82% of Brits expect to use virtual & video-based online learning tools to upskill after lockdown

Brits believe virtual skills courses (61%), virtual job fairs (17%) and online networking (11%) will improve their employment chances

82% of Brits expect more people will use video-based online learning after lockdown, according to the latest research on How Video is Changing the World from content delivery provider, Limelight Networks. During lockdown, almost two thirds (65%) of people in the UK have found video-based resources helpful when learning from home and 30% even attended their first ever experience of a virtual business conference.

But, how do Brits plan to continue using online video offerings once a return to the office is allowed?

• Offline learning or e-learning: 82% say more people will use online learning after the lockdown experience
• The virtual class of Covid-19: 61% say they will consider joining video-based courses that teach new skills to support their professional development
  • One fifth (21%) plan to take a professional development class online in the next year
• Improving career prospects with more online resources: 17% are considering attending virtual live-streamed job fairs to help them connect with potential employers
• Remote recruiting: One in ten (10%) of those looking for a new role are interested in hiring professionals who offer interview training to virtually train them

However, using online video comes with its obstacles. Two thirds of Brits (61%) have had technical issues with online video in the past two months. The most common complaint was internet connectivity problems (36%), but 13% of people also experienced video that loaded slowly, while 12% experienced poor-quality video.

How can this be resolved? 

Steve Miller-Jones, VP edge strategy and solution architecture at Limelight Networks, commented:

“With the growing consumption on online video, quality, reliability and latency are going to be in the spotlight like never before. If businesses want to reap the rewards in the digital sphere, they need to evaluate the state of their content delivery platform and overcome the challenges of low quality to provide a beneficial online learning experience.

“Now more than ever, there’s going to be a focus on quality and delivering an experience that end users can rely on, as we continue to turn towards online video for many areas of our lives including to learning remotely.”

Award-winning CEO coach, Peter Ryding, also believes that video and e-learning are the future, with an increased focus on coaching to create measurable behavioural change rather than just ‘tickbox learning’.

Ryding has used his extensive experience of both CEO coaching and video creation to create the e-coaching app, Vic Your Coach, which utilises AI and short sound-bites of high quality video as well as e-learning tools to deliver soft skills improvements.   By keeping the videos short, the app doesn’t struggle and it integrates seamlessly with other content, delivering a smooth, measured learning experience.   Peter explains:

“Vic Your Coach is the result of years of research and coaching experience, the goal is to create a learning experience that changes behaviours and thinking, something traditional teaching methods struggle with, but something coaching achieves easily.  Video is an important part of this, but keeping the videos relevant, short and on-point increases their effectiveness – and resolves many of the technical issues.  The feedback we’ve had has been incredible and we’ve now been nominated for a CIPD award, very exciting – watch this space!”