Planet Ganges: Naturing the Gamified Enterprise Learning Ecosystem
The Global E-Learning market has witnessed considerable progress in the last few years, and is projected to become worth USD 300 billion by 2025. In India particularly, the increased penetration of the Internet, ongoing government initiatives such as ‘Digital India’ and an increase in demand for interactive learning are some of the major factors that have contributed to the growth of the Online Learning market. Moreover, several global E-Learning players have seen a surge in the adoption of their platforms from India, which is witnessing an aggressive technological disruption.However, despite the tremendous potential for the growth of E-Learning within the country, several challenges still impede the proliferation of E-Learning technology. The growth of the industry, which is still at a very nascent stage, is being hindered by factors such as the lack of awareness on E-Learning initiatives, absence of relevant learning material and the skepticism surrounding nontraditional learning approaches. Moreover, with the future of online learning now in the hands of bite sized video content with a human interface, there is a need for Gamified and VR-based Learning Content to become economically viable as a mass medium of learning within the country.
Acknowledging these challenges,Bangalore headquartered Planet Ganges has stepped forward to address the challenge with a Gamified, Interactive and Machine Learning driven talent ecosystem, to transform the Corporate Learning infrastructure in the country and make learning a habit amongst employees.
Since its inception in 2014, Planet Ganges has been leveraging its expertise in OD Consulting and Technology, to build the desired culture and right capability in its client organizations. As a Talent Accelerator with various products and solutions designed to fasttrack the growth of people in client organizations and subsequently accelerating their business growth, Planet Ganges offers its clients a suite of agile plug and play technology solutions in different areas. At the forefront of the company’s product portfolio is its Learning Experience Ecosystem a gamified, interactive(voice enabled), machine learning driven, assessments and social interface enabled learning eco system with plug and play learning content, designed to make learning a habit amongst employees in an organization. The Planet Ganges suite also includes nine modular solutions for clients, enabling them to assess and develop talent at each stage of the employee life cycle.
“Based on over four years of experience in this business and my personal expertise gained from 28 years of experience in the industry as a Talent Specialist, the biggest and most consistent expectation of any company from an online learning platform is “engagement and adoption”. However, despite investing large sums of money on online learning platforms and content libraries, organizations are not able to deliver engaging as well as relevant content to theiremployees,” explains Anand Bhaskar, Founder & CEO, while commenting on the industry trends and challenges. “At Planet Ganges, we believe that the solution lies in the context and not the content. While content needs to be engaging and fun, adoption will be driven only by connecting the available content to the learner’s context,” he goes on to add.
The company thus emphasizes on a strategy to always connect the content with the learner’s context, so that learning remains consistent and relevant. Planet Ganges’ Integrated Talent Experience Suite includes modules for Hiring & Selection,On boarding and Capability Readiness, Employee Engagement and Learning, Employee Assessment and Growth, Management and Leadership Development, Building a Learning Culture and People Analytics.
A Personalized Platform to Provide Employees with Contextual Learning
When employees are provided with a personalized learning platform, it not only helps them enhance their skills and competencies but also helps the company progress as a whole. Understanding this and the dire need for contextual learning platforms for employees across organizations, Planet Ganges developed its ‘Learn XP’ solution, a unique learning application that brings together functionalities for self, manager, subordinate and peer assessment, to improve the accuracy and personalisation of learning for employees. Be it a functional skill area or a behavioural area, the Learn XP module gathers employee information across multiple data points which is then used to provide them with personalised insights and suggestions, learning strategies,continuous positive strokes and additionally, a “Learn ability Index(LI)”score. This is a personalised score provided to every employee to help them determine their standing with their peers, team or organisation. Planet Ganges also uses a concept known as “skill currency” to profile employees based on their individual skills and competencies into 5 gamified avatars that can be used as a source of self motivation for learning or for peer recognition of one’s capabilities.
