Topic Brief
Mobilize Your Learning:
Success Stories Plus 5 Tips
to Get You Started
Smartphones and tablets are amazing devices that
enable us to do things that were previously impossible.
In the palm of our hands, we have technology that’s
as powerful as a PC — enabling us to communicate,
collaborate and share information instantly, from
anywhere.
Why not put these mobile tools to work for your
company’s learning programs?
Why Mobile Learning Makes Sense
Mobile devices enable anytime, anywhere access.
The unparalleled convenience of smartphones and tablets is one strong reason to
consider mobile learning. By making learning accessible from mobile devices — and
enabling people to complete learning activities on their own schedule — today’s
organizations can reap big dividends. More flexibility also attracts more learning styles,
ultimately translating into more course completions and stronger results.
848 million users of all
ages access Facebook
every day from their
mobile device — up 29%
from 2014.
— Facebook Q2 2015
Financial Results
Mobile is the computing device of choice.
Beyond excellent performance, today’s mobile devices are also
incredibly responsive and easy to use, making them people’s favorite
computing device. According to Facebook, 87% of its nearly 1
billion daily users access the social site via their mobile devices. The
ever-growing number of mobile-friendly applications only adds to the
appeal. A 2012 survey confirmed this growing popularity. According
to elearninginfographics.com, 65% of workers surveyed declared their
mobile devices their most critical work device. This perception bodes
well for companies wanting to expand their e-learning programs to
mobile devices.
www.saba.com
Topic Brief > Mobilize Your Learning: Success Stories Plus 5 Tips to Get You Started
Your competition is investing in
mobile learning.
According to a 2014 webinar by Brandon
Hall Group called “The Future of Corporate
Learning: Trends and Predictions,” 87.4%
of surveyed organizations stated that
their mobile usage would increase either
significantly (38.7%) or somewhat (48.7%)
in the near future. If you’re considering
mobile learning, there’s a good chance
your competition is, too — so don’t miss
an opportunity to stay ahead of the curve.
Who’s Using Mobile Learning Today?
It’s no surprise to learn that today’s biggest names are already on board with mobile
learning (or making big strides to get there). Check out these success stories:
Guitar Center Wanted More Stories to Tell
Guitar Center, the world’s largest retailer of musical
instruments and related equipment, had a challenge:
getting its 12,000 employees — especially sales
associates — to share information among its 250
geographically dispersed stores. The idea of mobile
learning was highly appealing.
With a new LMS and social hub app, employees
can now disseminate information quickly to other
associates. They are recording, posting and sharing stories of upcoming musical events
and sales strategies.
“People want to learn on their own terms, when it makes sense for them,” said Chris
Salles, Director of e-Learning. “We’re going from 25 SMEs to 12,000!”
Learn more
about Guitar Center’s journey with Saba Cloud.
2
www.saba.com
Topic Brief > Mobilize Your Learning: Success Stories Plus 5 Tips to Get You Started
FlightCar Needed Fast, Consistent Training
FlightCar, a quickly growing car rental company with
150 employees spread across 10 airport locations,
needed to leverage technology to deliver fast and
consistent training on the FlightCar experience —
from customer service, to sales and billing, and even
to car detailing services.
The company needed an easy-to-access, alwayson tool. They also wanted short, easy-to-digest
interactive content, as well as a clear user interface. Since the company’s staff and
customer base are primarily tech-savvy Millennials, its learning needed to be equally
leading-edge. They chose Saba Cloud.
Within a few months, FlightCar had comprehensive content and 24/7 access to
e-learning for employees across 15 disparate locations. They quickly learned that
content creation and changes were easy. Front-line teammates’ skills and confidence
improved. Service consistency and guest experiences rose dramatically. And training is
all done on the fly — on an iPad.
“With Saba Cloud on mobile, I don’t need a computer lab to train my team. I just need
an iPad,” said Patrick Cournoyer, head of Learning and Human Resources.
See how
FlightCar is taking off with Saba Cloud.
Cisco Wanted Just-in-Time Learning
Cisco Systems relies heavily on channel partners, who account for almost 80% of
company revenue. Cisco’s Partner Education Connection (PEC), serving 100,000
learners worldwide, is their training hub, where learners can register for classes, join
virtual classes, take e-learning, and find a wealth of downloadable product information
that can be searched on demand by these sales and service teams.
