Delivering consistent training for remote learners

How can you provide learning and development that works for your people when they’re working in remote locations? Here are our thoughts on ensuring consistency in your training for remote learners.

Almost every business, educational institution and public sector body in the world is currently grappling with an issue that some organisations have been facing up to for years: how do you deliver consistent and high quality learning when you can’t gather all your learners in one place?

For large or complex organisations, this is a well-established dilemma. Take Western Union as an example. The money transfer giant has to train 500,000 agents, who are scattered around the world and speak more than 50 languages.

The charity Save the Children is another example of an organisation with dispersed learners. Should an employee’s training and development differ, or even suffer, because they’re based in Bangladesh rather than London?

 

46% are doing less learning and development

In the middle of a global pandemic, these issues have become just as important to much smaller organisations. If your team is working from home and unable to gather together, the logistics of training them is almost identical regardless of whether home is in Dhaka or Doncaster.

Some 46% of those questioned in a KPMG survey of American workers said they had spent less time than usual on professional learning and development during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The same report calls for employers to “reframe the learning experience”. It points towards a dramatic reduction in the number of in-office experiences and interactions with others that currently give employees the bulk of their learning experiences. These need to be replicated in other ways, says the report.

It recommends introducing just-in-time microlearning experiences to employee’s workflows. These will be delivered immediately prior to the employee needing the learning in question in order to do their job.

In this regard, the launch of Totara’s Talent Experience Platform could not have come at a better time. Totara Engage, which is one-third of the new TXP, introduces bitesize chunks of learning into an employee’s wider workflow in just the way KPMG is suggesting.

KPMG also calls for easier access to tools that will allow learners to share what they’ve learned with their peers. Again, this is one of the pillars of Totara Engage, which allows users to build learning playlists to share with colleagues.

 

Turning a negative into a positive

The best way to train your remote learners is to embrace the positives of the current circumstances. There are a few ways we believe you can do that.

 

Celebrate consistency

When all of your learning is delivered remotely through a learning management system, all of your learners get exactly the same experience. It removes some of the variables that might have previously impacted learning, which could prove to be a positive for your organisation. The centralisation of learning delivery gives you far greater control over the learning experience.

 

Cut your costs

Remote learning is far more cost effective than bringing all of your learners to HQ or a training room. Time and wages will be put to better use if your team can learn at their own pace and a time of their choosing, and with no travel expenses.

 

Increase engagement

With all of your learning being done via an LMS, you can introduce gamification and communication elements that will encourage your learners to engage more readily with the learning process.

 

Improve productivity

Using tools such as Totara Engage will help to make your employees more productive. By breaking down learning tasks into manageable chunks that fit seamlessly into the working day, you make learning less daunting to undertake and easier to complete. Your learners can then get back to their regular workflow more quickly.

Talk to us about training for remote learners

If you’d like to chat about how Totara Engage and other tools would help you to deliver consistent learning to remote learners, just fill out the form below.

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