Remote work training is something many employers will need to focus on as more and more workplaces convert hybrid offices or have to accommodate a large remote workforce. Since having remote staff is now more commonplace and far from being just a trend, employers and team leaders must figure out new ways to train staff.
Training staff properly has always been an important factor in employee retention. A survey by LinkedIn found that 94% of employees stay at a company longer when the employer invests in their training. It’s figuring out how to best apply remote work training that has employers concerned.
Related Reading: Ready to supercharge your corporate training videos? Check our our corporate training video production guide blog post.
There are new and different challenges in training a remote workforce than there are in training in-office personnel. The following information will provide you with guidance and suggestions on how best to handle these challenges.
Challenges in Remote Work Training
While thousands of employers already maintained a remote workforce or operated a hybrid office prior to 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic forced many businesses to operate a remote workforce for the first time. Employers who were new to the concept of training remote workers found themselves facing several new challenges.
Difficulty Supervising Remote Workers
One of the major challenges many employers face when attempting remote work training is the inability to properly supervise workers face-to-face. You may not be able to tell if employees are paying attention or if any are struggling with the material you are presenting.
Information Distribution
Remote workers can’t just walk over to another employee to ask a question or get the information they need. And having to wait for replies to an email or a response to a voicemail can slow down productivity.
Distractions
While many remote workers thrive in the home and actually increase productivity and efficiency, there is still plenty to serve as a distraction. That can make setting up a scheduled training time difficult.
IT Challenges
Unless employers invest in more equipment, remote workers aren’t likely to have the same IT infrastructure at home as they would in the office. Remote workers must overcome unstable internet access and other technical problems that could hinder remote work training efforts.
Overcoming the Challenges
There are several methods for remote work training that can be used to overcome the above challenges and ensure smooth and effective training sessions for your remote workforce. Choosing the right model can make all the difference in how well your training sessions take hold.
Whatever the method, consider adding video to your remote training toolkit. When employees work out of the office, being able to both see and hear their coworkers and managers helps build back some of the team spirit that can be lost with the distance. For hosting their internal videos, more businesses rely on professional hosts like Viostream. Start your free 14-day trial now to see how an enterprise-grade video platform like Viostream can help your remote training efforts.
Synchronous Learning
Synchronous learning is a popular remote work training method in which all employees are present at the same time for a training session. This method certainly has its advantages when training remote staff, since everyone can interact with one another and ask questions during the training session. Simply schedule a meeting at a time when you can be sure all employees can be in attendance.
Asynchronous Learning
This remote work training method enables workers to learn the material on their own time. This solves a number of the above challenges and can be much more effective. This is especially true when using training videos as the delivery method for your training sessions. Remote workers can simply download the video or log into your streaming site to watch the videos when they can. This eliminates the need to schedule everyone at once and does not require an instructor.
Since not everyone learns at the same pace, remote workers can watch the videos as often as they need to fully grasp the material being presented. Videos can also be easily updated to cover new material, providing continuous training without the hassle of scheduling more virtual meetings. As such, they are the optimal model for remote work training.
Preparing and Managing Your Videos
There are a variety of video types you can create for your training needs. From short explainer videos that quickly explain a topic, to longer instructional videos that deliver a step-by-step presentation, to screencasts that showcase exactly how to use a particular feature on an application.
Invest in the right tools for creating, managing, and publishing your videos, and your remote workforce will thrive. Adding calls to action at the end of your videos also increases employee engagement. Be sure not to overwhelm employees with too much information in one video. Break related topics up into several shorter videos that focus specifically on one topic to increase information retention.
Remember, however you choose to train your remote workforce, engagement is key. It is also important to remember that everyone learns at their own pace, so you must give remote workers the means and the opportunity to review materials more than once. As mentioned above, videos are the ideal way to train a remote workforce, as well as one of the easiest ways to deliver material to your workers and track the learning results.
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