Remote employees are no longer uncommon in the job market. Many companies find it more convenient to work with them than with office staff. Employers use their resources and opportunities for the development of "remote workers", actively train them, only the learning process itself is built a little differently.
We observe that many leaders and managers have doubts about the effectiveness of remote work or do not have sufficient skills to manage a dispersed team. Cooperation with people working remotely has its specificity. Moving habits from working in the office to working remotely does not always bring the expected results. Leaders and managers of people working remotely often struggle with the clash of different styles of work.
What factors should be considered
1. Having a plan that includes all the positions of the employees that the company plans to train. At the same time, HR must understand who and what the company will train.
2. Availability of development plans for employees. Most often, companies choose two paths at this stage. The first option is when each employee has his own development plan. The second option is when a development plan is available for a range of positions or, for example, for a personnel reserve, and the rest are trained in general courses or in accordance with the standard of the position. It all depends on the strategic plan of the company, business needs, and, of course, the budget.
COVID-19, changes the world, business, and employees' lives. It has forced many companies and thousands of employees to change the way they work to remote work. Managing remote employees training for people who have been introduced in a situation of sudden change and need to learn to manage and coordinate the work of remote teams. This situation requires learning new tools for communication over distance communication and developing new management skills. How COVID-19 changes the model of training and what is important now? So, how to improve remote training technology and how to train remote employees?
What is important to do
1. Develop a ready-made training system for employees (Learning Management System) or choose an online platform for training. For example, if the company is small, it can buy a place on any site, create a personal account, and record courses. There is a wide range of online learning sites on the market today. If the company is large, growing steadily, and has a budget, then it is better, of course, to implement an LMS and connect employees to the system.
2. Consider what is possible to broadcast online. For example, product training, etc. In online training, it is paramount to understand that not everything that you do offline will work online and vice versa. This fact cannot be ignored.
3. Prepare content that is easy to read. Remember that the online format does not give the atmosphere that we can get with the face-to-face format. Online learning content should be simple, lightweight, but at the same time respond to the audience's request.
4. Prepare a trainer. Online learning requires a special skill. It is necessary to be able to retain the audience, to understand it. It is quite difficult to speak for 1.5-2 hours and at the same time keep the attention of the participants. The coach must be prepared for this format.
5. Use different opportunities for remote employees training tools. For example, virtual reality technology (Virtual Reality). This is a fairly expensive product, but you shouldn't exclude it from your list. Now the service market has a fairly large selection of contractors who offer such services. In my opinion, the main advantage of this technology is that a person, studying a particular course, not only looks, but also speaks out loud, which makes it possible to better remember the material.
6. Add gamification to training. This remote training session is needed to increase employee engagement.
7. Collect an electronic corporate library. This tool will allow HR to have full access to statistics and you can always track the dynamics of what is relevant for employees.
Managing remote employees training
Raising the professional competences of employees should be included in the company's policy. They are one of the most important forms of developing one's skills and competences. The trained and committed staff is one of the company's greatest potentials. Knowledgeable employees and issues with training and managing remote employees contribute to the company's competitive advantage. What's more, training is one of the most appreciated non-wage benefits. An employee who participates in training programs feels appreciated and is more connected to the organization in which he works.
Benefits that the employer gains thanks to the participation of employees in training:
-
qualified staff;
-
the image of the company as caring for the development of employees and improving competences;
-
higher work efficiency;
-
higher employee commitment and loyalty to the company;
-
lower costs related to the recruitment and training of new employees;
-
a well-trained employee is independent and does not need supervisor control;
-
improving communication within the company.
The benefits that the employee gains thanks to participation in training:
-
deepening knowledge in a given field;
-
learning more effective methods of operation;
-
specifying competence and professionalism;
-
fulfillment of professional ambitions;
-
increase in professional motivation;
-
possibility of receiving a raise and a prize.
Don't be afraid to lose your employees by sending them to training.
Despite many benefits of investing in employee development, employers fear that when a person employed at a given stand acquires greater skills or gets to know other employees or owners of competing companies, they will leave them. The truth is that if the employer offers attractive working conditions and remuneration commensurate with the knowledge and skills, the employee feels important and appreciated, so there is no such risk.
The Necessary Tools for Training Remote Employees
Currently, the distance learning system is actively developing, now it is no longer a problem to receive a full-fledged education in almost any subject remotely. Online learning has several advantages - learning at an individual pace, freedom and flexibility, accessibility, social equity. More and more services and remote employees training platforms and remote training software appear on the network that helps to gain new knowledge.
The article contains a list of resources for online learning that are of interest primarily to programmers.
BrainyHR
Proper organization of remote workforce training of employees allows you to optimize the company's resources and ensure the efficiency of business processes. For the team to work remotely in a coordinated and productive way, it is necessary to provide it with convenient and clear tools and services. A set of tools needed to organize online training for remote employees the work of the enterprise without being tied to the location of employees.
