The two greatest challenges facing corporate Learning functions in 2023, Brandon Hall Group research shows, are upskilling employees at the speed of business and the inability to measure it effectively.

Unfortunately, the two go hand-in-hand. How do you know if you are developing skills to make your workforce future-ready if you can’t prove workers can apply new skills on the job?

That’s why Schoox, a Brandon Hall Group Smartchoice® Preferred Provider, has solutions specifically designed to upskill and reskill employees and measure the results. Schoox can help improve the business impact of employers’ skills development. That’s important because only 10% of organizations believe their Learning function supports demonstration of skill proficiency to a high or very high extent, our research shows.

The benefits of effectively developing new skills — both for new hires and current employees — go far beyond improving their performance and preparing them for new challenges. Skill development attacks two other critical challenges that people function wrestle with: talent retention and engagement.

By making your workforce future-ready, you improve the odds your talent will stick around long enough for you to reap the benefits of having improved their skills. Here are just a few examples of the impact:

• Sense of belonging. When employees can improve their skills and their career opportunities, trust and appreciation for the employer — beyond the paycheck — increases. Your talent is more likely to stay, which makes it easier for you to build a pipeline of skilled workers.
• Job satisfaction. When employees feel supported in enhancing their skills, they’re more engaged and satisfied with their jobs. This leads to higher levels of commitment and discretionary effort, which often leads to greater loyalty, which leads to lower turnover.
• Increased employee productivity and innovation. Skill development improves your employees’ ability to perform effectively and efficiently. Skilled workers are often more confident, innovative and adaptable, enabling them to tackle complex challenges.

• Sense of belonging. When employees can improve their skills and their career opportunities, trust and appreciation for the employer — beyond the paycheck — increases. Your talent is more likely to stay, which makes it easier for you to build a pipeline of skilled workers.
• Job satisfaction. When employees feel supported in enhancing their skills, they’re more engaged and satisfied with their jobs. This leads to higher levels of commitment and discretionary effort, which often leads to greater loyalty, which leads to lower turnover.
• Increased employee productivity and innovation. Skill development improves your employees’ ability to perform effectively and efficiently. Skilled workers are often more confident, innovative and adaptable, enabling them to tackle complex challenges.

• Sense of belonging. When employees can improve their skills and their career opportunities, trust and appreciation for the employer — beyond the paycheck — increases. Your talent is more likely to stay, which makes it easier for you to build a pipeline of skilled workers.
• Job satisfaction. When employees feel supported in enhancing their skills, they’re more engaged and satisfied with their jobs. This leads to higher levels of commitment and discretionary effort, which often leads to greater loyalty, which leads to lower turnover.
• Increased employee productivity and innovation. Skill development improves your employees’ ability to perform effectively and efficiently. Skilled workers are often more confident, innovative and adaptable, enabling them to tackle complex challenges.

• Sense of belonging. When employees can improve their skills and their career opportunities, trust and appreciation for the employer — beyond the paycheck — increases. Your talent is more likely to stay, which makes it easier for you to build a pipeline of skilled workers.
• Job satisfaction. When employees feel supported in enhancing their skills, they’re more engaged and satisfied with their jobs. This leads to higher levels of commitment and discretionary effort, which often leads to greater loyalty, which leads to lower turnover.
• Increased employee productivity and innovation. Skill development improves your employees’ ability to perform effectively and efficiently. Skilled workers are often more confident, innovative and adaptable, enabling them to tackle complex challenges.
• Talent attraction. Organizations that prioritize skill development — and can prove their commitment and success — are more likely to attract the best talent.
• Employee agility. Industries are constantly evolving, driven by technological advancements, market shifts and changing customer preferences. Effective skill development programs help your talent stay current with trends and improve capabilities in alignment with emerging demands.
• Succession planning. As experienced employees retire or move on, you can increase the chances for a smooth transition in key roles by having employees prepared for higher-level roles. Most organizations struggle with their talent pipeline and succession planning — which has gained importance in the wake of The Great Resignation — helps maintain business continuity and minimizes the disruption caused by talent gaps.

