Continuous Learning in the Virtual Workspace: Strategies for Employers

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Digital Transformation: Next-Generation Learning Organization (21-slide PowerPoint presentation). Survival of a business in this Digital Age largely depends on its ability to timely embrace Digital Transformation. Digital Transformation entails using Digital Technologies to streamline business processes, culture, and customer experiences in order to stay ahead of the rivals. To compete in [read more]

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When an employer offers not only great working conditions but also development opportunities, it’s an offer employees cannot refuse.

However, providing continuous learning options to employees doesn’t only benefit the worker. It also helps the company in more ways than one.

Training an employee for the position is one form of learning on the job. Whether they work remotely or in the office, employees who do not receive proper training soon become disengaged. Disengagement quickly leads to a drop in productivity. Before you know it, your company is dealing with productivity loss—an issue that is said to cost global employers a staggering $7 trillion annually.

Incomplete training can also affect the efficiency and the quality of work. This, in turn, leads to errors and poorly affects your client satisfaction, loyalty, competitive edge, and finally financial performance.

The good news is that your company can avoid these long-term expenses.

To keep your employees engaged with their jobs, your company competitive, and your expenses in line, you should invest in a high-quality learning and development program.

This article outlines everything you need to know to create a perfectly tailored learning program for your remote teams. It also explains how setting up a workplace computer monitoring software tool ensures that both the employee and employer benefit from the training process

What Is Continuous Learning?

The term continuous learning covers all forms of ongoing learning. Everyone needs to learn all the time to keep up with the changing trends in every sphere of their lives.

This learning can take different forms. From earning degrees, diplomas, and course certificates to learning on the job through mentorships and tasks. Everything that expands knowledge and skill sets can be considered continuous learning.

Strategies for Helping Your Employees Keep Developing

To create the atmosphere and infrastructure for continual learning and development, keep in mind these five principles of effective training:

1. Rely on Digital Work Trackers to Ensure Everyone Is Engaged

If you want to ensure your employees stay on schedule and don’t waste any time, you should consider setting up a work tracker. The most convenient tool for doing this is employee monitoring software.

These tools can help you by:

• Identifying Skill Gaps & Training Needs: Monitoring software analyzes every employee’s performance. When it spots a drop in performance, it’s a good sign that the person needs extra training. Further analysis of the types of tasks they are struggling with can highlight the areas where the employee needs improvement.
• Optimizing Resource Allocation: Computer tracking tools can track websites and apps employees use. This way, you can see which employee favors which learning resources and cancel their subscriptions to the unused services. That allows you to cut a significant part of the company’s costs.
• Enhancing Accountability & Engagement: When they know there is software keeping track of their activities, employees are more dedicated to their learning. Spending time on learning platforms also means they will need to have “something to show for” the invested time. So, they are more likely to pay attention and be more invested in their course.

2. Be Ready to Invest Time & Funds into Employee Development

Allow your employees to dedicate a few hours during their workday to learning. Help them delegate some tasks to the right colleague or authorize the delay of non-urgent tasks. This way you are helping them tackle their learning material during their work day. Not allowing their work-related obligations to spill over into their free time is important for their work-life balance and productivity.

Be clear that the company will cover the course expenses. This way your employees see that you are willing to invest in them and it motivates them to stay loyal and efficient.

3. Analyze Company Needs before Planning Training Programs

When planning training and development, focus on filling skill gaps within your organization.

Every remote team can benefit from reinforcing the employees’ communication and time management skills. Additional training in these areas can help your team members thrive in a remote environment.

Yet, there must be a skill gap in your organization that’s more urgent to fill. Identify it and find a person most suitable to go through training to cover it. This way you help your employees thrive in their respective areas, while you save significant expenses on recruiting another employee.

4. Provide Each Employee with Tailored Development Opportunities

One type of course or form of learning cannot fit every member of your organization. Offer a range of different learning resources and types of training so everyone can choose what fits them best.

Learning and development opportunities should correspond with a person’s career goals as well as interests. This will lead to higher engagement and quicker training completion.

As we already mentioned, prioritize covering skill gaps within the company. You can do this by selecting the people who you think would handle the job well and talking to them about the potential training.

5. Don’t Forget About Mentoring Programs

One of the challenges that a remote work environment brings is the lack of immediate contact between colleagues. This hinders not only the building of personal relationships, but also peer-to-peer mentoring programs.

There is an easy resolution for this problem. Many companies are successfully implementing in-house mentoring programs via video conferencing platforms and collaboration tools. The key is scheduling regular and frequent meetings between the trainer and trainee. Strive to encourage open communication and asking questions.

A variation of this form of learning are knowledge sharing sessions. They can be a great opportunity for a larger group of your employees to pick up some additional knowledge. These sessions are often a form of a class or a presentation held by a more experienced colleague.

These five strategies are just the beginning. A perfect development program needs constant polishing according to the feedback from your employees. With a customized plan for implementing and supporting continuous learning, you can enable your employees and business to grow together.

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