Verizon Business introduces BlueJeans Meetings for corporate learning and training

What you need to know:

• Empowering online instructors to create an effective learning environment, BlueJeans Corporate Learning and Training brings users, content, and training resources into one platform

• New management and engagement features eliminate the administrative burden of facilitating an inclusive and interactive virtual training session

NEW YORK - Verizon Business today announced BlueJeans for Corporate Learning and Training, including new Meetings features to promote program visibility and engagement. Building on the company’s existing use cases for remote and hybrid learning, the BlueJeans for Corporate Learning and Training feature set was designed working closely with Verizon’s award-winning Global Learning and Development (GL&D) organization to address the most pressing needs for a virtual-first, instructor-led synchronous training solution.

Efforts to safely drive employee growth, well-being and retention throughout the pandemic have led organizations to invest more in virtual learning and training. According to the 2021 Training Industry Report, “U.S. training expenditures rose nearly 12 percent to $92.3 billion in 2020-2021. Virtual classroom/Webcasting accounted for 37 percent of hours delivered, up from 23 percent in 2020.” To better support all parties involved in the corporate learning and development process—including trainers and facilitators, instructional designers, participants, and business leaders—BlueJeans worked with Verizon’s corporate learning and training experts to deliver a corporate training platform that promotes virtual engagement and participation.

According to Lou Tedrick, Vice President, Verizon GL&D, “For the past decade, we’ve been fighting the stigma that virtual training is boring, unengaging and ineffective and have been on the hunt for a virtual classroom built for a learning and development organization. Most meeting platforms are just that—a meeting platform. Anyone in learning and development knows that meetings are not a viable replacement for in-person trainings. By working closely with and providing ongoing feedback to the BlueJeans team, we’ve been able to make sure the platform captures everything that facilitators, instructional designers, and learners need to drive successful and engaging training programs. It’s a dream come true for learning and development professionals.”

Providing Effective Visibility and Management

Making it easier to facilitate a virtual learning session that brings everyone together, BlueJeans Corporate Learning and Training provides instructors with a unique dashboard view that presents course participants alongside all the necessary training and management tools to promote better course engagement and collaboration.

With the ability to easily rearrange participants within gallery view or spotlight a presenter, share content, chat and so much more, instructors can personalize the learning experience that works best for them. Features such as ‘hard mute’ for any/all participants, restricted meetings, waiting room and content sharing controls, ensure effective management to keep virtual courses on track.

Fostering Engagement and Inclusivity

Participant engagement is a core element of an effective learning environment. Going beyond just meeting virtually, BlueJeans for Corporate Learning and Training increases opportunities for everyone to engage during a live session and allows trainers to achieve best outcomes through inclusive collaboration. New features that build on management, inclusivity and engagement include:

• Dashboard View: The BlueJeans Dashboard is designed to provide a full snapshot of everything that’s going on in the learning session, save teachers’ time from the administrative duties of online instruction and provide quick access to classroom management tools.

• Large Meeting Capacity: BlueJeans Meetings now accommodates up to 1,000 participants per meeting to scale program reach and effectiveness.

• Collab Board: With simultaneous co-creation for up to 25 users, participants can bring course ideas, thoughts, and content together using the BlueJeans Collaboration Board. Out-of-meeting access provides additional opportunities for learning outside of the classroom.

• Simultaneous Interpretation: Delivering simultaneous and/or relay interpretation for attendees in up to 5 concurrent channels, interpreters have the flexibility to set their incoming and outgoing languages, along with volume and audio mix.

• Hard Mute: To minimize disruptions, administrators can disable the mic or video stream for all participants and prevent participants from unmuting.

• Weather Person Mode: Overlaying the presenter on top of the content being shared in the meeting will enable facilitators to create a more inclusive experience.

• Closed Captioning in Five Languages: Further driving participant inclusivity, automated closed captioning will soon be available in five languages.

“Today’s corporate learning environments should empower instructors to easily build a custom teaching experience that is immersive and easily managed, without the overhead associated with facilitating virtual or hybrid trainings,” said Krish Ramakrishnan, Chief of Innovation and Product, BlueJeans by Verizon. “This requires simplicity in design, management and interoperability features, all of which have long been core strengths of the BlueJeans platform. Working with Verizon’s global corporate training experts, we’ve been able to hone in on what matters most to corporate trainers and consolidate learning, collaboration and training into one place to keep employees engaged throughout their learning and development journey.”

Providing employees with learning solutions that inspire, engage and enable them with the knowledge and capabilities needed today and tomorrow to deliver great customer experiences, drive revenue, growth and profitability, improve shareholder value and contribute to society, the Verizon Corporate Learning & Training organization invests hundreds of millions of dollars annually in initiatives to skill up employees and support their professional and leadership development. Learn more about how Verizon is using BlueJeans for Corporate Training Initiatives.

BlueJeans for Corporate Learning and Training creates an effective learning environment to drive employee collaboration and productivity in or out of live meetings. Weather Person Mode and Additional Language Closed Captioning will be available in Q2. Learn more about all of the features available today to BlueJeans For Corporate Learning and Training users.