Ask just about anyone today to name one thing they learned within the past week and where they learned it, and they’re likely to tell you about a video they watched on YouTube or Tiktok. In our modern digital age, it’s difficult to have a conversation about learning without considering the vastness of the Internet and how it’s shaped learner expectations around workplace training.

In light of all this, there has been a lot of talk about the concept of “learning experience platforms” (LXPs) in recent years. Many Learning and Development (L&D) leaders now seek learning platforms that not only help them deliver training across their enterprises, but also engage their employees through more interactive features and dynamic content suggestions.

Problems arise, however, when an LXP alone is unable to meet an organization’s core learning requirements. Over the years, this led some L&D professionals to implement two platforms for their organizations—both an LXP and a learning management system (LMS). This also proved to be tedious and costly though, and caused many challenges for organizations.

A common difference between an LMS and an LXP is that an LMS is primarily built to distribute training content and often emphasizes course administration, learning program management and compliance, while an LXP focuses more on the learner experience through features like sophisticated content delivery, skills mapping, and personalized career paths.

What sets us apart here at Schoox is that we created our platform with a focus on learners first, as well as an aspiration to build engaging learning experiences that complement and enhance the vital functionalities of an LMS.

Today, Schoox empowers some of the world’s largest enterprises to deliver the training their employees need to succeed, in nearly any language and on any device—and take learning and development to the next level with many of the core functionalities of an LXP embedded right into our award-winning platform.

To further enhance the LXP functionalities of Schoox, we’re thrilled to introduce pre-populated external content channels as a quick and easy way for L&D leaders to share free content resources from YouTube directly within the platform. With just a few clicks, admins or learning managers can opt to make these curated video playlists available to all or select groups of learners.

Some of the best learning resources out there today are easily accessible on the web by anyone with a broadband internet connection. Sites like YouTube democratized learning, and not only is democracy a value we take seriously here in Greece—it’s one we invented. From day one, we designed Schoox to be the best LMS to help businesses of all sizes democratize learning across their entire organizations and give their people the power to drive their own learning journeys forward.

On behalf of everyone here at Schoox, I invite you to follow along here on our blog as we continue on our path toward making learning more rewarding and fun for all.

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The 2022 LinkedIn Workplace Learning report stated L&D learning “measurement methods are stagnant.” The top measurements used by L&D teams in 2021 and 2022 are:

• Qualitative feedback from employees using online courses
• Satisfaction of employees using online courses
• Employee engagement survey scores
• Manager feedback

However, these methods don’t address one critical issue: can workers perform their jobs correctly? To find out, learning and performance must go hand in hand. Unfortunately, L&D teams often lack tools to measure the effectiveness of training and ensure employees can confidently perform their jobs. 

While virtual instruction delivers many advantages, it doesn’t work for everything. For training to be truly effective, managers often need to physically show employees how to perform certain tasks, then observe employees on the job to be sure they can perform them properly. Some companies refer to this as “observational checklists” or “live trainee evaluations.” Schoox calls it “on-the-job training” (OJT.) It combines learning with practical skills demonstrations and observation. 

Businesses often rely on paper scorecards and manual methods to track OJT training compliance. But these are cumbersome to maintain, make it difficult to share data with other systems, and nearly impossible to analyze at scale through reports. What’s needed is enough flexibility to design training in a way that’s efficient and ideal for a digital workplace. 

Schoox’s On-the-Job Training Tools Go Beyond Observational Checklists

Schoox goes beyond mere observation checklists to encourage effective learning. Schoox offers managers the option to create course-connected OJT tasks as part of a larger course or curriculum, or standalone OJT tasks that are independent from other ongoing training programs, for example: 

• Course or curriculum-connected OJT tasks could be used to observe employees preparing foods after they watched digital content teaching them about a new menu item.

• Standalone OJT tasks can be used as supplemental or ad-hoc training whenever required, for example, to observe an employee preparing a new menu item not covered in the original course. 

Once learners have completed their assigned OJT tasks, training managers can access an at-a-glance view of progress. They can use these insights to determine who is excelling, who needs more support, and what kind of additional supervision might be needed for individual team members. 

Schoox delivers the tools and flexibility that equip organizations to set up their preferred OJT measurement process on four levels:  

1. Track training compliance among workers
2. Confirm knowledge retention among learners
3. Ensure learners can perform the required physical job tasks
4. Evaluate employee performance in real-time via mobile devices

Organizations may also choose to adopt a blended approach to deliver coursework, OJT performance assessments, and additional remediation. Schoox delivers multiple options for various training, task, and assessment styles through a single mobile-friendly and integrated platform. 

Sonesta Hotels Upgrades Customer Experience Training

A perfect real-world example of measuring employees’ OJT performance is Sonesta Hotels. Schoox enables the 7,500+ property hotel chain to connect three major pillars of its business—employees, guest feedback, and training—to measurable goals and business impact. When the hotel receives online reviews, for example, it can easily map complaints to areas where training might be weak and then implement a solution. This helps Sonesta Hotels resolve problems on a case-by-case basis, and when appropriate, roll out standardized process improvements company wide.

