Harappa Shares 2021 Online Learning Insights: Unlocks 1.2X Growth in Average Weekly Learning Time Per Learner

NEW DELHI: Harappa, a homegrown edtech startup and India’s leading online institution for behavioral skilling today shared annual online learning insights from its community of 400k+ learners. These insights capture skilling need gaps, priorities, learner behaviors and types, across career cusps.

In 2020, online learning became the only avenue of upskilling and reskilling, but in 2021, as workplaces evolved into remote and hybrid setups, so did the skill requirements of professional learners. Young learners (25-35 Y/O) shared that the biggest upskilling challenge they aspired to overcome in 2021 was acing interview prep. Mid-level and senior learners (36+ Y/O) found adapting to new workplaces (remote/hybrid), leadership and presentation skills to be their top three upskilling priorities. One of the biggest roadblocks encountered across learners was not knowing where to start their learning journey.

Harappa also unlocked 1.2x year-on-year increase on its average weekly learning time per user—learners spent 60 minutes per week upskilling and reskilling online in 2021, as compared to 27 minutes in 2020. What’s more, in breaking down their long-term learning objectives, young learners shared that they look for online courses that can help them decode their ladder to success and to make themselves stand out in the sea of talent that exists in India. Mid and senior-level learners, on the other hand, leveraged online learning to break the stagnancy of their career growth graphs.

Elaborating on the insights, Shreyasi Singh, Founder & CEO, Harappa shared, “As educators at heart, the light of our lives is genuine learning impact and engagement: it’s our biggest focus at Harappa. We measure and track completion (not just activation) and feedback after completion. To add to this, we’ve also now begun to track revisit rates: unprompted learner sessions after they have completed a course, driven by a genuine zeal to reinforce or revise a module, concept or nugget. Learning is most powerful, when it’s continuous and sustained (truly lifelong!), and the fact that our learners often come back beyond completion is testament to what our teams have been able to do to create learning experiences that genuinely make users into learners!”

One of the key focuses and differentiators for us at Harappa is our learner-centricity. We are constantly listening to and understanding from our learner community, what truly matters to them on their professional journey to cocreate a personalized and hyper-relevant learning experience for them. It’s heartening to see that the online learning adoption we were able to unlock in the wake of the pandemic last year has accelerated further in 2021. Learners today are more cognizant of the significance of lifelong learning to tap into their true potential, more so as workplaces become more dynamic. We’re well poised to empower India’s diverse talent pool to confidently navigate their most-crucial career milestones, with our unique Thrive Skills pedagogy.”

Harappa also uncovered that across the diaspora of learners, a self-paced learning model was preferred to that of classroom setups. In accordance with their learning pace and habit, Harappa classified its learners into Bingers, Munchers and Snackers. Bingers are learners who complete 100 % of their course in a week, they are most likely to be in mid to senior career management roles. Munchers complete 33 % to 36 % of the course in a week, they are most likely to have early to mid-career management roles. Snackers complete 21% to 25% of the course in a week.

Harappa witnessed the following peak learning hours in 2021: 8am to 10am and 5pm to 7pm, which incidentally are also peak commute hours. Peak learning days for online learners as showcased by Harappa’s learner data are Fridays and Mondays.

Harappa has been successfully championing the adoption of Thrive Skills, an essential set of cognitive, social, and behavioral skills that enable professionals to continuously succeed, at every stage of their career.