According to a study commissioned, eight out of every 9 respondents have confessed to wasting time at work. Younger people tend to be even worse hit. Reasons for the same could be diverse such as feeling undervalued or underpaid, boredom, distractions or sometimes simply because one can. One method of reducing this is corporate training modules using e-learning methods. Google and Facebook, the primary culprits for distractions, seem no longer so popular once employees have other engaging tools. It also increases collaborations as some of these modules have inbuilt mechanism for instant feedback from individual participants. It also affords greater flexibility as all employees do not need to learn at same pace, but can rather tailor according to their needs. The study has also confirmed that employees in general feel more enthusiastic about their work after e-learning programmes.

Ten trends have been observed that will be dominant in the world of human resource management this year. Talent recruitment will increasingly make use of data warehousing sources. This includes utilizing massive chunks of Big Data. HR will be more about fostering relationships among employees and various stakeholders. Training programmes will seek to constantly upgrade skill sets of employees to cope with modern demands. Engaging employees fruitfully and building corporate culture will emerge as top priorities. Like customers, employees’ experience will also be given greater importance by HR managers. The entire journey of the employee from joining including the onboarding process will now seek to include well being measures. HR teams will also continue their efforts at humanizing business operations. Organizations such as Deloitte and Accenture have done away with performance reviews and these are set to be launched in reinvented avatars across the corporate world. With time some businesses will consolidate and dominate their sectors. HR will play crucial role in aligning the disparate operations into one efficient team.

Like most Asian countries, education was seen as a stepping stone in Vietnam. Thus the curriculum was controlled by the government and focus was on producing identikit workers brought up on a diet of hard work, perseverance and rigor. Rote learning was the model applied and there was no space for blended learning. All this has recently changed thanks to the business innovation pioneered by Everest Education. This model enables practical education where classroom teaching is combined with a mix of extra-curricular activities and video based sessions. Some of these sessions are also being broadcast by Everest in Los Angeles.

Management consulting giants such as Bain, BCG and McKinsey are on recruitment overdrive from business schools. Some business schools in particular have gained credence among these firms for recruitment over others. INSEAD in France is considered as top billing. Then there is the relatively less well known Emory Goizuetta, based in Atlata, Georgia. Kellogg, Dartmouth and Tuck are next in the list. The institute leading the pack for the UK is London Business School. Other American colleges such as MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Duke Fuqua and Michigan Ross complete this illustrious list. Typically in these colleges, up to 30% of graduating students are being hired by the big three of consulting firms.

Certain corporate training methods have been identified as best suited to engaging the newer recruits. These people require regular feedback. Games are among best ways to engage with them. The training lessons they will receive must not be wordy but instead crisp. Millennials must also grasp the reason why they are being asked to learn. Real time challenges always bring out the best among the younger generation. And finally, millennials learn much better when being asked to work and collaborate in groups.

It has been a constant quest for employees to expand their scope of learning at work. Employees often wish to learn automatically without making extra effort as part of work itself. Automatic learning also helps organizations streamline corporate training programmes towards activities where focus is genuinely needed. Employees must take time out of their busy schedules to think big on strategic matters. However, they must not ignore the intricate details that are equally critical. They must analyze which of their co-workers or associates do they really envy and wish to emulate. At times of learning, they must be able to identify what exactly they are looking at hand holding for. Individual habits can best be monitored by themselves. They must continue to excel and take time out for activities which they are really good at. What employees must never do is procrastinate at work, as that disrupts schedule over period of time. Finally, what is needed is peer interaction with those people who already possess the skills one wants to be good at.

MOOCs has been around since 2008 yet its popularity has soared over the last couple of years. This is mainly due to organizations using this tool to enhance the effectiveness of their corporate training programmes for their employees. A perfect example of this would be to cite LinkedIn which used MOOCs to create a learning platform for their employees involving weekly sixteen hours of lectures for four weeks. Certain HR departments use this platform for regular postings. These may involve a series of lectures or interactive sessions with respective trainers.