According to Derek Fournier, Senior Director of Training, “If reviews for a particular hotel or service are negative, we first check to see if employees have completed the associated training courses for their role. If they haven’t, we address that. If they have, it presents an opportunity for us as leadership to improve the training, because it isn’t translating into a great customer experience.”

Learn more about Sonesta’s success and the power of Schoox to measure employee skills and evaluate performance impact for front-line workers in our new report, Real-world Learning for Frontline Workers: Top 5 Learning & Development Must-haves for Employees Working on the Go.

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Training Onboarding

The onboarding process to training is one of the most crucial aspects of the new hire journey, which is why it’s so important for employers to get it right. A positive training onboarding experience sets the tone for an employee’s overall impression of a new employer and encourages continued engagement in learning programs.

Enhancements to the onboarding feature include a redesigned onboarding profile for better navigation and a smoother user experience for learners. Time-sensitive information, such as the number of days or weeks remaining to complete a course, is displayed more prominently so learners can quickly determine their top priorities and complete training on time.

Additionally, admins may now set different academy introduction videos for distinct user groups, enabling L&D teams to customize the first impression and academy login experience for learners, managers, and admins. These updates provide greater flexibility to L&D teams to design more effective introductory and onboarding training programs.

Courses and Curricula

At the heart of any L&D program are the courses and curricula created to increase learner knowledge and skill levels. We’ve simplified this process for L&D professionals while amplifying the effectiveness of courses and curricula for learners.

Schoox now enables admins and managers to automatically reassign and reset the progress of courses and curricula for employees who were previously deactivated within the system. The update is especially convenient for businesses employing temporary, seasonal, or rotating workers.

Admins and managers may now elect to make all lectures hidden or visible to only certain groups of learners, as well as configure notifications about employee course completions by individual course, giving managers greater visibility into employee progress on learning goals.

Courses and curricula are only useful if L&D professionals and training managers can confirm their employees learned the necessary information, so we’ve updated exams to allow questions to be separated into different categories, levels, and topics. Arranging exam questions into different sections makes them more manageable and clearer for learners, and it enables training managers to drill down into specific skill sets or subject areas in an organized way.

On-the-Job Training

On-the-job training (like observational checklists or in-person evaluations) reinforces virtual instruction and ensures knowledge retention among learners. Managers can confirm—through direct observation—whether an employee can perform specific job tasks like standardized opening and closing procedures, assembly line processes, or housekeeping rules. These tasks can be configured to require signoff from the trainee, training manager, or both for completion.

In Schoox, on-the-job training (OJT) tasks can be part of a larger course or curriculum, or independent or “standalone” tasks for special training purposes. With our latest update, admins and managers can now reuse standalone OJT tasks in multiple courses or curricula. A new report for standalone and course-connected OJT tasks displays learner progress for each. And learners have a new homepage gadget that allows them to quickly sign off on any open OJT tasks as soon as they log in to their Schoox academy.

These enhancements expand how L&D teams can use OJT tasks to test knowledge retention and skill levels among employees, and provide a more intuitive user experience for all. Furthermore, the new report ensures L&D teams and managers have insights they need to design OJT tasks that truly help their employees learn the skills they need to perform their jobs well.

Academy Settings

Schoox can be customized to reflect any company’s unique organizational structure, preferences, and brand for a custom digital learning environment known as your business’s “academy.” Academies are typically unique to an individual business or unit, and a single company can have multiple academies for distinct brands, departments, geographies, or sectors. New enhancements give admins and managers greater control over their academy-level settings, to impact all users of the system.

Admins and managers may now elect to hide expired course certificates from user profiles, creating a cleaner user interface that focuses on the information learners need. A new custom non-removable field in user profiles allows managers to edit an employee’s birthday on their behalf as employees often leave this field blank.

We also improved the customer experience for handling deactivated and reactivated users, allowing admins and managers to send automated notifications to reactivated users when they can once again access their academy and all the resources within it. Lastly, we improved authentication for deactivated users, so they are now redirected to their Schoox community profile if they try to log in to the academy or access their certificates. The enhancement makes for a smoother user flow for deactivated and reactivated users—a major plus for businesses which rely on seasonal or temporary workers.

Stay tuned for more as we continue to upgrade the features and functionalities of Schoox to meet the evolving L&D needs of enterprises, extended enterprises, and small to midsize businesses.

See these and other Schoox features in action—schedule a demo with us.

The post Schoox Quarterly Roundup: Improvements to Onboarding, On-the-Job Training and More appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

Blended learning approaches have proliferated the corporate training space since the mid 90s, and mobile technology added to the boom throughout the 2000s.  

The COVID-19 pandemic is now fueling another boom in blended learning. As non-essential businesses pivot toward remote work—as well as entire sectors of those considered essential—L&D teams have to get creative to onboard and train their employees. This trend is projected to continue as more businesses permanently shift toward partially or fully remote operations.   

Video Learning: The Benefits

While few can argue the benefits of in-person instruction, it doesn’t make sense for every organization—especially those with distributed operations across multiple locations or large remote workforces. 

