What is Just in Time Learning? A Guide to Implementation

Do constantly changing factors in the way your employees interact with your customers mean a never-ending need for training? Is your organization continually having to hold seminars and training sessions, but still falling short in relaying vital information to workers in a timely manner? Just in Time learning can help you empower your employees when they need it most, transforming your ongoing training needs into a natural extension of their workflow. The result is higher quality customer care at a lower cost, giving you an edge over your competitors.

What is Just In Time Learning & How Can I Leverage it?

Just in Time Learning is exactly what it sounds like – the precise knowledge required delivered in real-time to resolve a problem or issue. 

Imagine that you’re a new customer service representative, working in a large call center. On your first day, an already frustrated customer asks you a question you don’t know the answer to. You have to put them on hold, call your supervisor, hold for them to check with their superior, and then wait for a reply. By the time you finally learn the answer and come back to the customer, they’ve given up and hung up the phone, deciding they aren’t getting the help they need.  

Now imagine you’re the manager of the call center, and this problem comes to your attention. You know that this series of events cost you both money and customer goodwill. Your standard two weeks of new hire training is incapable of covering every single potential question a customer might ask. You need a better solution – a way to leverage digital transformation to provide your employees with timely information that can help resolve challenges as they’re happening.

Do you need a ‘Just in Time’ strategy?

Just in Time learning refers to the ability of an organization to deliver information critical to the completion or delivery of a task at the exact time it’s needed to complete that task. In most cases, this information is highly compartmentalized and consumable, keeping the worker focused and embedding access to the answers they need directly into their existing workflow.  

Just in Time learning has a wide variety of applications beyond customer contact centers, though. From B2B IT support to car dealership sales floors, delivering highly relevant and consequential information at the exact time it is needed to deliver a goal will be one of the defining characteristics of successful digital transformation. 

Broken down to its simplest components, JiT learning solutions are simply an interactive knowledge base delivered on-demand at point-of-need. You already have all the information you need to deliver JiT learning; it’s just a matter of organizing it and making it readily accessible. 

What types of challenges can Just in Time learning be used to overcome?

A Just in Time strategy can overcome many common business challenges, including:

• The high cost of continuing education. With JiT learning, traditional new hire orientation and on-boarding techniques can be used to cover the basics swiftly. JiT information can be utilized to finish and expand training on the job, and as a refresher when needed or when new information is provided.
• Employee frustration and poor performance. Workers who feel that they are sent into their job unprepared and insufficiently trained are one of the top sources of employee turnover. 
• Slow or limited absorption of knowledge. Large blocks of complex information can be challenging to take in all at once. JiT strategies “chunk” information into bite-sized pieces, so your employee gets precisely what they need when they need it.
• Inconsistent service and answers. Nothing erodes trust in a company more than getting two completely different answers from two different employees or vastly varying quality between two product samples. JiT learning ensures everyone in your organization is on the same page and delivering to the same standards – whether they are in production or customer care.

What benefits do Just in Time Learning solutions provide?

Just in Time learning provides multiple benefits for employers, employees, and customers alike, raisin. JiT can raise the bar for quality control and customer service by creating an ongoing learning environment that runs in lockstep with typical workflows. JiT Learning can:

• Reduce organizational drag by decreasing on-the-job training demands, P2P requests, and implementation time.
• Permit real-time updates as needed to implement up-to-the-minute changes and keep the latest information at employees’ fingertips.
• Defuse repetitive pain points when used to proactively answer questions about these pain points and offer potential solutions.
• Enable rapid scaling with information delivery keyed to real time needs of individuals within large groups of workers, eliminating costly one-on-one education or ineffective mass training sessions.
• Improve quality control by standardizing processes, answers, and responses to Time sensitive situations across your entire organization.

How can I implement Just in Time Learning Solutions? What do I need to get started?

Once you’ve recognized your need for a Just in Time strategy, putting a plan into action requires three simple stages:

Planning

You’ll need to create a Just in Time learning road map detailing:

• Goals to be met by JiT learning (example: first contact resolution for customer queries)
• Knowledge to be conveyed (example: information required for return authorization)  
• Desired outcome at each stage: (example: shorter hold times for customers)

Content 

You may have an extensive database of content, including a glossary, FAQ, user manual archive,

and teaching videos. These will need to be broken down, and individual steps isolated to create information that can be absorbed and applied immediately. Rich media can be a fantastic resource and explain things quickly.

Implementation

Once your content has been created, revised, and organized, it needs to be made accessible within your existing infrastructure. This can mean new hardware, a basic cloud hosting platform, or a complete overhaul of your company employee learning architecture. The important thing is the ability to deliver JiT lessons in flow with your team’s existing software solutions.

Just in Time learning can empower your workers to self-direct their learning, absorbing information quickly and efficiently. They can then utilize their new knowledge to use it for real-time problem-solving. This process cuts training costs, allows each employee to relearn bite-size lessons until they stick, and delivers unparalleled quality control to production, operational, and informational roles.