8 Best Practices for Remote Training at Your Organization

Emotional connection means a lot to people. Undoubtedly, not every curriculum has to be like a drama, but you need to remember that people always make decisions based on emotions.

In everyday life, companies are faced with the problem of remote training. In addition, it has become more crucial than ever to develop skills and maintain social connections with all employees, regardless of their location. And the ability to meet the training needs of remote workers is critical to business success. Companies should take a strategic look at remote training to see if it helps to fulfill this function or only fulfills the task of transferring knowledge. Use the practices in the article below to make sure that remote training helps your organization meet its needs.

What is remote training and why is it required?

Remote training is an opportunity to develop staff on the job. However, before everything falls into place, it is necessary to work hard to launch distance courses, and training, and combine them into a coherent working system: to set goals, and to treat the program foundation responsibly.

Just training without a goal is the wrong way. The goal must be specific:

• Preparation of new employees for effective work in the company, adaptation to work in a new team. In order for an employee to work effectively, he must understand the values ​​of the organization clearly: where everything is located, how technological processes are built, and what exactly he should do at the workplace.
• Elimination of gaps, and shortcomings in the competencies of working employees.
• Training employees to work in accordance with the transformation of the regulatory framework, and the introduction of certain standards (international, national, specific organizations).
• Preparation of an employee for another position or cross-functional. Everything is achievable.

Advantages of remote training

The remote training format is considered a space for the self-actualization of a person and is fundamentally different from the traditional training system. The use of modern computer technologies in the learning process has a positive effect on the degree of perception of information by an employee and improves his cognitive functions. The indisputable advantage of distance training is mass character. The system allows you to cover multiple personnel simultaneously, providing the necessary amount of information, regardless of the number of employees.

Disadvantages of remote training

Live contact is sometimes still necessary for a worker not only to explain the material but as the main motivating factor. The lack of direct interaction “teacher-student”, and the lack of lively speech and emotional exchange worsen the perception of information and reduce the degree of understanding of the material. The disadvantages of remote training also include the impossibility of identifying an employee in the process of knowledge control in some organizations. The remote learning format does not provide high-quality interaction between the mentor and the employee when checking the material covered. The system technically cannot control who is being tested.

1. Remote training must be active

Let go of the passive structure of the practice. Participants of the training already spend a significant part of their time at the computer; it will be difficult for them to study if they are required to simply turn over a virtual page with text. Design tutorials to mimic natural human behavior on the Internet: present information in small blocks, accompany the course with videos and animations, tell stories, or let them interact with you and other listeners on the forum.

During active training, in order to interest the remote worker, the instructor uses various methods and techniques. With this type of training, you are required to transform into a kind of organizer of an interesting and exciting atmosphere, which contributes to the fact that employees themselves begin to show activity and interest in the topic being studied. Keep in mind that the active training method requires effort.

2. Remote training should be dosed

Dose educational content. This way you will reduce overstudy and increase absorption. It is necessary to give content in small, time-distributed modules. At the same time, offer timely support when the training participant needs specific knowledge or skills. 

The ability to dispense training material is developed by the management in the process of practice based on their knowledge of their team. Well-dosed material is firmly embedded in the minds of workers. The right dosage of lesson material, given in an appropriate structure, makes the lesson content accessible to remote workers.

3. Remote training should challenge your organization

It is difficult for remote workers to maintain a level of motivation. Difficult but achievable tasks will cheer you up and positively affect the work of the entire organization.

Such training must necessarily contain components of gamification because competition and rewards in the process can motivate learning. In doing so, the use of various platforms and tools, such as video remote interpretation, that encourage creativity and collaboration. Work through them carefully: tasks that are too simple will cause boredom or create a false impression of the level of professionalism of the participants, while tasks that are too difficult will disappoint and demotivate.

4. Remote training should reflect your corporate culture

Acquaintance with the corporate culture of the company occurs not only during the period of adaptation of the employee. Use the training to communicate the identity of the organization and introduce employees to its core values. This is necessary even for experienced staff.

To reflect the corporate culture in remote learning, use visuals. Each organization has its own culture and values, which are reflected in the company’s brand. In other words, the form of your training programs should match the brand. Also tell employees how educational content is useful for the company, and how the level of training of employees affects the entire business. At the same time, the topics of training can be anything, including a PMP certification training program, and understanding by employees of the principles, values, policies, and procedures that programs are formed will give your classes an advantage.

5. Be mindful of social interaction

Identify learning components that cannot be mastered in traditional face-to-face mode and create alternative online activities to compensate for them. For example, mentoring sessions, brainstorming, and other group activities, small sessions, and workshops.

Before each meeting, give participants a few minutes to share personal news and concerns. This will help people to be distracted, to connect with others, and also to feel belonging to a common cause, it will add motivation to work together at the training. You can start meetings by discussing issues related to remote work and isolation.

6. Use training to build an emotional connection

Emotional connection means a lot to people. Undoubtedly, not every curriculum has to be like a drama, but you need to remember that people always make decisions based on emotions.

Stories are the most effective and simple technique to connect emotionally with learning participants. Whenever possible, tell stories. There are always case studies, testimonials, successes, and failures in the organization. Think about what emotions you want to evoke in the team. Remember to tie the story to specific outcomes and learning points, and change the tone of the story as the story progresses.

7. Use a proven development methodology

   

Sometimes it is tempting to combine different formats and materials into one curriculum and see what happens. You can test learning tools this way, but only a proven approach is suitable for developing entire courses. Focus energy and budget on the result; use the best and most relevant content for your audience. When creating a program, consider the design structure, interaction, visual design, sound, and other aspects carefully. Ultimately, optimize your development with iterative processes and control quality.

8. Measure the effectiveness of remote training

Now, staff training is increasingly becoming an indispensable attribute of a successful organization. Companies teach their employees almost everything: using computer programs, sales techniques, project management, time management, and much more. They teach on their own or teach with the help of third-party companies. As a rule, you cannot do without spending time, money, and effort. That is why you want to see the result of the training, and evaluate how useful and effective it was.

To assess the effectiveness of training, various models can be used, each of them has its advantages and disadvantages. The choice of one or another model entirely depends on the goals that the organization sets for itself. For example, The Kirkpatrick Model provides a quick visual representation of the effectiveness of training activities. The Bloom’s Taxonomy model allows for more detailed performance measurement, as well as the choice of a specific training strategy for employees. The Phillips Evaluation Model is aimed at assessing the financial side of training, namely, the effectiveness of investments in personnel. Today, the problem may not be the need to evaluate the effectiveness of training or its absence, but the choice of its specific algorithm.

In conclusion

Each of us grinds away all our lives and learns new things every day. Scientists call this biological feature exploratory behavior. Therefore, a culture of training exists in all organizations, even those without learning and development. Building a culture of remote training in an organization can be challenging, but it is even more difficult to do it online. Difficulties are faced by both managers and employees themselves. But now you know a lot about the best practices for remote training, and how to shape it if most of the employees are remote.