In contrast to in-person training, video learning is more accessible, cost effective, and scalable.

Accessible: With video learning, companies can ensure all employees have access to the same information, even across distinct brands or distant geographies. 

Digitally Native: Video training also tends to be preferred by younger employees and is quickly becoming the go-to training method for companies with geographically dispersed workforces.  

Digestible: Learning is most effective in short, bite-sized chunks known as “microlearning.” Video learning enables L&D professionals to take a “YouTube-like approach” to training that is especially popular among younger employees.  

Measurable: Schoox captures valuable data and analytics about video learning that can be leveraged to inform and improve overall L&D strategy. 

Schoox Introduces Video Exams

For training to be effective, L&D professionals must be able to measure skills retention among employees, and employees must be able to perform those skills in real-time when on the job. The asynchronous nature of video training, however, makes it difficult to assess whether employees are really retaining the information provided; without a way to test employees for knowledge retention, business leaders have no way to determine whether training is effective. 

With Schoox, L&D professionals can not only curate video training into valuable courses and curricula, but also standardize skills measurement and build dynamic assessments with our new feature—customizable video exams. 

Video exams enable training managers to insert questions in multiple formats to assess employee retention at various checkpoints anywhere throughout the video. These exams can be created with any video in the content library. Questions can either be added manually or sourced from existing question pools to make the process even faster and easier to replicate. 

Available question types include:

• Multiple Choice
• Matching
• Multiple Answers
• Fill in the Blank
• True or False

Schoox makes it easy for training managers to create customized video assessments without the need to use additional course creation software. This is especially useful for small teams looking to streamline training as much as possible without compromising on learning effectiveness.  

Why Use Video Exams? 

Video exams are a powerful way for businesses of all kinds to measure skills and knowledge retention among employees. Here are some common uses:  

Knowledge Checkpoints 

Create video exams to test employees on a one-time or recurring basis. A bar with a rotating seasonal drink menu, for example, can use the video exam feature to introduce and test employees on new menu items. Video exams can help test new hires on how well they understand core values or important business processes. 

Compliance

Video exams make it easier to deliver required local, state, federal, and industry-specific compliance training. They’re also a more engaging way for employees to learn this critical information. 

Scenario-Based Assessments 

Video exams are a good way to test employees for skills retention on specific tasks or information—how to repair a certain item, for example. Video exams can be particularly useful for new hire orientations and employee onboarding. 

Reporting 

Video exams provide leaders with data that can be leveraged to inform L&D strategy and planning. Users with reporting permissions can create reports that indicate how many employees completed a particular exam, their scores, number of attempts, and more.  

Custom-curated video exams are the perfect way for all kinds of businesses to disseminate highly specific knowledge sets to the right sectors of their workforce at scale. With access to the right information, employees can perform their jobs better and take greater ownership of their learning journey. For L&D professionals, video exams are an ideal way to deliver training, measure skills and knowledge retention, and derive actionable insights from results. 

See video exams and other Schoox features in action—schedule a demo with us.

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One of the first decisions to make is: will you buy a solution from a third party or design your own? There are pros and cons to either option, and your choice will likely depend on budget, time available, and your existing skills and resources.

A common solution is to use a mixture of both by purchasing training and then adding your own context on top to connect the dots.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Schoox’s Matthew Brown (VP of Learning and Brand Success) delves into the topic of bought versus built training content. Matthew shares his tips for making bought training solutions more effective and relevant for your team.

Listen to the podcast episode below to learn more or keep reading.

Buying versus building

Those who have been in the learning and development space for a while may remember the switch between bought and built content. Back in the 2000s and before, there was a great emphasis on buying content from third-party providers.

In the 2010s, people started to focus on building content instead because they wanted it to sound like them. Businesses placed more value on content that was in keeping with the brand and employee culture.

Then 2020 happened and created a massive wave of changes in the learning and development world. It brought businesses closer to the middle ground as they began to consider a hybrid approach.

People started to ask, can we make bought and built content work together?

The simple answer is yes, but how do you do this in a way that makes sense? The last thing anyone wants is a convoluted training system that requires employees to log into a dozen different systems. That’s not good for the employee, nor is it good for you in terms of tracking progress and effectiveness.

Start with an anchor

When weighing up which type of solutions to apply to your organization, the very first step is to start with an anchor based on the existing skills, competencies, and resources available. Assess what your business needs, what it already has, and what the focus of your training will be.

Don’t skip this step. If you invest a little time in this, you can progress with your training solutions much faster in the future. It enables you to learn and understand what your knowledge is today, where the gaps are, and how you can fill those gaps quickly.

It also helps you identify where your resources should be split. In this stage, it’s good to figure out how long it takes for you to build a training course. With that information, you can make a more informed decision on whether to buy or build content.

Reserving your energy and resources

There’s no harm in buying content for your organization. Not everything needs to be built according to your exact requirements. There are plenty of fantastic training resources out there.

It doesn’t even have to look or feel the same in terms of company culture or when compared to your other training resources. All it needs to do is articulate a message to the learner.

