedy for businesses and unemployed or underemployed Americans to counteract the negative effects of the economic downturn today. It’s an inexpensive and flexible solution that is already providing relief from some of the challenges created by the recession. Workers who need to refresh their job skills or move into a new field find the fast, adaptable, and economic means to jumpstart stalled careers. Businesses have an opportunity to onboard new hires not only to company policy and culture, but also to apply in-demand skills specific to the company. In this blog series, we’ll discuss both sides of the skills gap—businesses and employees—and the different ways that eLearning can bring both together to transform the workplace.
 
Can Retraining Give the Unemployed a Second Chance? By Drake Bennett Bloomseberg Businessweek

Unemployment: A Jobs Deficit or a Skills Deficit? Politicians and economists are trying to reframe a severe jobs crunch as a problem of workers’ inadequate skills. By John Miller and Jeannette Wicks-Lim

Part 4: Focus is the Foundation of eLearning for Millennials

Constantly connected and adept with the latest gadgets, the Millennial generation views place and time differently than other generations. If you’re a Millennial, chances are the information you seek has always been at your fingertips, and life has been one long eLearning adventure. The advent of eLearning in the workplace seems only natural. eLearning meshes perfectly with your sense that work can be done anytime and anywhere, and your desk isn’t a specific place, but a metaphor for a ready-to-work mindset.

However, eLearning may not be easy to incorporate into your daily routine, especially since not everything discovered online qualifies as eLearning.  eLearning video content requires you to have a singular focus for a designated period of time each day. It is easy to fall into the trap of putting eLearning on the bottom of your to-do list. Nonetheless, it is important to keep even the smallest tasks from falling through the cracks, ending up back on the bottom of your list. While one of the advantages of eLearning is that it can be done anytime and anywhere, you may find setting aside a specific time each day for it helps you commit to daily learning. Millennials sometimes need a way to ground themselves in the flurry of constant information and associative thinking. eLearning can be your anchor.

It may seem like eLearning is just another incoming message that will only get lost in a sea of internet radio stations, YouTube videos, text messages, and social media updates. But by emphasizing how beneficial it is to really learn something significant each day, you transform eLearning from part of the noise into an actionable motivator.

It’s a chance to pause and reflect on who you want to be and how you can achieve your goals. Try taking notes with pen and paper so you can collect your thoughts on what you learn. Jot down which points stand out to you the most, and how they are relevant to your everyday experience at work or in your personal life. You could also discuss ideas from your eLearning discoveries with your coworkers online or in other forums. In a big company, or with a busy schedule, eLearning is one thing you can incorporate in your daily activities to bring people together.

Even when the internet was just a series of connected message boards, Steve Jobs knew how closely tied electronics and learning could be. In his own way, he pioneered eLearning. In his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford, Steve Jobs admitted he was a college drop out and described how he came to found Apple. That decision to leave the classroom and learn all he could about computers set him on a course of life-long eLearning in the truest sense. He was not only a creator of electronic devices, but also a student of them. His vision was fueled by a passion and an interest in computing that tends to drive true scholars of all fields. In the process, Apple helped bring about the age of the Internet and interactivity that we enjoy today, and has made eLearning as we know it a possibility.

Here at woople, we are saddened by Jobs’ passing. Our offices are filled with his computers, our live events are energized by his iPods, some of our employees carry his iPhones. Paul Cummings remarked this morning, “Often times, the word ‘genius’ is overused. In Steve Jobs’ case, it was understated. It’s amazing how on a planet of 7 billion people one person can die and so many can feel it.” Everything we do for our clients each day owes a great debt to Steve Jobs’ vision and his lifelong work. When you think not only in terms of the individual devices and pieces of software Apple sold, but also everything that has been accomplished on those devices, you begin to have a sense of how many lives Jobs has touched. He is missed.

Sincerely,
The woople Team

Another successful woople release was recently deployed! The new features will make management reports more functional and informative. Here’s what’s new:

Certification Ranking
For clients who are on certification, each of their organization owners will be able to easily see where each of the different business units they manage rank across the rest of the company. The rank is calculated based on a combination of the average test score, total points earned, the pass rate, and the number of times the minimum score was reached. Managers will be able to see how their team compares to others and track improvement or decline over time.

Certification Viewing Time by Day
This report previously existed only on individual certification dashboards. Now we’ve added it to the District Manager’s certification dashboard. With this feature, managers can track their team’s level of engagement with woople by adding up all the minutes watched by members of that team.

Certification Status
The managers’ certification dashboard will now display the status of each manager’s district and status of each direct report, allowing owners a snapshot of how each district is progressing on certification.

This release also includes fixes for a number of bugs. Highlights include:

•    A green light will no longer appear for a user who has one essential requirement.
•    The Reset Password link will no longer lead to the wrong page.
•    When a user clicks the back button from the certification dashboard, it will now take the user to the correct page.

We are very excited about these changes and improvements to woople. It will be even easier now to chart your organization’s progress toward success!

Woople is not your typical piece of software. We adapt to changing requirements very quickly to solve problems as they arise. Anyone who has logged in to woople knows that it is constantly changing. As you may have noticed, we like to publish our release notes on our blog to keep everyone who is interested up-to-date on our progress.

We are participating in a new trend in building software: being honest. Part of our release notes may include bug fixes that we have corrected. This does mean admitting that we are not always perfect, but our goal is to constantly improve the quality of the software we produce.

Most companies will do anything to keep those defects hidden from their customers, and even pretend they do not exist. Understandably, the typical impulse is to hide imperfections, but as you might have noticed, we are not your typical company. We believe that this transparency will help us when it comes to the people that matter most: the users who log in to woople every day to learn something new. This is why we feel absolutely comfortable publishing our release notes, including bug resolutions. It is simply the right thing to do.

Sincerely,

The woople Team