COVID-19 has changed the way employees learn and work worldwide. With more of us classed as “remote workers” than ever before, organizations have shifted to remote working, remote training, and newer learning tools are being adopted to sustain learning during the pandemic. Uncertainties have disrupted organizations. However, it is crucial that work must continue — and so must learning at work. Professional learning and development for remote employees isn’t just a feel-good initiative, but it also leads to short-term benefits like increased loyalty and improved performance and engagement. Keeping employees involved and up to date with the changing learning trends is vital for remote efficiency. Training remote employees have to be a well-defined strategy to ensure business continuity and productivity.
Here are few best practices that can help you overcome your training challenges and enable you to devise an effective training program for your remote teams:
Fostering a Cohesive Learning Culture:
Organizations should encourage employees to continuously seek, share, and apply new knowledge and skills to improve their own performance and the organization. With this upward trend of remote working, companies need to build a culture of trust that encourages knowledge-sharing. Curating the right content and having a long-term vision would help organizations create an impactful learning program for their employees.
Investing in Training Tools:
There is a gamut of Technologies that support training; however, it is crucial to create a well-developed training toolkit for an effective remote learning program. Here are some of the top tools available that any organization can leverage.
- Learning Management Systems: Adopting a learning management system (LMS) that is cost-effective and meets employees’ learning needs whether they work in the same space or remote locations can be a suitable training solution.
The employees’ learning experience can be enhanced by using different interactive learning styles like gamification or interactive scenarios that can be personalized for each employee through adaptive learning. Furthermore, LMS supports security and remote functionality to accommodate the needs of demanding organizations.
- Video Training Tools: Video-based training is one of the hottest e-learning trends today, and these training tools are essential to add some live interaction to the learning module. Videos are among the most effective technology-based training tools that offer a visual explanation to learners of what they need to learn. Videos show in pictures and words the content of the training. Such pictorial superiority effect helps the learners to understand the topic without getting bored or losing interest.
- Project Management and Communication Tools: Organizations can utilize the project management and communication tools to track the employees’ progress, collaborate, and assess the training’s effectiveness. This helps the learners to focus better and work on their improvement areas.
Selecting the Right Delivery Model:
Organizations need to respect employee time and create training models that suit their remote teams. Knowing the boundaries can create a great culture of remote learning as employees would be comfortable and motivated to participate in training.
Organizations can adopt Synchronous Learning – where employees learn simultaneously. Live webinars or Video conferencing, or Virtual classrooms such as Synchronous learning have been a popular method of remote training delivery. It enables learners to ask questions and receive answers in real-time while also collaborating freely with their co-learners. However, other methods – such as Asynchronous Learning- are more learner-centred – where employees can access online learning without the constraints of having to be in a particular place at a specific time. It involves delivering the coursework via the internet or email that are then posted on online forums. In such cases, learners can complete the course at their own pace. Organizations can also choose the blended learning method – a mixture of both, to create a custom solution.
Conclusion
With remote working swiftly becoming the norm, developing remote-friendly professional development strategies are essential to retain and engage employees. Organizations, employees, and L&D professionals, together have to navigate both old and new challenges and design new methods that will meet the training needs of both today and tomorrow.