Particularly in this trying year, perhaps we should be reserving our energy and resources that we would usually spend on building our own content.

Here’s an example of what you could do with pre-built content.

Let’s say you buy customer service training for your workforce. This could be content that many successful businesses use. It could have great methodology.

However, maybe the look and feel of the content don’t quite fit with your business. Maybe the people in the training videos wear suits and ties, and your organization is much more laid back. You might worry that the content won’t have the same effect on your employees.

The goods news is that if the methodology and the content are good, you can work with that. Buy it, then spend some time and energy on building additional content that connects the dots for people.

Using that pre-built customer service course to teach all the basic mechanics and foundational elements saves you from spending hours building that course yourself. Rather than starting from scratch, you could focus on additional content such as a course or presentation that brings that pre-built content into the context of your business.

Internal communication about buying new content is key

For this to work, you need to have a well-thought-out internal communication and marketing plan. By this, we mean a way to help everyone understand what you’re trying to do with the learning content and why.

This could be a good spot to just go ahead and talk about the elephant in the room. When talking to your employees, give them a warning that you’re launching a bunch of new content, and not all of it will be what they’re used to. It may feel out of context for the business, but it’s also really valuable content.

Being transparent about this can help to set expectations and trust that the content isn’t just a random course.

Think about the user experience

Another consideration when buying content is to look at the user experience. No one likes the idea of buying a bunch of content that simply doesn’t work in your system, forcing you to direct employees to multiple sources. Without a central way to keep everything together and track the learning progress, it can become a big headache.

There are solutions out there, integrations that you can use to make things seamless for your users. The problem is that those integrations and tools cost money and time. Sometimes they can even overcomplicate the journey.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t try to make the experience seamless. Instead, start with the end in mind.

Consider what solution you need, speak with different providers, and get an understanding of the possible technical limitations before you jump in headfirst and purchase the content. Get a clear picture of what you want to achieve first, and then work backward to find a solution that works for everyone.

Setting clear expectations when you buy new content

One of the most important things to do when you buy content is to set clear expectations with your employees. They need to know what to expect.

For example, if you were looking to purchase a house and a realtor showed you around a home with holes in the wall and an unfinished floor, you probably think, “this isn’t for me.” However, if, before you went in, the realtor gave you a rundown of what needed to be done and when it’d be done, this would be completely different. You would walk inside with clear expectations.

The same applies to training courses that aren’t 100% perfect or tailored for your organization. They may not reflect your company culture or cover everything you need them to cover, but you can put the finishing touches on them. You can let employees know what to expect and why.

Instead of spending time and energy building bespoke solutions from the ground up, you can simply fill in the gaps, set clear expectations, and ensure that your learners are prepared and open to learning.

When you buy training solutions, it isn’t just about the cost or the content itself. It’s about how you present it to your learners. When we get the communication right, we can help people understand what you’re doing and why. That will go a long way in making the learning experience smoother and more effective.

The post Should You Buy or Build Training Content for Your Organization? appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

For some, the virtual experience has been ideal, but there are certainly challenges that come with it. As a learning and development professional, one of the challenges for virtual training is getting people engaged and interacting.

There are all sorts of distractions that affect our attention in a virtual meeting. How you approach building and managing your training sessions can help boost engagement and create a productive learning environment.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown (Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success) shares some great tips and insights into engagement in virtual training sessions.

Listen to the podcast below to learn more or keep reading.

Know how to cope with distractions during training

One thing that a lot of people don’t consider is the distractions in our learners’ spaces. When we give in-person training sessions, some of those distractions can be pretty obvious. We can pick up on body language. We might see someone grab their phone or even place a laptop on the desk.

While this can be frustrating, it’s sometimes a bit easier to contend with these distractions because we can see them.

But what about virtual sessions? In some cases, we might have employees who aren’t willing to turn on video or audio if they feel uncomfortable. They may need to stay on mute if they’re at home due to noisy children or pets in the background. 

But if there’s no audio or video, how do you read the room? How do you adapt to your learners and spark engagement? Video and audio help to build a connection, but we shouldn’t mandate it if the other person is uncomfortable.

So, what can we do? Perhaps we should think about these distractions before we even start building the content. You could do this in a few ways, which we’ll outline below.

Build your virtual training course with some flexibility

Rather than rigidly planning each course down to the minute, you could instead build it to be flexible enough to suit your learners.

Sometimes we need to be flexible. Rather than planning a course where each piece links nicely to the next, you may want to think about cutting your course into micro sections. When you build storyboards and design the content, you can take these micro sections, move them around, cut them, and still have a valuable course.

This gives you a great amount of flexibility in structuring the content, engagement, and creating much-needed breaks for learners.

When building a course, we need our audience to understand that we’re not there to hold them hostage. We’re there to help them achieve whatever they’re there to accomplish. Being flexible with your content and working your plans around your learners will help develop good engagement and trust.

Be aware of different personas

In most training sessions, there will be three types of people. There are those who are ready to engage, ready to be vocal, and participate.

