E-learning: A temporary 'By-Product' of Covid-19 pandemic or a contemporary solution to workplace training and learning?

Abstract

Undoubtedly, we live in an era of global social, business and economic uncertainty due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The sudden lockdown of many businesses and educational institutions necessitated the need for e-learning more than ever before. E-learning represents the safest way to train in times of global crisis as it allows the trainers and the trainees to virtually interact through an online platform which serves as the e-classroom, free of the dangers entailed by physical interaction. Yet, the extent to which this sudden shift to online learning represents the future of workplace training and learning or whether it is just a temporary alteration for human resource development is debatable. The Covid-19 pandemic is expected to accelerate learning and work reinvention, resulting in multiple implications for businesses in relation to institutional resilience. Humankind could learn from its history to fight the pandemic while human resource development (HRD) professionals could reflect on previous uncertain times to inform their current practices.