How do most employees feel about attending work trainings? I’d venture to say that most love to hate them. And although methods have improved, employers still struggle to provide trainings that truly engage audiences and give them what they need – when, where, and how they need it.
While the industry likes to talk about the newest shiny thing in terms of future trends in the training space, I see two foundational concepts driving success for corporate trainings in 2020 and beyond. And they come down to things that are simple and seemingly obvious, but hard for companies to implement.
Message Before Medium
Employees want to be treated as people, not transactions, and corporate trainings need to be communicated in that fashion. This means that when an employee receives a meeting invite for an ethics training, that session better speak to them as humans as opposed to churning out a running list of “Don’t Do” scenarios.
All the new tech and tools in the world won’t help if you don’t have a solid foundation – an authentic message, personalized specifically for your audience.
Once you have that basis, you can think about the best medium to convey the message and oftentimes, that medium is video. Video trainings can help you focus on the key components of your message, since the goal is to keep things simple, engaging, and understandable. It’s also easy to personalize your message so that the training is relatable and connects to your audience.
Matt Moran, a professional public speaking coach for over 20 years, uses Vyond to help build his online courses. Vyond’s ease of use and storytelling capabilities are only part of his reasons for using Vyond, in addition to combining it with live-action to break up the monotony of speaking to his audience. Matt noticed that his students found animation to be more engaging and made it easier to understand his messages and lessons.
Traveling Trainings
Training methods must evolve with the changing nature of the modern workplace. Many of today’s professionals are frequently on the move or do not conform to a normal 9-to-5 workday. Trainings need to reflect that reality and become more engaging, accessible and adaptable.
Using video allows HR leaders to provide the freedom and flexibility employees need. Workers can learn at any time and in any place, the trainings can be easily updated and it’s quicker than ever to create them.
One example that impressed me was Providence St. Joseph Health’s extensive training revamp to prepare their employees for a complete digital transformation in their workplace. They utilized an app that allowed workers to scan a picture or prompt with their phones, which would start short augmented reality-enhanced scenarios. Employees could choose which trainings they wanted to take where they wanted to take them with these mobile, engaging and quick offerings.
It will be interesting to see how these two trends play out over the year, as companies start to pick up on their importance and take advantage of them. I truly believe that those who are able to successfully implement these trends will see long-term results.
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