Then you have a group of people who are a bit slower to warm up to the group, but once they feel comfortable, they will engage.

The third group is those who show up because they’re told to. They don’t want to engage. They may or may not believe they already know everything you’re going to cover.

When training is virtual, it can be a bit more challenging to manage all these personas. We need to think about creating a pathway for everyone to feel comfortable enough to participate.

Consider how you market virtual training sessions

When you are telling people about the session, how do you explain what it is? How do you set expectations before anyone arrives? How we market our courses piques interest, helps you build trust, and also sets some expectations.

When we market our courses, we need to ask ourselves, how can we get people excited about it? How do we get them to want to come and feel comfortable about what to expect?

People prefer to know they’re entering a safe space where there will be multiple ways to interact. Many people will be comforted knowing that they won’t be called on or put on the spot if they’re shy. If people know they won’t be put in the hot seat, they may be a bit more enthusiastic about joining and participating.

Set expectations

Whenever we have a class, we should try to set expectations – not just for the course’s content but also about the rules of engagement and the session’s length.

If we have people in a learning environment who have something urgent going on in their lives or work, we need to balance that. Those people will be distracted, so it helps to break a session into little chunks and set that expectation for the person to work around.

Another good thing about breaking a course into small chunks is that it reduces the temptation to multi-task. During virtual meetings, many people will have different tabs open or read emails when attending virtual training.

Keeping sessions in short chunks and communicating that structure from the start can hold people’s attention a bit better.  We should let them know that we understand that life is still going on and other things need their attention. Building our sessions around that will require a bit of creativity.

Give people permission to contribute

You may be wondering, why do I need to give someone permission to contribute? This isn’t a formal thing, it’s mostly subliminal, and it’s all about group dynamics.

We mentioned above that there are three types of people who show up to a training session. Those who are very vocal and don’t need encouragement can cause a bit of an imbalance. Those in the middle group who just need some warming up may feel hesitant to contribute if the more vocal people are dominating the conversation.

If we don’t consider the different needs of different personas, we could miss a lot of opportunities for engagement. That’s why sometimes a mix of different interactive features can be useful – for example, using polls or reactions on Zoom rather than just waiting for people to jump in and speak.

The more interaction and engagement we get, the more comfortable many will feel to share their thoughts. This can go a long way in developing trust in the group, making a much more productive learning environment.

Being a training session facilitator is a lot to juggle. With distractions and different group dynamics, it can be difficult to get people to engage but setting clear expectations, managing group dynamics, and offering different ways to contribute are great ways to encourage engagement.

The post How to Encourage Engagement in Virtual Training Sessions appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

Whether virtual sessions are your go-to method of training or not, it can be difficult to deliver a session that works for everyone. There are lots of things to consider when putting together any kind of virtual meeting.

While challenging, virtual sessions offer unique opportunities for engagement – if you utilize the tools effectively. 

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown (Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success) shares some tips for making your next virtual training session a success. He discusses how to best leverage virtual tools to boost engagement, and the importance of icebreakers and feedback.

Listen to the podcast below or keep reading.

1. Make the session voluntary

For your next training session, ask yourself – can it be voluntary?

Sometimes you can’t avoid a mandatory training session or meeting. However, if you can remove the mandate and make it voluntary, you will likely see that engagement improves.

By making it voluntary, you get to understand more about what interests people and gets them excited. You can look at why they signed up, what the topic area was, and what they hope to achieve. When everyone has to turn up, it’s hard to tell what people’s motivations are.

During voluntary sessions, you have people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say, making any discussions a lot more fruitful and engaging for everyone.

2. Realize the work that goes into managing a virtual training session

There’s a lot more to a virtual training session than firing over a Zoom invite. We often underestimate the amount of preparation that goes into creating a virtual training session.

If the session has a large group of people, you need to think about the best way to moderate and manage the call so that everyone’s happy.

Things to think about include managing the chat or Q&A and managing the support side of things for those with audio or visual issues. It may be worth assigning these duties to someone else, so the person running the session doesn’t have to worry about it.

3. Leverage a wide variety of tools

While virtual sessions may not always be ideal, they can present opportunities for different ways of communicating. Tools like Zoom offer a wide variety of different features, which bring fresh and more accessible ways for participants to communicate.

Features such as chat, polling, breakout rooms, or reactions can add a completely new dimension to training sessions. For shy or introverted people, private chats, polls, or reactions are great ways to make them feel involved if they’re not comfortable talking or using their camera.

Breakout rooms are another great way to change the pace of the conversation. Breakout rooms allow you to split your Zoom meeting into up to 50 sessions. For large training sessions, it can be very beneficial to break into smaller, more manageable groups. These smaller groups often encourage more engagement, particularly for the shyer people in the group.

Polling is another way to add interaction to your sessions. People may be more likely to engage in this way due to the anonymous, multiple-choice format. However, bear in mind that the interactions won’t be as detailed as a real discussion.

If you’re new to virtual training, a Zoom call may feel restrictive. But in some ways, virtual tools can give a voice to those who usually wouldn’t contribute to an in-person discussion.