Since much of Cisco’s content was already in mobile-friendly formats (e.g., MP4, PDF,
PowerPoint, Word), the company was able to quickly offer access to partners through
their phones or tablets. PEC users find answers to their questions often while on-site,
so they no longer have to return to their office to solve their customer’s problem. Today,
25% of the PEC site’s usage is mobile, which will continue to climb because Cisco has
started to convert its e-learning courses to run on phones or tablets.
Watch
Todd Stone of Cisco University discuss Cisco’s approach to global sales enablement.
3
www.saba.com
Topic Brief > Mobilize Your Learning: Success Stories Plus 5 Tips to Get You Started
Ready to Dive In? Five Tips for Getting Started
Perhaps reading these stories is prompting you to accelerate your own mobile learning
efforts. Yet where should you start? Here are some tips to help you move forward.
Tip 1: Adopt an experimental mindset. Many companies start with a small pilot
program — and some efforts fail before they become a success. But they learned a lot,
which is the goal. There’s no right or wrong; it’s a matter of figuring out what works best
for your organization.
Tip 2: Choose a project you can turn into a pilot program. This could be any class,
process or a community you think could benefit from mobile learning. Consider adding
mobile access to that community’s social group, so people can interact, post thoughts
or answer questions even outside of class or after hours. The goal is to gain familiarity
with the technology, how content works and how learners interact with it.
Tip 3: Evaluate your internal resources. Ask yourself:
•
Is your Learning Management System (LMS) ready? Can it support social learning
groups? Even if not, you can still move forward by creating a community in an
existing tool (e.g., Jive or Yammer). Or you could leverage private groups in free
sites like LinkedIn or Facebook.
•
Is my content ready? If your content isn’t already in a mobile-friendly format (e.g.,
PDF, Word, PowerPoint), it may take some time to get it there. Begin that process
today. If you have a large SCORM-based library, it can take some time to get it
mobile ready, especially if you have Flash-based videos. Those will have to be
converted or redone, typically in the MP4 format.
•
How accessible is your content? Make sure your learning platform will index all
your content so your learners can quickly and easily find what they need while on
the go.
•
What are your must-haves vs. nice-to-haves? Do you need just-in-time learning
search and browse like Cisco? Or to base all e-learning on the iPad platform like
FlightCar? How about offline access to learning when your learners can’t connect
to the Internet? Or supporting managers with mobile approvals and a dashboard
to keep up with their teams? Whatever your needs or goals, start building a list of
requirements.
Tip 4: Eliminate a potential financial barrier. Mobile learning requires data usage.
Consider buying some goodwill with your mobile learners by covering their data cost
during the pilot program. For about $20 (or 20€), you can provide 2GB of data usage per
month (which supports many PDFs and video hours). If you start with a small group, the
cost won’t break the bank — and the knowledge you gain will be well worth the price.
4
www.saba.com
Topic Brief > Talent Magnetism: Developing and Retaining Top Talent at All Levels
Tip 5: Run the pilot program like a project. Establish your goals and learning
objectives up front. Afterward, reflect on what worked well and what didn’t. Ask yourself:
Was the tool sufficient? Was the content properly organized? Were there access issues?
What were the learners’ mindsets? Was it an overall success? What needs to change to
improve on the performance?
The Time Is Right for Mobile Learning
There are plenty of compelling reasons to consider mobile learning today. In fact,
certain subsets of employees are even asking for it. Is it time to put mobile learning
to work for you?
Click here to learn how mobile learning can engage your learners, elevate skills and
maximize impact.
Watch Brandon Hall’s “The Future of Corporate Learning”
to learn more about how mobile, social, big data and other
technologies are changing learning.
Saba delivers a cloud-based Intelligent Talent Management™ solution used by leading organizations worldwide to hire,
develop, engage, and inspire their people. Intelligent Talent Management uses machine learning to offer proactive, personalized
recommendations on candidates, connections, and content to help your employees and organization lead and succeed.
© 2015 Saba Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Saba, the Saba logo, and the marks relating to Saba products and services referenced herein are either
trademarks or registered trademarks of Saba Software, Inc. or its affiliates. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Saba | 2400 Bridge Parkway | Redwood Shores | CA 94065-1166 USA | (+1) 877.SABA.101 or (+1) 650.779.2791 | www.saba.com
tb_10/15