Furthermore, with features such as a 180/360 degree view of feedback assessments, an online Virtual Assessment Center(VAC) to assess talent for hiring:and a Survey tool to run engagement surveys, Learn XP provides organizations with a new approach towards online learning that focuses extensively on context.
An Internal Communication App to Drive Thought Exchange
While Traditional HR models focused extensively on building a personal connect with the employees, today’s distributed and global operating models call for casual and non-prescriptive communication in the workplace to allow for free exchange of thoughts and attain a better understanding of employee preferences and needs. Acknowledging this scenario, Planet Ganges has created its internal communication app Buzz, a digital medium to help better understand the atmosphere of an organization. As a social element of Learn XP with inbuilt custom data
analytics, Buzz gathers insights on employee engagement, trending topics of discussion, learning engagement, consumption, agility and curiosity. These data insights, when fed as a powerful input into the AVATAQ machine learning algorithm, help to contextualize and personalize insights to both individual employees as well as the HR Administrators, on what employees really need and care about.
Moreover, Buzz has been developed by Planet Ganges to not only enhance productivity in the workplace but to also improve the world around with intelligence and insight. “While HR and Business over the years, have had tools that have long focused on automation and productivity, we at Planet Ganges believe in changing the game with more intelligent software that can enable consumers to make smarter decisions. Buzz has been devised with this vision,” asserts Anand.
Simplifying Campus Hiring with a Futuristic Online Solution
When it comes to Campus recruitment, most organizations fail to be creative with their talent strategies, with very little innovation having taken place in the space of campus hiring over the last two decades. Moreover, spiralling costs, time management issues, and challenges in accessing the best students, are some of the other concerns that arise when enterprises engage in candidate recruitment. With a deep understanding of these challenges, Planet Ganges has built Varsity a very ambitious and futuristic, online campus solution to enable companies to assess, engage, train and on board their talent. Varsity not only allows every organization to build a powerful digital brand for themselves across 100 - 500 campuses, but also enables them to conduct large scale webcasts for pre placement talks, custom assessments without travel, and automated virtual Interviews as well as live virtual interviews to screen talent.
Post hiring, Varsity also provides a means for the hired students to be onboarded onto its ‘Learn and buzz’module for development, ongoing assessment and engagement. This function enables organizations to prepare students for their specific position well before they join the company. Furthermore, the AVATAQ machine learning algorithm incorporated into Varsity, calculates scores such as the “Learn ability Index (LI)” and “Engagement Index(EI)”of each student, there by providing the client organisation with an accurate insight into the best candidates for a position. Moreover, by using this construct, a company can not only save huge onboarding time and costs but also class room training costs and the salary costs of freshers.
Speaking of the company’s approach towards recruitment, Anand believes that Campus Hiring should be viewed as a long term investment as opposed to a point in time hiring cost. In alignment with this outlook, Varsity has been designed to capture the data of all applicants during the custom online assessment, and 98 percent of the data of unrecruited candidates can be retained within the company, to be capitalized on for the future.
The Road Ahead
Having assisted several organisations in their online learning experience over the last four years, Planet Ganges has emerged as a distinguished solutions provider in this domain with extensive industry expertise. With a Robust Talent Experience Platform already in place, the company’s strategy for the future entails building a Performance Management module and Talent Review & Succession Planning module, in order to connect learning with the employee performance and role based succession. “The lack of learning today is more due to the lack of context rather than the unavailability of content. Planet Ganges with its Learn XP suite is excited to undertake this journey in India and make the country’s youth more employable in the future,” signs off Anand.
Aggregating Content through Partnerships
True to its strategy of believing that context is more important than content, Planet Ganges aggregates content through its partnerships with various global open source learning content providers. This includes associations with leading content curators such as Udemy, Coursera, Skill share and Safari Books. “A client who signs up with us is provided with an elaborate library of 1,50,000 courses to choose from. We are also able to setup and go live within a short time frame of 48-72 hours,” adds Anand.