4. Don’t forget to use icebreakers in virtual training

There’s a good reason why in-person training sessions, networking events, and workshops start with an icebreaker.

It’s an essential part of getting a group of people to feel comfortable with each other. The sooner everyone feels comfortable, the easier it will be to get your message across and encourage some back and forth with participants.

Icebreakers can help everyone ease into the conversation, have some fun, loosen up and get comfortable sharing thoughts with each other.

They are also useful for training session leaders to identify different personalities and personas in the group. An icebreaker can highlight which people are more open to speaking than others which takes some pressure off those who are shy and less open to talking.

5. Always remember to get feedback

Your job isn’t over once everyone leaves the session. What you need to do next is find out how it all went.

Always remember to get feedback from participants, so you know where you’re going right or wrong. This feedback is crucial to improving your virtual training sessions each time.

You could simply ask or fire over an email, but you will likely get more useful feedback from an anonymous survey. When asking for feedback, send everyone a short, anonymous survey.

Make it easy for them to fill in by only including up to four or five questions with some multiple-choice answers. For those who wish to articulate their thoughts, leave some space for them to write as well.

Once you receive your feedback, look at it closely and see how you can implement any necessary changes for next time.

Running a virtual training session comes with its pros and cons. It’s a great way to speak with people across your state, country, or even internationally. However, to create the best possible training experience, you will need to do some prep work.

If you haven’t already, familiarize yourself with all the different tools and features available and learn how they all work. Plan out your sessions carefully, accounting for different communication types, technical issues, and session formats. Once you have planned everything out, you’ll be ready to launch a successful training session. Just remember to collect feedback at the end of it!

The post Five Tips to Improve Virtual Training for Employees appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

Onboarding new hires may look very different today from how they looked this time last year. Many businesses now have a remote workforce meaning that new employees may have to be integrated and trained remotely. With traditional shoulder-to-shoulder training no longer possible for many, how can your organization succeed when hiring and onboarding virtually in 2021?

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success, Matthew Brown, discusses how to approach training new hires in 2021. Matthew shares why you should innovate your training approach this year and asks questions that can help you achieve this.

Listen to this episode of The Learning Xchange.

How long should your onboarding or training program be?

No two organizations are exactly alike, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach that will suit every business and each new hire. However, by putting in place a structured approach to new hires’ orientation, you can set benchmarks and gain measurable insights into performance. But how long should this orientation last?

Some organizations have orientation or training programs that last one or two weeks, while others span as long as 60 or 90 days. Your business should determine what length is best for you and your employees’ integration.

Since the pandemic, you may need to update your onboarding program length. Does it need to accommodate new ways of training? Or perhaps you need to ensure that new starters integrate remotely, successfully. In these cases, you may want to extend your onboarding length.

Having a program allows a consistent onboarding of all new hires. A set structure allows you to analyze both your employees’ progress and your organization’s impact on them. It can be overwhelming to plan an orientation period, however, there are many benefits to a longer onboarding process. We recommend a 90-day training program as this can give your new starters the continued support that they need to be successful within your organization.

What do you include in your onboarding program?

To prepare an onboarding program, you need to consider how you’ll deliver training. Do you focus on preparing training materials, or do you organize training with different team members? Will your training be in-person or virtual? Self-paced, instructor-led, or a hybrid combination of both?

Many onboarding processes include performance checklists or skill assessments. If you want to include these in your program, you should consider when and how you conduct these.

Creating a set program means you’re more likely to dedicate the necessary time to it. Often, training can get sidelined when issues or challenges arise. A collaborative approach can ensure that training responsibilities are spread across the organization, meaning that it’s more likely to stay on track.

A partnership between the learning function, hiring managers, department heads, and other key resources throughout the organization go a long way. Knowledge exists throughout your organization, so find ways to tap into it and consistently share it with your new employees.

How has your initial onboarding changed in 2021?

If your organization moved to remote working, or uses different communication methods, such as video conferencing software, your onboarding might look very different today from how it did this time last year. Does your training material reflect this?

New starters’ first week of content should be a comprehensive introduction to your systems and processes. If these have changed since the pandemic, you should revise your onboarding materials.

Another thing to consider is how you conduct this initial training. If you previously trained people in-person, but your organization is now operating remotely, you may have to adapt your training for virtual consumption. This could require a creative approach, depending on your business.

How have you shifted training from in-person to virtual?

It’s important that your online training solution is comprehensive enough to prepare new employees for when they do eventually report to the physical workplace. This will reduce the need to be shoulder-to-shoulder with their colleagues to be ready for the physical work environment.

Some businesses, for example, a restaurant, have typically used the shoulder-to-shoulder approach for training and onboarding new employees, but they’ve since innovated. Some built hybrid training pieces, including immersive, self-paced online training, which covers systems and processes. Now, they only use shoulder-to-shoulder when absolutely necessary – or even conduct training remotely.

Consider if it’s possible to train your new employees remotely. You could use video conferencing software on your phone or laptop to introduce new hires to the physical workplace. You can explain what to do in certain scenarios or test new hires’ knowledge by asking them what you should do. If you use a hybrid training model, you can use this method to find out how impactful your virtual training has been.