Discover how Schoox brings learning and development together.

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Managers control and direct people according to the values that have been established. Leaders set new direction or vision for their group. They also act as the spearhead for that new direction.

Management without leadership

Managers without leadership characteristics serve to control resources to maintain a status quo. They work to ensure that all things are happening according to the already established plans. A good example of a manager is a referee. Referees exist to make sure that all players abide by the rules that are set for a certain sport. However, a referee would not provide any leadership because there is no change or new direction required.

Managers who don’t have effective leadership skills can actually cause losses to your business. By demotivating the people who report to them, it restricts employees’ ability to demonstrate the valuable skillset they were hired for in the first place.

In addition to not being able to motivate employees, some managers have a difficult time placing trust in them. Instead, they prefer to handle the key tasks themselves instead of delegating them. This also causes employees to lose confidence and become disengaged.

What makes a good leader?

It is well-known that good leadership is crucial to the success of any business. But, to become a leader is not a task that can be accomplished overnight. There are many factors that contribute to good leadership. Over time, anyone can become a good leader regardless of whether the person possesses natural leadership traits or not.

Here are three critical components to being a good leader:

1. Effective communication skills—especially about burnout

Communication is the most important element of leadership. With the COVID-19 pandemic came an increase in remote workers. I’m not sure anyone expected this new way of remote management to last as long as it has. Additionally, the concern of employee mental health and well-being became more important as people became more isolated.

Every good leader must learn effective communication skills, but the pandemic has introduced the need to place an extra focus on burnout.

A recent Software Advice article found that burnout is, in fact, the biggest threat to employees’ well-being. A whopping 77% of employees who transitioned to working from home due to the pandemic are experiencing at least some burnout (alarmingly high among younger workers) where 41% said they haven’t discussed mental well-being with their manager lately.

When you are open to communication, you are able to clearly convey your ideas and thoughts to employees so they have better direction. At the same time, you can more effectively listen to your employees’ feedback to find out what problems they may be facing, and how you can address them.

2. Collaboration and teamwork

It goes without saying that two heads are better than one. Teamwork is always something to consider when you are determined to become a good leader. This means providing opportunities for employees to work together and collaborate on projects. But it also means becoming part of the team yourself.

The purpose of teambuilding is to achieve a task that would be difficult or impossible for a single individual to perform in the given conditions. Team members need to be clear on the purpose the team is willing to achieve.

When teamwork and collaboration are effective, productivity and engagement increases.

3. Motivation and engagement

Motivation is another trait that is vital for good leadership. Employees tend to stagnate when their motivation goes down. They start becoming less engaged. The reason for this is the lack of motivation from leaders.

There are still managers who tend to motivate employees with a “do what I say or something bad will happen” mindset. This may get results, but only for a short period.

Leaders, on the other hand, use positive motivation to engage their employees, such as providing opportunities to challenge themselves and grow. This style proves to be more effective over the long term.

To learn more about becoming a better leader or gaining new leadership skills, browse through our course marketplace.

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As the importance of talent development increases in today’s workplaces, companies need learning programs that can adapt to the needs of evolving business structures, personnel changes, and complex relationships.

To achieve this, companies should focus on the backbone of their learning management system (LMS). The “backbone” of an LMS is based on a company’s organizational structure and is also known as a “hierarchy.” 

The future demands flexibility and innovation

Over the past several decades, the business world has been slowly replacing traditional top-down management hierarchies with more decentralized, flexible “networks.” 

These new forms of business organization are based on several changes impacting today’s workforce. For example, changes with digitization, flexible work schedules, demographics and worker expectations, the demand for autonomy, decentralized decision making, and measurement by objectives and key results (OKRs) instead of key performance indicators (KPIs).

Learning technologies have also been impacted by these changes. In fact, the monumental changes that the business world and workforce faced over the past year and a half have catapulted LMSs into the spotlight. Learning solutions are now a critical “must have” for today’s workplaces. 

However, many of the learning systems available make it harder, not easier, for companies to configure their system to adapt to evolving business challenges, and provide flexible and innovative learning opportunities to their employees. 

