Online Learning Trends During the Pandemic: Case of Service Sector Professionals

ABSTRACT

During the COVID pandemic with the employees in the different sectors working from home, there was perceptually spare time for self-development and enhancement of knowledge. The objective of the paper is to understand whether the same was perceived as an opportunity by the professionals and fruitfully utilized this spare time. The key purpose of this research paper is to study the professionals from the service sector to understand their view on the enhancement of their learning during the COVID pandemic. One hundred and twenty valid responses were collected from professionals in different industries. Statistical tools were used to find out the reliability statistics;factor analysis was done to identify the core factors and significant relationship of different cofactors and the satisfaction level was analyzed. The analysis indicated two main factors for online learning of the professionals “upskilling or skill enhancement” and “utilization of spare time”, which explained 68.166% of the variance. The research highlighted the importance that professionals have placed on their upskilling and reskilling during the COVID pandemic through online modes and how industries can realign their learning and development programs for their employees using this medium. A framework has been proposed, using which organizations can be productive in upskilling their workforce amidst the new evolving working environment due to the pandemic. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Arunava Dalal, Ajay Kumar Ganguly and Subrata Chattopadhyay.