You can use a news feed where employees can share knowledge, also in the performance review process, you can track their growth, as well as use onboarding logic to assign tasks and track performance. Besides, it acts as a tool for making more effective management decisions. Here you can also optimize the performance of routine tasks by creating templates. You can share books summary, video guides, how-to guides to allow your team grow together.
Benefits
-
Efficiency
-
It saves time
-
Notifications
MIT Open Courseware
MIT's Open Courseware offers 2,100 courses on a variety of topics, including Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Free resources include online tutorials, exams, multimedia content, assignments, projects, and examples - all from actual MIT courses from the past decade or so.
Benefits:
-
To get into this institute, people from all over the world spend a lot of money and effort. However, there are also free courses.
-
The material is available for download indicating the structure and duration of the course.
-
Perfect for those who want to try technical and applied sciences and are not averse to engaging in intensive self-education.
Google Code University
This is Google and this code is a pretty solid free resource and a good option if you are interested in Android development. He also specializes in some advand topics such as distributed systems and web security.
Benefits:
-
Offers a dive into the depths of coding using a "console" programming style, allowing beginners to understand what a professional's work looks like.
-
Offers free programming courses in 6 languages
Udemy
Udemy offers courses (some free, some paid) on a wide variety of topics. Instructors include Mark Zuckerberg and Marissa Mayer. It’s one of the best remote training solutions.
Benefits:
-
Huge database of video tutorials
-
All courses are divided into separate lessons with the ability to watch each video regardless of which course you choose.
-
The main emphasis is placed on video as a way of providing information, there are no reading materials here.
Skillbox
The directions for which the Skillbox University announces training remote employees are related to programming, design (digital products and interiors), marketing, and management. The programs for mastering the professions in demand last more than a year. In such classes, a specialty is mastered from scratch, while by the end of online studies, yesterday's beginners are collecting a serious portfolio of their work.
Benefits:
-
All teachers have extensive practical experience.
-
The best student reviews.
-
A wide variety of courses on topics in demand.
-
Training for beginners and professionals.
-
Convenient platform.
6 Effective Strategies for Training Remote Employee
If you are one of those leaders who have to - perhaps from next Monday - switch their team to remote work from home, then "here and now, for now," it is worth taking care of the following remote training strategies in the way your team works:
Communication
Plan the way and frequency of your contact, both with each employee on the team and with the entire team at the same time (so-called virtual meetings). It is also worth ensuring that employees communicate directly with each other, especially when performing joint tasks.
Work Rhythm
People at a work function in the office rhythm, and home, they function in their private home rhythm. As a leader, you need to maintain the rhythm and pace of work at home, so before your employees work out their effective homework rhythm, try to "break" their tasks into relatively short steps that you can monitor frequently and regularly.
Evidence of work performed
If this is a new situation for you, then until you can fully trust that the work has been done, you must define such a form of "remote" reporting of the current work, so that you have no doubts that the work has been done.
Gradually increase independence
This takes time, but if you find out that your team can work effectively from home and that you can trust them, in return for their responsible approach to work, gradually increase their independence and freedom in shaping their work rhythm.
Choose software for organizing distance learnin
How do spaceships work? Experienced rocket scientists will answer something like this: “Each rocket has a different design. It all depends on the task. " For example, the US Shuttle includes launch boosters, a fuel tank, and an orbital ship. This is enough to reach low Earth orbit. But you won't get to Mars - you will need other components.
In-person training strategy and learning arsenal is also directly dependent on goals. As a rule, companies use one of three types of tools for distance learning or the entire set at once:
-
webinars;
This is a face-to-face seminar in an online format: you give a lecture to employees from several branches at once, only while sitting at a computer in the company's central office, in a cafe, or at home in a comfortable chair and soft slippers.
A webinar is similar to a Skype conversation: you can speak into a microphone, write in a chat, show the desktop on a PC, or a presentation. The lecture can be immediately recorded on video and sent to employees to refresh their knowledge later.
-
knowledge management system;
-
e-courses.
Calculate the budget and draw up an action plan
The price directly depends on the goals and resources that you use. Once the goal is defined and the tools selected, it becomes easier to estimate the cost of distance learning. The budget should include more than just the cost of eLearning tools. List a salary for a distance learning team, money to develop eLearning courses, buy computers for employees - all that without which learning will not take off.
Conclusion
Remember that when working remotely, you have to adapt to the top-down corporate rules, space, and optimize real-time training strategy methods of operation on your own. Over time, like most people working this way, you will see other pluses, including increased efficiency, reduced exposure to stressors, and savings in time and money on commuting, developing, and trainings. BrainyHR can help you with all your remote work problem, just try to use our system.
Posted on Sep 22, 2020 by Anna
