Your Complete Guide to Remote Training
Remote work has several benefits, including increased employee happiness and productivity. However, it also poses a few challenges to business owners. One of those challenges is remote employee training. How can you train employees if you’re not in the same physical location as them?
Read on for a complete guide to remote training:
1. Analyze your audience
Every individual is unique. We all have diverse preferences. Employees are no different. Some prefer training videos, while others want write-ups. Each employee has different skills, too, meaning their training should differ, while focusing on individual strengths and weaknesses
The industry you’re in also informs the type of training you should provide. For example, a detailed restaurant training manual is indispensable in the food and beverage business, while the data security industry prefers visual explanations over text.
In other words, creating a one-size-fits-all training program for employees will be counterproductive.
You should instead analyze your audience to determine your training’s design. See which skills they excel in and which need to be upgraded. Ask for some feedback, too By sending a survey or a questionnaire or asking them directly in one-on-one remote conversations. Whichever your preferred method, make sure to include the following questions:
- What are the skills you’d like to work on developing?
- How would you describe your learning style?
- What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to employee training?
Use their answers to create remote training programs that support rather than frustrate.
2. Include self-paced learning modules
Self-paced learning is a form of asynchronous training that gives your staff greater flexibility. In self-paced learning, you give employees the power to complete the training on their own while keeping up with their regular work schedule.
That’s not to say you should allow them complete control. You still need to set a deadline for the training completion to ensure the training is completed in the first place. People tend to procrastinate. Giving a deadline thus helps your employees to finish what they started.
Encourage employees to block out time each day or week for training. That can help ensure they don’t become overwhelmed by everything they have on their plate. Ask them to go through the modules at a time they have a clear mind, too. That’s so they can easily understand information and retain it.
Follow up with them on the day they’re supposed to have completed the training.
3. Track your remote training program
Take time to track learning outcomes. Your remote training program, after all, is only as good as the “graduates” it produces.
You can analyze remote training success by performing knowledge checks after each study unit. For instance, if you’re offering training on how to ace that promotion interview at work, you can track how many trainees went ahead to get promoted.
Or, if you run an LLC registration service, give your employees training on how to look up an LLC and successfully register it for clients. Then track how many they were able to register for a set period. Request information from those who were unsuccessful by asking them what barriers they encountered.
Keep an eye out for common knowledge gaps among trainees. Don’t be afraid to adjust course content based on your analytics results. That’s the way to guarantee excellent results from your training program.
4. Create a remote training community
Creating a community among online learners can help both you and your employees.
A learners’ community helps you improve remote employee engagement and eliminate communication issues among team members. A learners’ community can also help you address the lack of access to peer-to-peer support and the lack of a bond among employees.
On the other hand, employees won’t feel alone in their quest for new knowledge.
But don’t just post learning modules in your learner’s community and hope to get some engagement. Follow these tips to get the most out of your learners’ community:
- Encourage collaboration through screen-shares or an online call conference.
- Incorporate a competitive element and gamification features.
- Place learners in groups to complete tasks by working together.
- Add chat features to remote training sessions.
Overall, a learners’ community will allow a more personal interaction among learners. Humans crave connection, and an interactive learning experience allows your staff to stay in touch.
5. Offer mobile-friendly remote training
Mobile-friendly training allows your employees to learn from remote locations at any time. In fact, 82% of remote workers have completed remote training sessions outside of working hours.
Consider choosing a remote training tool and software with a mobile-friendly interface that enables virtual training sessions.
For instance, simpleshow video maker is a video authoring tool that allows you to create mobile-friendly explainer videos for effective remote training delivery. That will ensure ease of access to online training and a great digital learning experience.
Conclusion
As remote work‘s popularity grows, so does remote learning. To ensure you get the best results from your remote training, you must follow a process.
- Begin by analyzing your audience. That helps you create suitable training programs for them
- Consider offering self-paced learning, too. This will help remote teams feel empowered. It will also ensure they retain the information you give them better.
- Make training mobile-friendly, too. This will ensure your employees can train from anywhere.
- Finally, create a learning community to keep learners engaged and keep track of the remote training program.
If you follow these tips, you can get the most out of your remote training program. That means you’ll have more skilled employees. Both you and your employees will be happy.
Author Bio
Jon Morgan
Jon is the founder of two successful e-commerce and SaaS businesses. He’s passionate about sharing what he has learned from working with business owners through Venture Smarter.