Google Classroom for Business: Is That the Case?

You probably already know that Classroom is offered as part of Google for Education packages. But have you ever wondered if it’s any good beyond a school setting — to be exact, can you use Google Classroom for business training purposes? After all, ‘employees’ can very much be viewed as ‘students’ while ‘instructors’ can be referred to as their ‘teachers.’ In this article, we describe a relatively uncommon yet totally viable use case to help you arrive at a better-informed learning management system (LMS) decision.

How Professional Development Correlates with Satisfaction

According to Harvard Business Review, in 2019, professional development opportunities were the second-largest contributor to making an employee happy in the workplace. With the COVID-19 outbreak, the need for continuous education intensified as lockdowns imposed all over the world made both businesses and governments start digitalizing rapidly. In turn, that provoked demand for learning individual skills and entire skillsets in order to reflect the new normal.

The sentiment is supported by an analysis from PricewaterhouseCoopers. This ‘Big Four’ consulting firm says that more than three-fourths of workers are willing to acquire new skills or retrain altogether. At the same time, over two-thirds of those who are on a job-seeking journey claim they do not mind joining a company that pays less but provides more room for skill-building.

Another member of the ‘Big Four,’ Ernst & Young, estimates that by next year already, the amount businesses spend on e-learning initiatives per annum will reach US$400 billion. While that figure alone represents a substantial market volume, it pales in comparison to the size of potentially unrealized revenue, which stands at a staggering US$8.5 trillion. The reason? There will be no workforce possessing the necessary competencies. The solution? Upskilling.

Practical Benefits of Google Classroom for Business

Boasting 150 million active users worldwide, Classroom is a robust Google LMS that can be applied in an upskilling scenario. Remember that while the vast majority of your current and future employees are highly likely interested in career growth, they need particular tools in order to ignite that growth. Going back to the EY data, we see that:

• 62% of employees wish their learning experiences were more personalized.

With creative assignments crafted within Google Classroom for business, you can offer real-time feedback and AI-powered, personalized guidance in the form of hints and prompts. Moreover, your employees can navigate the courses in a self-paced mode, meaning they will not feel pushed and will be able to revisit certain concepts at any time. Last but not least, they can enjoy the EdTech integrations they are used to (e.g., Kahoot!), which are available for installation from a dedicated App Hub.

• 60% of employees wish their learning experiences were more mobile.

iOS- and Android-ready, Google Classroom allows you to distribute assignments, grades, and feedback on the go, meaning your workers will have the much-desired mobility and not be limited by the time spent at their desks. In addition, with chatting, meeting, and commenting capabilities, they can instantly connect with the instructors as they’re making progress.

Furthermore, Google Classroom for business enables advanced analytics, helping you remove bias and make decisions dictated by the data. Armed with the BigQuery-exportable insight into the performance of each of your employees or even entire departments, you can set up measurable KPIs and potentially open up endless possibilities for gamification, significantly increasing adoption and engagement levels.

What Are Some Other Ways to Use Google Classroom LMS?

Apart from sharing training materials, encouraging discussions on specific topics, and collecting assignments like in standardized training programs, you can onboard, train, and evaluate new hires. For existing employees, you can create a curated database of fresh industry reports and updates.

As for live mentoring sessions and conferences, you can distribute prerequisite reading in advance and use Google Classroom for business to hold follow-up discussions and quizzes to solidify learnings. Once the event is over, you can also share recordings or summaries for future reference.

Particular use cases will depend on your particular needs and pain points you want to eliminate. That’s where Cloudfresh can help.

About Us

Cloudfresh is a Google Workspace partner that has been awarded numerous product-specific certifications. Our mission is to empower firms of all sizes to collaborate better via Gmail, Chat, Meet, Drive, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and more. On the condition of further cooperation, as your Google Workspace consultants, we can design a customized Classroom Proof-of-Concept solution tailored to your training needs free of charge. To see if it’s a match, please submit a short form below.