8 August 2019

A 2017 U.S. Census study had 6.5 million employees reported as working remote. Of these, 90% plan to continue with remote work throughout their career. 

CEO Matt Mullenweg delivered the TedTalk “The Way We Work” about ‘distributed’ (remote) workers. In the less than five minute video, he discusses ways to encourage communication and collaboration for employees. This is important because 21% of remote employees identify collaboration and communication as their biggest struggle.

Remote Training Tips

Most often, organizations use a combination of training methods to meet employee needs. For example, 77% of U.S. corporations report using online training with 67% offering training through smart phones. But how do these statistics assist when designing and developing training for remote employees?

To begin, here are a few basic considerations for training remote employees.

• Webinars – Wide disbursement of geographic locations and meetings may make single webinars impossible. However, organizations can provide multiple offerings of single topics for webinars. This will allow remote employees from different locations and teams to communicate and engage with other members. Think of it as a virtual meet and greet opportunity. 
• Online Training – With the majority of corporations using online training, remote employees can complete requirements at their own pace. Also, online training often allows for reach-back of any job aides or procedures. 
• Engagement Enticements – Competition and rewards between remote employees and teams may be used to encourage completion, communication, and engagement.
  • Competition – Simple competition in which teams can compete with the highest assessment scores, first with all members, or first remote employee to complete. These drive some individuals (not everyone) to compete for ‘bragging rights’ alone.
  • Rewards – Organizations should announce winners on social media, company emails, newsletters to celebrate the victories and winners. The offerings may be only a simple reward (gift card, certificate, company swag, virtual team trophy, etc.) to the individual and/or team. Otherwise, the competition has little value.

Take Away

As organizations shift to offering more flexible schedules and employing more remote employees. The learning and development (L&D) programs will need to gather learner analytics about these remote employees. Although some of the data will be similar to office based learners, L&D leaders may be surprised by hidden facts found only through analytics and research as we shift to a more flexible and remote working atmosphere.

Final thought, how will you collect, aggregate and analyze the data? While some data is collected through learning management systems and survey software, it is not aggregated into one location for comparison. Our team can assist with this process with our Advanced AI Learning Analytics Tool (AAILAT). Learn more AAILAT by reading our whitepaper.