How Technology Helps Your Training and Development Processes

Technology is evolving faster than you can ever imagine. It brought many advances and helped how people perform their tasks. In the 21st century, we have become heavily reliant on technology to make our lives easier and more efficient. Technology, if used properly can provide and offer multiple benefits in the workplace regardless of the industry.

More importantly, technology has become a tool for employers to administer their employee training and development processes more effectively. Here are ways on how you can maximize the use of technology in your workplace as a superior:

**Integrate Online Games to Your Training **

It is not only essential but necessary for your employees to enjoy what they are doing. Training can be intimidating, especially for new hires. Most of them would feel anxious about the workload of their job responsibilities and may view training sessions as a high-pressure and intimidating activity. Luckily, there are now online games and gamification you can use to train your employees.

One good thing about gamification is that it allows the trainees to enjoy while acquiring learning and training principles as they start performing their tasks in the workplace. Besides, it creates healthy and friendly competition, and trainees will experience working with their peers. So online games not only instill important work values into your new hires, it also breaks the tension among tensed employees.

Online Forums

As the training team of the Human Resource department, it is your responsibility to develop and build each employee’s character. Some managers may think it is helpful to host roundtable discussions where strategies concerning the training and development of the employees are comprehensively talked through. However, this can eat too much time in your schedule.

As a compromise, online forums may be utilized to engage and keep track of the development of the employees while also utilizing your time and resources efficiently. For instance, you can host a 30-minute online forum and this can already cover multiple agendas including and especially your team’s strategy on the coaching of your employees. A question-and-answer portion may also be inserted where everyone can ask and answer questions to each other. You no longer need to meet each other physically since these will be conducted online. With this, you can train your employees to have social interactions, and bring positive culture to your workplace at the same time.

**Online Modules **

If you are looking for an excellent alternative to training materials, it would be wise to consider online modules. Thanks to technology, you can now create video and audio lectures. Online modules have been utilized by employers as a tool to train their employees for years already. These make the learning process more fun and less tedious so your trainees will surely love the idea of integrating videos into their learning activities and work responsibilities. Another benefit of this is its cost-effectiveness. Printing of modules can be quite expensive. Just imagine printing hundreds of copies of your training material and spending more for miscellaneous expenses like book binding, organizing, stapling, and the like. It does not sound efficient at all, right? So with the use of your gadgets, you can easily film your lectures and edit them instantly for a more efficient and effective learning experience for your employees.

**Reinforce Skills Using Online Tools **

As a trainer, it is your responsibility to acknowledge that each trainee has different approaches to learning. Nevertheless, the most widely accepted learning styles according to learned scholars are the following

1. visual or spatial,
2. aural or audio,
3. physical or tactile,
4. verbal or linguistic,
5. logical or analytical,
6. social, natural, and
7. solo.

You may craft an online learning tool that adapts to these learning styles to make sure that your trainees’ unique approaches to learning are catered. In other words, you can use online tools to create an adaptive learning environment for your trainees. It is important to note that in creating your training material, you should take into account the effectiveness of each module. It can be quite taxing to create a specific module for each of the mentioned learning styles, and this is exactly where technology can be most helpful.

One example of an online learning tool is known as the “Learning on the GO”. It is a mindmarker methodology that provides a comprehensive and personalized training program. Learning on the GO can be accessed via a smartphone, a tablet, or a computer, and it has a feature that allows you to synchronize your work across all your devices. Definitely a must-try!

(READ: The Complete Guide: How to Successfully Build and Manage a Remote International Workforce)

Create Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are helpful not only for universities that conduct online classes but they may also be of help for the training and development of employees. The COVID-19 situation has forced most of us to conduct our businesses at home instead of in the offices. This means that physical or face-to-face interactions are prohibited and as a side effect, the training and development processes of employees are limited to only the tools found online.

Conducting synchronous meetings as training sessions is, without a doubt, disadvantageous in many levels. These disadvantages include funding, internet connectivity issues, time constraints, and many more. With a well-developed LMS, you can simply upload the training modules and let the trainees study during their most convenient time.

Great employers are capable of defying the odds of an unpredictable time and somehow manage to flip these disadvantages to advantages. For example, training sessions held online are helpful if you think of its benefits in knowledge retention. Learning Management Systems do not automatically dissolve learning modules unless you close them. This means you and your trainees can still access the learning materials even after their training program. Once they forget something, they can easily scan through the modules. On the contrary, taking notes on paper may be unwise and less efficient as it is way easier to lose and misplace a piece of paper than a laptop.

Video Conferencing

Despite the cons mentioned above, there may still be significant benefits you can get from incorporating video conferences into your training program. Many companies are giving this idea a thumbs up since it does not require many human resources-related tasks. Besides, everyone can conveniently meet without the hassle of misplacing their car keys, or forgetting their company ID. Even the simple act of commuting to work makes people dread going to work.

In the online setting, one tap on your tablet gets you straight to the Zoom video conference where the training is held. Moreover, live training sessions can be recorded by the host so your trainees can review the recording later to take notes and study the concepts more comprehensively. You can simply upload the recording to your communication channel and when some of your trainees fail to attend the session, they can simply watch the recording.

Incorporate Online Sources in Your Modules

Information databases are readily available online. In other words, sources are everywhere, and this makes the crafting of training materials much easier. It is a trainer’s responsibility to have the competency to develop training materials and make sure these are adapted to the trainees’ skill sets. Even before the pandemic, technology has been incorporated into the training and development processes. Just imagine a training session without laptops, computers, printers, speakers, and whatever technological device there is. Wouldn’t that be incredibly difficult?

It would be smart to incorporate credible online sources in your modules. That being said, as a trainer, you must know how to filter out information that is not relevant nor essential to your topic. One piece of advice would be to look at active blogs and forums, lecture videos, and electronic books and determine how these media incorporate credible online sources relevant to your project.

**Online Evaluation Forms and Tools **

After every training session, you will need to evaluate each learner’s development and progress. It will also be helpful to receive feedback from your trainees as these will help you become a better overall trainer.

Online evaluation forms and tools that help you track your trainees’ progress are available on the internet. Most project managers use Google Forms for this task. You can tailor-fit your questions to ask about their learning experience, feelings before and after the project, their learnings after the modules, and their impressions of their colleagues. Tracking the improvement of your employees is not only beneficial to them, but for the company in general. The “people” component is considered by top managers as the most important asset in any company.

Final Thoughts

This article clearly presents the advantages and benefits of technology in the workplace, particularly in facilitating training programs. Undoubtedly, advances in technology have changed how we perform our tasks and will continue to change in the future. Nevertheless, it is essential to keep in mind that technology should never undermine the human touch not just in the workplace but in every aspect of our lives.