Clearly, organizations need a more modern learning solution with capabilities that allow them to easily define their unique organizational structure within their LMS, and be able to adjust it quickly when there are inevitable changes to your business needs. 

Most LMS platforms are built around an outdated organizational structures

No two organizational structures are alike. In the past, most businesses operated in a traditional pyramid organizational structure. But today, business structures are not always so linear. 

Modern organizational structures are complex and networked at multiple levels. They include non-linear relationships between business units. For example:

• More than one retail concept or brands
• A mix of franchisee- and corporate-owned stores
• Locations in multiple countries
• A mix of partnerships

This complexity presents a real challenge for most  LMS platforms  because most still only support the 50-year-old pyramid-style organizational structure.

Thus, if your unique business structure doesn’t fit this “box,” you risk having to spend excessive amounts of time and money creating workarounds, resulting in a wide range of business limitations and missed opportunities. 

In the end, all of these challenges mean one thing: Your LMS doesn’t work for your unique organizational structure. And because of this, your learning programs suffer.  

LMS hierarchies should be designed for the new world of work

In today’s organizational structures, your learning platform, and the LMS hierarchy informing it, should do three things:

1. Empower employees
2. Streamline management
3. Be adaptable and flexible to change

Currently, most LMSs only support  person-to-person relationships . But an LMS hierarchy suited for modern organizational structures should support person-to-person, organization unit-to-person, and person-to-organization unit relationships .  

This opens up the opportunity for hyper-focused levels of communication, learning content, information sharing, reporting, and much more.

For example, an individual employee at a franchise restaurant store may need to be connected at the same time to the franchise location, a multi-unit owner office, a regional group, a territory, or country. The regional manager for that franchise group may only want to send targeted communications or assign learning to all the stores in one city, but they should easily have access to personnel data, training results, and communications of their entire region.

The impact of an LMS hierarchy for modern organizational structures

An LMS hierarchy impacts the efficiency  of every function within the learning system. To that end, a modern LMS hierarchy affords organizations many more possibilities and pathways for success with their learning programs. 

For example:

• Permissions. You can target content and course sharing to employees with precision, or create custom job permissions instead of relying on the LMS predefined roles.
• Approvals. You can give employees control over their learning experience—and keep the right governance in place—to build greater work satisfaction.
• Learning assignments and content. You can assign courses, curricula, and events more quickly to an entire cross-functional group versus person by person, or relying only on obvious business groupings, like department or job role.
• Communication and social collaboration. You can target employee engagement by regions, areas, and groups for better team building.
• Performance and goals. You can define relationships to drive a more proactive employee review and approval process.
• Reporting. You can choose exactly which data you will share with whom across the organization.

Summary

If you plan to purchase or upgrade your LMS, remember to take the hierarchy component of the system into account. Make sure it can support today’s demands as well as your organization’s unique and ever-evolving needs.

Schoox is the only learning solution provider that supports how your employees work today, how your managers need to manage, delivers flexibility as you grow and change, and provides actionable, data-driven insights to support your success.

See how simplifying the complex sets you up for long-term success…

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Creating an effective strategy to develop and retain your employees can have several benefits beyond just the employee. It can also improve the performance and growth of your business.

But first, employers should understand the reasons why employees leave their jobs to begin with.

Most commonly, an employee leaves due to:

• A negative corporate culture
• Not feeling valued
• No room for growth
• Having a bad relationship with their manager

Once you can identify the specific reason an employee leaves, you can begin addressing the issue more effectively.

Following is a list of strategies you can implement to start building a culture where employees feel engaged, motivated, and driven to succeed and grow alongside your business.

Eight strategies to hang on to your employees

1. Treat employees with respect.

Most importantly, show employees that you respect and value what they bring to your organization. As a result, it will motivate them to be as invested in your company’s success as you are.

2. Ask for feedback.

Ask employees why they work at your company and if they feel any improvements should be made. This not only promotes trust, it also gives you the specific information you need to make things right.

3. Provide mentorship.

Mentor your employees regularly to continually build trust. Doing so will help them envision a path to success within your organization.

