Leadership Series | Keep your people learning when you go virtual

 

COVID-19 has forced all of us to go virtual. It has forced us to build a culture that encourages and supports virtual learning. Today learning has undergone a paradigm shift due to transformation in the workforce and business. Today most of the employees are working remotely hence virtual learning is the only solution to train remote employees and keep the ball rolling for building capabilities of employees. But how do we keep them motivated and make our teams learn virtually?

Here are various tips and tricks which you can adapt to motivate your team towards virtual learning. So, let’s start:

·      Always emphasize on the benefits – It is human nature to look out for benefits before investing time and energy. So always highlight what your employees will receive when they learn virtually or attend any virtual training. This will keep their motivation up and their attention focused on the learning.

·     Encourage your team to attend online training programs – Post COVID-19, online training has become mandatory. Like many other organizations, virtual training has become part and parcel of our organization too. So why not make the simplest use of it? Put a positive spin and motivate and nominate your team members for such virtual training sessions.

·   Give your employees an assortment of interactive opportunities - While some learners may prefer to acquire knowledge through observation and study, others prefer to be taught through videos and interactive scenarios. Hence try and include a wide range of opportunities for your team members such as podcasts, eLearning, scenarios, and so on. These diverse virtual learnings will not only be interesting for your team but also, they will never get bored.

·      Learning systems and tools should be easily accessible - Technology plays a game changer role in virtual learning. So always ensure that the learning materials or the best practices are all parked in a proper centralized location which your team members can access within a click. Also, give access to the self-paced training programs to your team members which they can refer to whenever they want.

·     Build communities to learn - Encourage virtual groups, teams, or communities where our Subject Matter Experts can impart informal learning in the form of videos, posts, tips, best practice sharing sessions to desired learners. Sharing knowledge is a crucial aspect of our learning culture. Few other ways to engage your virtual learners are by:

o   Giving a weekly learning goal

o   Circulating DYK series from SMEs

o   Conducting quiz on recent learnings

o   Sharing recent learnings

Nurturing a learning culture for remote employees is certainly challenging but not impossible. So always go the extra mile to ensure that learning is an ongoing process for you and your team.