So you’ve heard of mobile learning, but you aren’t sure if it’s right for your company. Rather than just looking to use mobile learning because it's the latest trend, you need to focus on identifying why it can really support your learning training strategy.

We've compiled several questions you should ask yourself to determine if your company will benefit from implementing mobile learning. 

1.  You aren’t meeting your employee’s mobile needs  

Are your employees increasingly mobile, and your learning isn’t?  

If your learners are frequent business travelers, mobile-office workers, telecommuters, remote branch office employees, multi-site workers or non-office workers, all moving around with tablets, smartphones, PDA's, etc,  mobile learning will definitely be a good alternative. For example, if your company has a distributed multinational workforce, learning can be easily distributed using mobile technology.

Consider asking:

• How many employees does your company have?
• What is their role at the company?
• How many of these employees have a mobile device?
• What devices are they using?
• Are we expecting them to use their own devices? If so, will they? 

2.  Learners are frustrated because they don't have enough time for training 

Are your learners frustrated with traditional training methods? Are they frequently complaining about their complex and demanding schedules where there’s no time for training? 

If this is the case, it is very likely that your company needs mobile learning. Most global workers are very busy and have very little time to focus on learning. As a result, training completion rates can be low. Reality is people just don’t have the time to sit in a room or for long hours. They are frustrated by outdated programs that haven’t taken advantage of technology to shorten training time. The flexible nature of mobile devices allows people to engage in this type of learning. 

3. You're losing business opportunities due to timeliness 

Does the information in your company change frequently?

Given the speed of business today — and with information overload impacting nearly every professional pursuit — employees require information and knowledge just when they need it, in their desired format and on the mobile platform of their choice. In other words: your employees need just in time training—they need timely information. Mobile Learning makes this possible. Implementing it will keep your employees learning on the spot, at the moment they need it, whenever, wherever they need access to the information. 

By offering easy and timely access to information, a mobile device enables supported decision making, and reassurance in judgements through the quick double checking of a decision. 

More Questions! 

So, before you opt to integrate mLearning into your training design, really take the time to understand if its use will maximize the benefit for the end-user. Why should you develop mobile learning for your organization? Will mobile learning be the solution to a problem in your organization? Do you have a need that mobile learning will fill?

Definitely, knowing your learning audience is the first step when deciding if you need to develop mobile courses. What do you think?