4. Play fair.

Being just and fair is an essential quality for managers. Showing favoritism or dabbling in office politics will undoubtedly create a negative impact on the entire team.

5. Have their back.

Also important, stand up for your employees whenever the need arises. When employees know they have your support, they can build and solidify trust.

6. Show recognition.

Take time out of your day to acknowledge each of your employee’s achievements. It goes a longer way than you may realize toward boosting morale and productivity.

7. Provide opportunities for growth.

A recent Software Advice article on employee trends found that 49% of small-business employees we surveyed told us they haven’t developed any new skills during the pandemic. In fact, 30% of employees chose learning and development (L&D) opportunities as the most important factors they consider when evaluating a new job after the pandemic.

With this in mind, be sure to provide training activities for employees. They help you better assess their strengths and areas for improvement so you can better develop them.

8. Give them a platform.

Empower employees to present their current projects, performance data, or other activities. As a result, you’ll also increase their confidence, improve their sense of role ownership, and boost productivity.

Getting started

In short, an organization’s culture is an essential factor for employee development and retention. And it begins with leadership.

When leaders visibly demonstrate their commitment to an organization’s mission and values, they empower employees to do the same.

The eight strategies above are only just a small number of other initiatives organizations can take to generate a positive and productive work environment.

To learn why organizations choose Schoox to helps organizations develop a productive, engaged workforce, visit our website.

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Even those who love learning can sometimes struggle to motivate themselves to learn. It’s a common problem across all industries, and one reason is because training is usually a must-do, not a want-to.

Even when training isn’t mandated, a lot of people are still stuck in that same mindset. It may come from school or other workplaces where training is seen as a necessary evil. It’s something that distracts you from your routine and responsibilities.

How do we get employees to want to learn? How do we teach them about the joy of learning for learning’s sake, not just as a box-ticking exercise? The best way to achieve success with training is to have enthusiastic and open employees, but for that to happen, some mindset retraining needs to take place.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Schoox’s Matthew Brown, VP of Learning and Brand Success, discusses just that. He shares some reasons why employees are hesitant about learning and what we can do to change their learning mindset.

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

Current mindset: Learning is often compliance-heavy

Since the first moment we were introduced to the concept of learning, we have been pre-programmed with some very specific expectations.

Going back to our school days, the teacher would stand in the front of the room. They had all the answers. They told you what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. But they didn’t always say why.

As a result, people have years of habits and preconceived ideas whenever they approach learning later in life. They associate learning with something they must do.

In an organization, this continues. When we think of learning activities, it’s all phrased in a similar way:

• You MUST do your security awareness/anti-harassment training
• You MUST complete your new hire training by a certain date

These phrases all have an undertone of compliance, so we need to be careful in choosing our language.

If we want highly engaging learning environments, we need to figure out how to reprogram some of those ideas. We need to democratize learning and build excitement.

A simple way to start is to try and adjust the language you use when talking about training. You’ll then want to try to tackle some of the bigger culture issues to help shift that compliance mindset.

It’s not that employees don’t want to learn. They’re not completely averse to it. It’s about breaking the muscle memory and retraining their brains to accept learning as a want-to, not a have-to.

Common excuses and barriers against learning

People often come up with reasons against spending time in a training session. One of the most common ones is “I’d love to, but I don’t have enough time.”

Everyone’s busy with their usual responsibilities, so it can be a big ask for them to take time out from their day to learn.

Another one is, “I’ve already done something similar. I already know the content.”

Do any of those sound familiar? We live in a world where workdays are already crammed, and so trying to squeeze learning in there feels more like a chore. It becomes a box-ticking exercise where no one really absorbs the content or wants to be there.

The issue of trust affects employees’ learning mindset

On a similar note, one roadblock could be a lack of trust in the workplace.

If your employees don’t trust that you have their best interests in mind, they will be less enthusiastic about getting involved in learning.

When organizations push training, it’s usually to tick boxes or to fulfill items on a job description list rather than to benefit the employee themselves.

Employees may not trust you because they feel you’re only giving them training for selfish reasons.

A different approach to learning

Our main job is to help employees learn how to be learners again.