While the traditional LMSs in the market have a relatively lower adoption rate across companies, Planet Ganges’ Learn XP solution shows a consistent adoption rate of 75–86 percent across its client employees. Attributing this success to its focus on context, the company believes that its big differentiator lies in its ability to connect the content to the personal aspirations of the individual and provide the employees with exactly what they seek and need.
AT Planet Ganges,We Believe That The Solution Lies In The Context And Not The Content. While Content Needs To Be Engaging And Fun, Adoption Will Be Driven OnlyBy Connecting The Available Content To The Learner’s Context
Moreover, Buzz has been developed by Planet Ganges to not only enhance productivity in the workplace but to also improve the world around with intelligence and insight. “While HR and Business over the years, have had tools that have long focused on automation and productivity, we at Planet Ganges believe in changing the game with more intelligent software that can enable consumers to make smarter decisions. Buzz has been devised with this vision,” asserts Anand.
Simplifying Campus Hiring with a Futuristic Online Solution
When it comes to Campus recruitment, most organizations fail to be creative with their talent strategies, with very little innovation having taken place in the space of campus hiring over the last two decades. Moreover, spiralling costs, time management issues, and challenges in accessing the best students, are some of the other concerns that arise when enterprises engage in candidate recruitment. With a deep understanding of these challenges, Planet Ganges has built Varsity a very ambitious and futuristic, online campus solution to enable companies to assess, engage, train and on board their talent. Varsity not only allows every organization to build a powerful digital brand for themselves across 100 - 500 campuses, but also enables them to conduct large scale webcasts for pre placement talks, custom assessments without travel, and automated virtual Interviews as well as live virtual interviews to screen talent.
Post hiring, Varsity also provides a means for the hired students to be onboarded onto its ‘Learn and buzz’module for development, ongoing assessment and engagement. This function enables organizations to prepare students for their specific position well before they join the company. Furthermore, the AVATAQ machine learning algorithm incorporated into Varsity, calculates scores such as the “Learn ability Index (LI)” and “Engagement Index(EI)”of each student, there by providing the client organisation with an accurate insight into the best candidates for a position. Moreover, by using this construct, a company can not only save huge onboarding time and costs but also class room training costs and the salary costs of freshers.
Speaking of the company’s approach towards recruitment, Anand believes that Campus Hiring should be viewed as a long term investment as opposed to a point in time hiring cost. In alignment with this outlook, Varsity has been designed to capture the data of all applicants during the custom online assessment, and 98 percent of the data of unrecruited candidates can be retained within the company, to be capitalized on for the future.
The Road Ahead
Having assisted several organisations in their online learning experience over the last four years, Planet Ganges has emerged as a distinguished solutions provider in this domain with extensive industry expertise. With a Robust Talent Experience Platform already in place, the company’s strategy for the future entails building a Performance Management module and Talent Review & Succession Planning module, in order to connect learning with the employee performance and role based succession. “The lack of learning today is more due to the lack of context rather than the unavailability of content. Planet Ganges with its Learn XP suite is excited to undertake this journey in India and make the country’s youth more employable in the future,” signs off Anand.
Aggregating Content through Partnerships
True to its strategy of believing that context is more important than content, Planet Ganges aggregates content through its partnerships with various global open source learning content providers. This includes associations with leading content curators such as Udemy, Coursera, Skill share and Safari Books. “A client who signs up with us is provided with an elaborate library of 1,50,000 courses to choose from. We are also able to setup and go live within a short time frame of 48-72 hours,” adds Anand.
While the traditional LMSs in the market have a relatively lower adoption rate across companies, Planet Ganges’ Learn XP solution shows a consistent adoption rate of 75–86 percent across its client employees. Attributing this success to its focus on context, the company believes that its big differentiator lies in its ability to connect the content to the personal aspirations of the individual and provide the employees with exactly what they seek and need.