This also opens up a conversation about the right and the wrong way to do things. It allows the trainer to reinforce or correct learning before the new hire puts it into practice.

How do you personalize training?

A one-size-fits-all training approach can limit employee success. While a standardized training program can give you the necessary results you and your new employees need, it might not get the best out of each individual.

For big organizations, training often needs to tick a box. By working with leadership to develop and workshop your training programs, you may be able to build a solution that’s flexible, scalable, and possible to personalize.

Finding creative ways to personalize training allows organizations to strive for excellence. Everyone learns differently, and the best training will accommodate this. If you can go beyond the foundational level to build-in personalized content, your training will be more successful.

What are your training goals for new employees?

Setting goals and objectives for your new employees can help you stay on top of their progress. It can also help you support them so they can be successful.

Your goals for new employees may have changed since the pandemic. If they have, are you measuring the impact and efficacy of your training in a new way?

Many organizations prioritize and get stuck with compliance, but this doesn’t always mean that you’ve changed their behaviors or successfully taught processes. It requires a much more in-depth approach to understand how trainees have absorbed and apply knowledge.

By working with a 90-day training program, it’s possible to set checkpoints and milestones that give you insights into how the learner is progressing. Tests or knowledge checks are a simple way to understand what the new employee has learned and what they need to progress further. You can standardize or personalize these materials depending on your organization’s training approach to measure your impact on all new hires.

We’ve asked these questions to many members of the learning and development industry to build our knowledge of how people are adapting their hiring, training and onboarding processes. We’re seeing continual development as organizations begin to reach a more common approach to training this year.

The post How to Improve Your Hiring, Onboarding, and Training in 2021 appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown reflects on how virtual events’ transformation can inspire online training. Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success analyzes what’s made virtual events successful and shares what digital trainers can learn from them.

Listen to this episode of The Learning Xchange.

Or keep reading to discover how virtual events can influence online learning.

The two types of virtual events

As in-person events moved online, two types of virtual event experience emerged: traditional and optimized.

The traditional model moves an in-person event online with very little changes. The “sprint” model optimizes events for an online environment.

The traditional model aims to keep virtual events as similar to an in-person event as possible. They often stay the same length, e.g., half-day, one-day, or multi-day, and use the same structured activities such as a keynote, an opening or general session, and smaller, more personalized, group sessions.

The “sprint” model keeps the traditional format but condenses the event into a much shorter time-frame–typically around 90 minutes.

Why traditional-model virtual events are less effective

Large in-person events such as all-company conferences or industry conferences frequently use the traditional model, recreating the in-pushing structure in an online space.

The main challenge with delivering an online event this way is the duration. If attendees have a busy work schedule and are signed up to attend an eight-hour event, they might struggle to focus for that length of time.

In a physical setting, it’s much easier for the event to capture your attention. The energy, atmosphere, and behavior of fellow attendees can help you focus and engage.

This is very hard to recreate in a digital space as event hosts and digital trainers don’t have access to attendees’ physical environments. It’s difficult to put up guardrails or create a support structure that helps participants avoid distraction.

Trainers have more control over how learners approach training when they’re in a productive physical space, such as an office. Even when training is conducted remotely, learners have greater focus in a work environment. This is due to a mindset shift. Learners are conditioned to concentrate in a work environment and are often physically distant from other responsibilities or distractions.

When learners work from home, it’s much more difficult to secure that same level of focus. There might be distractions that trainers aren’t aware of, technology challenges, or other factors, such as screen-fatigue impacting the learner’s ability to engage. This distraction can affect productivity as learners may not gain value from the event and fail to reach their learning goals.

To keep learners engaged, trainers must find ways to overcome online-meeting-burnout syndrome and keep virtual training interesting.

The benefits of optimized virtual events

Optimized virtual events or the “sprint” model is ultimately a far more engaging and impactful experience. These events are inspiring how many industries choose to communicate online, including education and digital training.

The format for a sprint event is largely similar to traditional models, with one crucial change–the duration. Sprint models are condensed, turning half-day or day-long in-person events into one to two-hours of digital communication.

Even though these events are much shorter, they use the same structure. They bring everyone together to establish a common message and then break out into small groups for a more personalized experience. The major difference is the pace. The condensed schedule, rapid delivery, and interactive elements make the event more engaging and ultimately more beneficial for participants.

How optimized virtual events improve engagement

The pace of a virtual event is often dictated by how long activities last and movement between topics. By breaking down a 90-minute event into smaller chunks, changing speakers and levels of formality, events can hold attendees’ attention for longer.

A typical sprint event structure might look like this:

1. General session – single presenter
2. Roundtable or panel discussion – multiple presenters
3. Breakouts – group discussion

Optimized virtual events move quickly through each segment. As people are focused on working towards goals quickly, this often means that there can be additional time to discuss more topics or that’s set aside to revisit one of the more traditional aspects of events, relationship building.