In their own personal time, they will have no problem seeking out information they need to solve problems or learn something new. For example, if they need to fix a home appliance, they might watch a few YouTube videos.

The issue isn’t that they’re averse to learning as a whole. It’s all about how it’s presented and integrated into the workplace.

Another approach is to think about making employees excited to learn. Instead of just focusing on the job they currently have, introduce opportunities for them to learn and grow for the job they want to have. Perhaps even make time for them to learn about their own personal interests and hobbies.

Make learning and development a benefit for the learner, not just the organization. This will achieve two things. One, it earns their trust, and two, it can drive some exciting transformation.

As an employer, you could provide a library of content to satisfy a wide range of needs to help earn their trust. You might want to encourage employees to each carve out a protected hour or hours per week just for learning and development.

By doing so, you can start to remove some of those obstacles to learning and make it more integrated into everyone’s work lives. It won’t be a quick fix, but subtle changes in the way you approach learning and the language that you use can slowly start to shift your employees’ mindsets.

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When a talented employee says their heart isn’t in their current position, it can be a bitter pill to swallow. However, it may not signal the end to the employee relationship. 

Here’s how managers can support employees during a career change to encourage them to remain an asset to the organization. 

How Common Are Career Changes?

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, people held 12.3 jobs on average between the ages of 18 and 52—almost half of these between 18 and 24. 

In 2019 research by Indeed, 49% of participants said they’ve had a dramatic career change. This study also showed that there are many reasons people switch careers. Money is a factor, but there are others:

Image Source

Other reasons employees may change careers include enjoying a less stressful life or caring for an unwell loved one. People might also shift into a different profession because they’re working in an industry that is declining or due to a sudden disruption in the economy like the one brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Supporting Employees in a Career Change

Hiring new employees is expensive. By the time the tax forms are filled out, NDAs and other agreements are signed, and the training is completed, businesses have already invested significant resources. Managers can protect that investment by meeting the needs of their employees. 

Here’s how you can support your employees during their career change to benefit your company and them. 

Help Employees Create a Career Change Plan 

To enjoy a successful career change, having a rough plan is necessary. Without a vision, it’s easy to become demotivated—especially if things take longer than expected. 

Management can help employees by creating a career path with them. To begin, look at potential future openings within the company that may satisfy their goals. 

Help them set objectives and create a blueprint. Validating their ambitions and helping them achieve their dreams increases the chance they’ll respond with a commitment to their current role, while embracing the possibility of future growth within the organization. 

Invest in Online Learning

One critical aspect of achieving career growth is learning the skills needed for a new role. Fortunately, employees have plenty of online resources to gain knowledge on any skill or topic. 

When investing in online learning, using a dynamic and customizable platform is essential. Employees should be able to track their progress in a way that suits them, and gets results. 

Investing in online learning gives you the opportunity to encourage innovation and independent thinking within your organization. It also lets your employees know that you are committed to their growth and development.

Help Employees Manage Their Time More Efficiently

Time is everyone’s most important asset. When balancing a full-time job with a pending career change, it’s even more vital. 

To improve efficiency, time-tracking software is a good investment. Time-tracking software helps employees better manage their workflows and where they need to make changes.

Furthermore, time-tracking software helps employers avoid overscheduling employees and minimizes stress levels. 

Notify Employees About Possible Openings

Often, companies are too quick to give in to losing their best talent. According to Work Institute’s 2020 Retention Report, three in four employee turnovers were preventable. 

Switching careers doesn’t always mean having to change companies. The most attractive organizations for high-quality candidates are dynamic and offer flexibility with room for internal growth. In medium-sized and larger businesses, there’s often promotion opportunities for ambitious employees within the company. Once suitable roles become available, the employee can be notified. 

Beyond retaining your best talent, you’ll also improve loyalty and motivate others to strive for promotions. 

Encourage Growth in Their Current Role

In 2020, Deloitte released a report titled: “Talent 2020: Surveying the Talent Paradox from the Employee Perspective.” 

Of those who participated, 27% said that a lack of career progress would lead to them searching for a new job. New market opportunities also ranked high as a reason.

