The moment is now! Performance Support during and after the coronavirus crisis

People usually come up with the most creative ideas when forced to find short-term solutions. The core matter is not responsible, safe and sustainable handling of information, but rather continuity and feasibility in the short term. Often, it’s simply convenience, and mistakes are made quickly. And it is precisely this situation that you, as an organization, want to avoid.  

Although employees have often already been trained in these critical business applications, they are now left on their own – and unable to present problems directly to a colleague. A virtual assistant that is always available to provide relevant information in a context-sensitive manner can significantly lighten the burden on employees and contribute to careful working methods. What if all those existing instructions and regulations could now be made available in a context-sensitive manner, so that employees do not have to search or act on autopilot and thus risk making mistakes? Even when the software is updated (which happens more and more often), the employee remains supported and up to date. Such a solution has been around for a long time, but is far from being known to the general public. In professional jargon, it is called an Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS), but you can also simply call it ‘Learning in the work process’. 

More than ever, it is important to keep a grip on your employees working from home and provide them with relevant instructions at the moment of need, directly in the work process. Now is the time to take a broader look at learning. After all, learning does not only take place in organized activities such as training courses or e-learning, but much more so in the workplace at the moment of need. Now that people are accustomed to a certain degree of digitalization, they are open to other forms of learning and support. Where in the past an intensive change management project was needed to entice people into learning in a different way, the need is now felt in concrete ways and is experienced as natural. It is time to support learning in a different way – with Performance Support. This is the moment to set the right course, including for the time after the coronavirus, because working from home is becoming a constant – ‘The New Normal’. Dare to take the step and invest in innovative new solutions. Performance Support is very effective and can also save costs during this time when it comes to training time and calls to your helpdesk.  

The question now arises as to whether Performance Support replaces all other forms of learning. The short answer is – no. There are several moments of learning. If something is new or you really want to deepen your knowledge, formal forms of learning are still very effective, but at the moment of need, when solving a problem or dealing with a change, Performance Support is a very effective solution. Therefore, when creating a learning solution, all these learning moments (5 Moments of Need) should be taken as a starting point. There are various tools on the market that support this concept. Search Google for ‘Electronic Performance Support’. It works best, of course, if   

• The users are actually supported in their workflows   
• The support is offered in the context of the work  
• It provides just enough information to carry out the work optimally and  
• All learning content can be created, maintained and offered from a single platform