Forming new relationships is a beneficial part of events but is often missed in the virtual space. However, some optimized virtual events are making space in breakout rooms or small group sessions to ensure that this element isn’t missed. A sense of community is also linked closely to improved engagement and successful learning. Online trainers should consider how they can incorporate relationship building and community into their sessions.

How virtual events leverage digital tools

There’s a large crossover of digital technologies and tools that virtual events use that can also be used in online training. Virtual events use unique and innovative ways to deliver messaging by leveraging tools from PowerPoints to platform-specific features.

Giving people the opportunity to show they’re interacting can enhance engagement and inspire others to interact. Meanwhile, making playful use of virtual backgrounds or filters can bring entertainment to communication, making the experience more enjoyable.

Using virtual tools with purpose is a great way to bridge the gap between virtual and in-person events. Some tools reminiscent of past training or that are familiar from live events help establish that community atmosphere and reinforce learning and deliver messages for participants.

Think about the virtual events you’ve attended over the last 12 months. Consider how large external events or even small internal company meetings keep your attention. What did you find engaging? How has it been optimized for the virtual space? Could your answers inspire your approach to virtual training?

Thank you for reading this podcast episode summary. For more from The Learning Exchange, find all of the episodes so far on your favorite podcast app or website. Please subscribe to show us your support!

The post What Can Online Trainers Learn from Virtual Events? appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

1. Conventional Learning Is a Thing of the Past

Delivering top-quality, consistent training to a distributed workforce via conventional learning methods can be difficult for a variety of reasons. Scheduling a time for employees to attend training sessions can be tough. There will always be some that are unable to attend. When this happens, some workers get the training they need and others do not. When employees are held to the same performance requirements, it is essential to ensure they all receive the same level of training. Since e-learning is delivered on demand, employees can complete training courses on their own schedule, anytime, anyplace, and on any device.

2. Your Company Is Only as Good as Your Employees

As such, employee development is essential. Yet, even in 2021, many companies still do not have a streamlined process for corporate training or e-learning. It wastes both time and money—two things you really don’t want to lose. If you’re a multi-location business owner and your managers are still handing out sheets of paper for your company’s training collateral, and spending a large amount of administrative hours manually tracking attendance, I have some news for you: For the success of your business, it is critical for you to change with the times. Even if the coronavirus pandemic had never happened or finally becomes a thing of the past, online learning is here to stay.

2. Scalability Is Key

Finding a streamlined process to train your workforce is critical, whether employees are five feet or 50,000 miles away. At the heart of any successful business endeavor is scalability.

What are you currently doing to run a well-oiled corporate (or franchised) machine, and what are you doing to be at scale?

There are many headaches that come from running a business and running one with various locations. Some of them are inevitable and come with the territory. But there are also problems that arise that can be avoided, which is important when you’re trying to run a high-performing, well-oiled machine. For example, trying to standardize a system that is adequately equipped to deliver training to all of your employees is especially problematic right now with so many remote employees and geographically dispersed teams. This is precisely why you need a learning management system.

3. Don’t Settle for Just Any LMS

A learning management system (LMS) is software that helps administer, document, track, report and deliver e-learning courses or training programs. Because e-learning is so common now, the market is saturated with LMS vendors. Therefore, it is really important that you know what you need, what to look for, and not to settle for anything less.

When purchasing an LMS, you should be able to:

• Easily create courses that are tailored to your company’s needs
• Test your employees’ knowledge retention of completed courses
• Easily track your employees’ progress as they navigate the courses
• Measure the total impact of your e-learning on your company’s bottom line, and how it directly correlates to the KPIs set forth 

The Schoox learning management system has all four of these capabilities, and more.

5. Embrace the Benefits of Modern Technology

Training consistency

With Schoox, employees can participate in online training in groups or individually, as their schedules permit. As such, content remains the same from one learner to the next. For training and HR managers who are accountable for making sure all employees have access to consistent training, this benefit is invaluable.

Self-paced instruction

An additional benefit of e-learning is the self-paced nature of the instruction. Employees can spend extra time fine-tuning the information they did not quite grasp the first time around.

Software integrations

Further, being able to easily and quickly integrate other technologies with a learning management system is key. There are various tools available that add an entirely new dimension to learning and greatly improve the quality and user experience of the LMS. Since learning management systems continue to be designed to benefit a teams spread out across different areas, social tools, like blogs, groups, discussion forums, and gamification elements like points, leaderboards and badges, greatly help to increase communication and cause the distance gap to feel a whole lot smaller.

Interactive learning experiences

Technology offers other benefits, as well. Training experiences are more dynamic and interactive, changing according to users’ needs. The goal is to attain maximum cooperation between users and systems and seamlessly integrate practices across broader platforms.

Globalization-ready

Text-to-speech functionality continues to be an excellent aid to users who are visually impaired. The dependency on users’ rhetoric skills can cause training to be less efficient, particularly when evaluating users in different countries. As such, Google invests more time and money in these technologies. So, even if all of your employees are native English speakers right now, that may not always be the case with increased globalization. Enabling these technologies help tremendously with collaboration across different regions or countries.

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