Image Source

Though an employee may have decided that their current career isn’t a good fit for them, that doesn’t mean all their skills are useless. For example, marketing knowledge is transferable to sales, while experience as a front desk manager could help human resources. 

When helping employees create a career change plan, it’s wise to remind them that growing in their current role will help them further down the line. 

By making it clear how their current job will improve their chances of success when they’re ready to make a change, employees will be more motivated to continue performing well. 

Make Sure Employees Feel Appreciated in Their Current Role

Many quality employees view their job as a stepping stone to something bigger. Discouraging or suppressing employees who have big ambitions is a surefire way to force them out of your company. 

Ensuring your staff members understand the value they provide is essential. An easy way to show your appreciation is by recognizing when they go above and beyond. Checking in often to see how they’re doing is also an excellent way to remind them of their worthwhile contribution. 

Showing appreciation for employees encourages them to produce their best work and remain dedicated to the organization. 

Career Changes Can Be Beneficial for Businesses and Employees

While an employee’s interests may stray from their current role, managers need to take a proactive approach to ensure valuable employees don’t leave. Career changes can benefit an organization as well as the individual. Helping employees to achieve their dreams motivates them to commit to their current role, even if it’s not their “final” destination. It speaks to the value you place in your employees and in your business growth. HR departments can help with career changes by creating plans, investing in online learning, and finding internal opportunities that fit employees’ goals. These strategies help retain the best talent.

If you found this article interesting, please share it with your peers on social media.

About the author

Dean Mathews
Founder & CEO, OnTheClock

Dean Mathews is the founder and CEO of OnTheClock, an employee time tracking app that helps over 10,000 companies all around the world track time. 

Dean has over 20 years of experience designing and developing business apps. He views software development as a form of art. If the artist creates a masterpiece, many people’s lives are touched and changed for the better. 

When he is not perfecting time tracking, Dean enjoys expanding his faith, spending time with family and friends, and finding ways to make the world just a little better.

The post How to Support Employees in a Career Change appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

But company leaders also realize that it doesn’t stop there. Organizations aren’t a “set it and forget it” kind of operation. They need constant work to ensure they are increasingly successful year over year.

As a result, many businesses set their sights on investing in a better experience—for their users, customers, and employees. They want to ensure that people perceive their company positively and that any interactions with their products, workforce, and leadership are top notch.

So why do companies need to focus on learning journeys right now? And what do they have to do with improving a customer’s or employee’s experience at a company? 

In short, there are three main reasons company’s need to focus on improving their learning journeys. Continue reading to learn more.  

Companies need to emerge stronger, better from the pandemic 

As the pressure increases for companies to maintain their competitive advantage in the “new normal,” they must make careful decisions about how they will invest in each of these areas to succeed in the future.

“Experience” is a term we hear often these days, made even more familiar by replacing the word with the letter “X.” For example, user experience becomes UX, customer experience becomes CX, and employee experience becomes—you guessed it—EX.

Usually, department executives receive a budget to allocate funds to initiatives that will help them achieve their business goals. Technology and engineering would handle improving UX. Customer support would improve CX, and typically HR would focus on EX. 

But there is another function in the organization that companies should consider as their primary focus this year if they want to achieve meaningful, measurable business results with lasting impact. And that is learning and development.

Learning and development teams drive progress 

While some may see L&D teams simply as “the ones who do the training,” their unique set of capabilities and reach across all departments can be the difference between a company’s success and failure.

As the saying goes, “knowledge is power.” Learning is something companies can and should rely on as a driving force for success in all areas of the business—including UX, CX, and EX.

But it’s important to note that we’re not talking about just any learning. 

Just as technology, engineering, and product development teams place a large emphasis on UX for the products and services they create, L&D teams should treat the learner experience (LX) with the same level of importance. To do this, they need to start thinking outside the traditional “training” box. 

And that’s where learning journeys come into play.

Learning journeys have a powerful impact on business results

Learning journeys are a far cry from “check-the-box” training. They are the how, when, where, and why a learner interacts with content. They bring in factors like engagement, collaboration, application, and meeting learners where they are in the flow of work.

