In these highly challenging times, your business cannot standstill and neither can your corporate training programs. You need to constantly upgrade the knowledge and skills of your employees to retain them in the long run and also stay relevant in the competition.
And one way to achieve this is to constantly enhance your corporate training programs. Modern technology has simplified the process of creating online corporate training programs.
Here are some reasons why you should continuously enhance your corporate training-
- Relevant training leads to happy employees, who are more likely to stick around in the organization
- Employees stay abreast of the industry changes with constant skill development
- With constant upskilling, you can fill mid-level and senior roles with internal talent
Corporate training is valuable when it is done right, using the best practices to impart knowledge. It may be that you already have existing training content. So, instead of designing a new training program, you can enhance your existing corporate training program to suit your current needs.
Here, in this post, we look at some steps you can take to enhance your existing corporate training programs.
1. Use an LMS
Your employees are now busier than ever. Marking out time for training can be difficult when they are already walking a tight rope balancing a range of activities that demand their time and attention. It is therefore important that you make your learning more flexible and accessible.
One way to go about this is to host all your learning and development content on a cloud-based Learning Management System (LMS). An LMS is an easy-to-use option to upload, disburse and update your existing training content.
Your employees can login from anywhere and anytime and take the training as per their own convenience. While choosing an LMS, consider one that offers features such as a user-friendly interface, authoring tools, content management tools, and reporting and tracking tools.
Guide:
How to Choose the Right LMS for Your Business
2. Create Mobile-Friendly Content
All working individuals today have a smartphone which they use to access all types of content. You can enhance your existing content by making it mobile-friendly. This can be done by creating microlearning content. As the name suggests, microlearning refers to content that is packaged in small bites. Here are Microlearning Design Techniques for a Great Learning Experience.
Your employees can access these micro nuggets on their phones, tablets, or any other device of their choice. Let us assume you have a very lengthy training PDF file on a subject. You can break down the content into small sub-sections and for each sub-section, create a micro nugget, around 3 to 5 minutes long.
This micro nugget provides to-the-point information about a particular subject. Microlearning is a great way to provide instant performance support. It is ideal for time-challenged employees and it also prevents cognitive overload. Learn How to Implement Microlearning in Corporate Training
3. Use Digital Tools to Create Interactive Content
You can breathe new life into your existing content by repackaging it using digital technology. Content in the form of audio, video, graphics, infographics, and presentations is more immersive and engaging.
Besides, you can also use tools and techniques such as gamification, virtual reality and augmented reality to make online corporate training more relevant and contextual. Learn Everything You Must Know Before Selecting Gamification Services.
With digital tools, you can convert linear learning into an interactive experience. Instead of being passive absorbers of information, your employees will be active participants in the learning journey.
4. Incorporate Blended Learning
While learning at your own pace has its advantages, the role of the instructor and the importance of peer interaction cannot be overlooked. There are certain skills that are best taught in person, for example, operating hardware equipment.
Blended learning, as the name suggests, blends traditional classroom learning with online learning techniques. This form of training delivery combines Instructor-Led Training (ILT) with regular eLearning.
The instructor does not have to be present at a physical location but can deliver the training using an online platform. The participants too, can access the training from their own location. Another form of blended learning is where the instructor uses online resources in a classroom to supplement the lesson.
Learn How Enterprises Get Better Training ROI with Blended Learning Solutions.
5. Make Use of Online Resources
Another way to enhance your existing corporate training programs is to make the best use of online resources. You can hyperlink your content to the online resource, for example, a YouTube video, a PDF article or a presentation.
This saves you time in creating your own teaching resources. And the time thus saved, can be utilized in more constructive interactions with the learners. Here are 5 Ways to Create Effective Interactive Training Content.
6. Use Communication Tools
In today’s dispersed workplaces, it can be difficult to design courses that serve both in-house and remote employees. If you are using an LMS to develop and deploy your corporate training program, you can leverage a host of communication tools such as emails, live chats, forums, message boards, social media etc., to allow your employees to share their opinions and experiences to a wide audience.
These communication tools are also of great importance to remote employees who may otherwise feel isolated in their work and training. Here are Top Online Learning Development and Delivery Tools.
7. Personalize the Learning Experiences
One of the greatest benefits of online corporate training programs is that you can personalize the learning experience to meet your employees’ needs. Today’s workforce spans generations; it’s a mix of Millennials and Generation Z, all of whom have different levels of comfort with technology.
And it is not just technology which separate learners’ preferences. Some may be overwhelmed with too many interactive videos while others may be put off with large amount of text.
So, while enhancing your corporate training content, talk to your employees, understand their level of comfort with technology and the format they want and then design your content with a judicious mix of text, graphic and video elements.
In conclusion
In the modern world, corporate training has to be an ongoing activity, which means that as an organization, you have to keep updating your course content in sync with emerging technologies and new knowledge.
This however does not mean that you have to design your course content from the scratch. You can leverage an LMS to enhance your existing content and make it relevant to your employees and organizational goals.
An LMS allows you to create mobile-friendly course content, upload it on a cloud, and provide authorized access to your employees across all geographies. You can also use its authoring tools to create and update content, and its various communication tools to keep the conversation going at all times. Here are 10 Best LMS Solutions to Consider for Employee Training.
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