How to Keep Employees Engaged with Interactive Training Tools
Interactive training tools have always dominated the organizational landscape because they make training more impactful. However, the pandemic has disrupted the normal and ushered in a new era of productivity, supported by new-age training. Modern-day interactive training tools help bridge the gap between employee productivity and the changing training landscape to enable you to achieve more from your existing processes. Read on to know some time-tested tips in the new normal to keep your employees engaged.
Importance of Employee Engagement Through Interactive Training Tools
Did you know that, on average, employees remain productive for only 2 hours and 23 minutes every day? This means that they waste over five hours on various unproductive activities. However, a robust training and development program can reverse the effects of unproductivity by making them more productive.
Training programs enhance employee engagement by facilitating innovative thinking. In fact, data shows that employees are quite optimistic about training programs. In a survey, 74% of workers admitted that they wish to invest more time in training or retraining to remain employable. Furthermore, 76% of employees admit that a company would appear more attractive if it offers skills training to employees.
When it comes to training and development, the more interactive your training, the better the output. To deliver engaging and interactive training programs, you need interactive training tools. Whether you want to onboard new hires or provide them with OJT (On-Job Training), conduct a refresher course, or improve their soft skills, interactive training tools can increase employee engagement and boost productivity.
How Interactive Training Tools Promote Employee Engagement
Following are the reasons why top companies use interactive training tools to promote employee engagement:
Create an Immersive Learning Environment
Interactive training tools create an engaging learning environment by making training more catchy and time-efficient. Since employees do not have to concern themselves with logistics, they can invest extra time to understand important topics. You can integrate the training into their workspace. While one window lets them access their workspace, the other lets them traverse through a wide range of training materials.
Interactive training solutions simplify content creation and let you engage employees with stimulating and engaging activities. In fact, the more interactive your training, the better your organization’s productivity. You can also offer a gamified environment to your employees, eliminating the need to assign a separate time for training. You may conveniently integrate training with work and facilitate quick learning.
Cater to All Learner Types
Every learner is unique, and a one-size-fits-all approach will only do more harm than good. The learners in a classroom might be visual, kinesthetic, or auditory, and suiting the content to engage them all might be challenging. Fortunately, online interactive training tools achieve this seamlessly. You can tailor the content by incorporating things that appeal to each learner type. For example, you can include walkthroughs and on-the-job training for kinesthetic learners, include catchy videos for visual learners, and keep some room for audio to make the auditory learners happy.
Hence, interactive training tools provide you with ample room to design content that makes every learner happy. Remember, you must analyze the response well to modify your content if required.
Offer Learning Flexibility
Perhaps the biggest advantage of modern-day technology-enabled interactive training tools is that they make learning an anytime, anywhere experience. Your employees do not need to waste their precious time to move from one place to another. Instead, they need to switch on their digital device and open the training platform to immerse themselves in quality education.
Interactive training tools are all-pervasive, meaning they can penetrate in areas inaccessible by transportation and help employees achieve the desired result.
Deliver Interactive Content
Interactive content equals better engagement and higher retention. For example, compare a boring Zoom session with an enthralling video game, and you can easily predict which one will capture learners’ attention more. Interactive training tools offer endless possibilities for designing your content in a visually appealing way. The more creatively you engage your employees, the better the training output will be.
Enable Use of Technology (AR, VR, Simulations)
Interactive training tools expose you to a wide range of the latest technology to make your training sessions more lively, be it high-contrast themes, closed captioning, enlarged cursors, text-to-speech, or technologies like Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, or realistic simulations. AR, VR, or realistic simulations foster creativity and evaluative thinking. They also promote experiential practice and improve knowledge retention. In addition, some platforms allow you to create 2D and 3D simulations to level up learners’ attention levels.
Let Employees Collaborate With Their Peers and Instructor
Proper feedback is essential to improve the quality of training. Hence, collaborating with peers and instructors in real-time is vital. Linear, one-directional learning is passé. This is where interactive training tools prove beneficial. They let your employees share instant and immediate feedback with the instructors and take the onus of the learning process.
Besides facilitating instant feedback and collaboration, interactive training tools also empower employers and employees. Employers can stay abreast of their employees’ performance by checking the analytical report within the training delivery platform and offer timely feedback. Moreover, employees get tangible benefits and on-target feedback to improve their understanding.
Know Your Tools
Organizations delivering training programs need various tools to impart high-quality training, such as content management systems, learning management systems, video training tools, microlearning tools, project management tools, etc.
A content management system (CMS) forms the basis of a successful training program. It binds the trainer, training provider, learners, and the content in the same string. A learning management system (LMS) provides an integrated platform to upload content of various types and facilitate audio and video-based sessions. You may also need some video training tools to connect geographically dispersed people better.
Organizations also use microlearning platforms to provide quick training materials required to onboard new hires or enhance the employees’ product or technical knowledge. It’s also useful for training remote teams. Since managing projects is an integral part of any interactive training, you may need a project management tool to streamline project management and planning.
Conclusion
Now that you know how interactive training tools can enable you to keep your employees engaged, it’s time to use them to amp up your employees’ productivity and engagement rates.
A highly enthusiastic and motivated sales professional with over twenty five years of experience in solution selling of training-related applications and services. Maintains an assertive and dynamic style that generates results. Ability to establish long-term relationships with clients built on trust, quality of service and strategic vision. Specializes in financial services, higher ed, publishing and government in the areas of learning and development.