Learning journeys require a “design thinking” approach, and L&D teams are responsible for continuously rethinking this approach in order to offer the best LX possible.

Well-designed learning journeys consist of three elements:

1. The business—understanding priorities and solving business challenges
2. The role—improving performance in one’s direct area and the overall business
3. The self—developing experience, knowledge, competencies, and beliefs

If all three of these elements are taken into account, learning journeys have the power to drive individual, customer, and organizational change to help you achieve maximum business results.

Design your own learning journeys

If you would like to learn more about designing a better learning journey and how to get started, download our free e-book: The Importance of a Well-Designed Learning Journey.

The post Why Better Learning Journeys Should Be Your Company’s Top Focus 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.

How does your organization focus on or identify those high-performing employees? Do you focus solely on them, and if so, does that mean there is an imbalance in the organization?

It might seem like a no-brainer to spend more time and effort on high-performing workers. Many companies will have programs specifically in place to help elevate these people to senior positions. For example, there are often programs to take managers to director level.

However, a common mistake that organizations make is putting their whole focus on their high-performing workers. This means that most of the workforce is left without the support they need to succeed in their roles.

That’s what Matthew Brown talks about in this episode of The Learning Xchange podcast. Matthew, Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success, shares his thoughts on supporting lower-performing members of staff to help them become more engaged.

Listen to the podcast below or keep reading.

The problem with focusing only on high performers

Focusing only on high-performing employees, those who surpass expectations, comes with some problems attached. For one, you’re not getting the most out of a big majority of your workforce. These people are known as the “steady contributors.”

Steady contributors are people who get the job done but perhaps don’t wow the managers. They may not have your attention as much as the high performers, but they make up around 70-80% of your workforce. Ignoring them could mean you miss out on the opportunity to turn them into high performers.

On top of that, you may have around 10% of the workforce you consider low performers. It’s important to assess why people may not be performing as well as expected or hoped. Some may be disengaged from the job, unhappy, or have other personal issues going on. Any good leader will want to get to the bottom of why people are underperforming. The worst thing you can do is simply ignore them.

In a lot of cases, underperforming staff are simply lacking support. This leads people to mentally “check out” of a job. So, what can you do? Every person matters in an organization. Everyone needs development, focus, and support to help them perform the job to the best of their ability.

What we can do to help low-performing employees

There are a few things you can do to better support employees. The main thing that needs to improve is communication, which goes for almost every organization out there.

You could design a program for the whole organization that allows people to share their career goals and aspirations. However, implementing a program isn’t the only thing you should do. You also need to create a safe working environment where people feel comfortable to express their opinions.

Many employees do not feel safe or free to talk because they fear the consequences or the perception of others.

They may wonder, “what happens if I tell them how I really feel? Will I look weak? Will I get fired?”

Giving people a safe space to talk about their own aspirations and goals could help them feel much more engaged. By working closely with the steady contributors and low performers, you can start turning them into higher-performing and happier employees.

How do you identify high performers?

What makes someone high-performing? How do you identify them?

Take some time to sit down and think carefully. Is it a gut feeling, their job role, skillset, or managerial style? Are they simply more efficient or experienced than others? Try to pinpoint the specifics.

Often, when organizations identify high performers, it’s rarely done in a data-driven way. It is sometimes a gut feeling or because they get along so well with the managers.

The problem with not being specific is that it’s not scalable. In other words, it’s harder to apply a method or winning formula to other workers. Without a clear way to identify high performers, it’s hard to know what steps to take to bring everyone up to the same level.

Ask yourself, what makes them so good at their job? Is it a particular skillset? Great, training might be the way forward for the organization. Alternatively, it could be a combination of skills or experience that you can work on.

Homing in on the specifics will empower you to make better choices for your team overall. Once you understand how people perform differently, especially in the same role, you can implement real changes to benefit everyone. With more focus, understanding, and support, you can improve your team’s morale, productivity, and performance across the board.

The post Why It’s Important to Focus on Both High and Low-Performing Employees appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.