How to Provide Effective Training for Remote Employees

It is critical to understand the foundation and inner workings of a company before you start your job. Working from home is like getting a new job. You work in a different environment, with different technology, and communicate in different ways. Therefore, it's essential to treat working from home like a clean slate. This means reteaching employees how to work with each other, redefining company roles and adapting your training program. 

Training employees efficiently and successfully is hard enough when in the office, but even more difficult without being able to directly oversee your employees. In order to avoid miscommunications, confusion and errors, there are key factors that every business should include in their trainings. 

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Start with redefining and reorganizing  

Before implementing your training program, you must organize your information in advance. Making sure the content is clear and organized helps both you and your employees. One aspect of organizing includes making a consistent schedule - separating and defining trainings by content or week. This allows employees to plan ahead and defines what tasks or knowledge they are responsible for. 

One major challenge of working from home is not being in the physical office to visually learn how things work. Being in the office helps clarify everyone's roles by talking to people directly, making routines and seeing where people work. Since this is not possible when working remotely, it is recommended to redefine employees' roles. Whether employees are new to the company or have been there for many years, clarifying co-workers' roles will help tasks run more smoothly. It limits confusion between coworkers and helps with having the appropriate information go to the right people. 

Additionally, it is important to address how to reach other employees, since, again, no one has the ability to walk 10 feet down the hall and talk with others. This will make communication more clear and natural because people will know the correct person to contact and how to contact them. When working in different places it is not only important, but essential, to make sure everyone is still on the same page. Constant and clear communication and collaboration is the only way to satisfy this need. With that said, you can completely simplify this process by using a remote desktop, which is a program that allows a user to connect to a computer in another location. Not only does this simulate the office working experience for employees, but it’s also beneficial for connecting a managed service provider (MSP) to your systems.

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Say goodbye to boring lectures 

Communication and organization is the foundation of having a successful business; once clarified, employees can focus on learning. Employees have the highest potential for efficient learning when they are able to do so on their own time in a comfortable environment. This is why asynchronous learning is the best solution to training, especially when working remotely. Asynchronous learning includes:

• Pre-recorded videos 
• Posted notes 
• Self-guided lessons 
• Posted activities and worksheets
• Posted readings
• Discussion boards
  

The aforementioned features of asynchronous learning ensures employees can review information they learned, train at their own pace and train at a time most convenient for them. Moreover, it allows employees to connect and discuss the content of the training with their coworkers. The engaging and interactive activities cause people to inadvertently absorb more information than they would have by simply sitting in front of a video or lecturer. 

Asynchronous learning platforms also automatically monitor engagement and performance of every individual. This helps every individual in the company. It allows coworkers to help each other, the trainee to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and the trainee’s manager to recognize where their employee needs more work or already thrives. The individualized data is important feedback because when remotely working alone it is often harder to give and receive solid feedback.

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Learning about the new platform  

With the abundance of different learning platforms today, it can be difficult to narrow down your search. In order to find the right platform for your company, it is important to sit down and discuss your objectives and wishes for the future. You want to ask yourself what learning platform will satisfy the company’s needs and go from there.  For example, you can narrow down your search by wanting mobile phone access, gamification or content reusability. Once these features are defined, book a demo and make sure that the program is easy to use and fits your desired description.   

After finding the asynchronous platform that best suits your company, it is crucial to start with an orientation. In every company, whether small or large, employees have different technological skills. Learning how to communicate and collaborate over one platform is a change for all employees, no matter their level of comfortability with technology. 

Initially teaching employees how to use the platform correctly will help increase productivity in the long run. Once employees are comfortable with the platform, they will use it correctly and swiftly, which will continuously benefit the company.

How myQuest can improve your remote training

myQuest is an asynchronous learning platform that successfully engages, teaches and encourages employees during trainings. Due to myQuest’s flexibility and ease of use, it can be used for any company, any kind of training, and can be learned by anyone. The sleek design is not only uncomplicated, but is also fun to use. The action-based platform allows anyone to deliver training to their employees in an interactive and captivating way. 

If you want to learn more about how to provide your employees with the best training, book a demo call today!