Remote Learning Provides Enormous Opportunities For Employees' Learning Initiatives

Various digital tools help people unlearn their redundant skills and build the more relevant ones. Despite all the adversities, Covid-19 has been a great teacher for all of us. It taught us to adjust to various circumstances and continue the endeavour. Be it working in a digital environment or socializing virtually, we have learned in all during the last year. However, the next frontier for businesses is to nurture their people to survive, manage and thrive in the new world order and develop a competitive advantage. This is possible only when the remote working environment offers the same or even better learning and development opportunities as the pre-covid office setups would do.

By using remote learning solutions, businesses can upskill and reskill their employees’ people efficiently. For this, a simple yet actionable model, i.e. Learn, Evolve & Emerge is very effective. Businesses can organize domain-specific and general learning workshops and curated modules for their people. Below are some aspects where remote learning can help people in the current scenario:-

• Functional Training for Skill Development: Even as people perform their day-to-day job, their own work area continues to evolve. In the rush of juggling several responsibilities, they often miss the latest trends and skill requirements within their domain. If not addressed in time, such as skill gap may even render them less effective at work. Using online training modules, people can take care of this issue and bring the most relevant skills to work and create a distinct edge for themselves. These modules are designed in snackable formats so that people can learn at their own pace in their free time and do not consider on the job learning as an additional burden.

• Virtual Workshops for Customer Interactions: Although lockdowns and Covid-19 related protocols have limited in-person interactions, technology has enabled innovative methods to connect with everyone. By deploying virtual classrooms, businesses can help their customer-facing staff, i.e. sales, customer care, servicing departments, and others, interact with customers. Using these platforms, trainers can exchange knowledge about new products & services, provide feedback about past meetings, and share insights based on their experiences. In addition, these virtual classrooms have enhanced the accessibility for knowledge, as trainers and trainees do not need to be present at a common location at a given time. Instead, the learners can go through recorded classroom sessions independently if the need be. They can even access various simulated scenarios to prepare for similar real life business situations.

• Soft Skills:These skills are part and parcel of any job profile. By imparting or polishing these skills, businesses can make their people communicate more effectively. For example, using remote learning methods such as short videos, webinars, chatrooms, and graphics, companies can help augment good communication skills, office etiquettes, empathy, and leadership skills. In addition, there can be curated online modules to address specific objectives about interpersonal communications.

• Career Development Modules for Professional Growth: People feel valued and empowered if they see serious efforts to propel their professional journey. Using digital tools, companies can remotely offer capability-building workshops about career planning, skill gap analysis, and mentoring potent employees. These courses help people to view their career journey more objectively, reassess their professional goals, identifying the competencies to achieve these goals, and seek the right career opportunities within the organization.

• Team Building & Fun Quotient: Apart from skill development, remote learning tools also double-up to help people connect in informal ways. Even as we are forced to work remotely, there is a need for people to mingle with each other, unload themselves, and build bonds that go beyond work. These bonds develop empathy and companionship among colleagues and make them more effective as a team. Team building over digital mediums can impart conflict resolution, trust-building, and achieving common team goals. Along with serious objectives, there is also an opportunity to combine fun activities which create memories, and people know each other outside their workspaces.

Remote learning tools have several other applications for businesses depending on their specific needs. For example, HR and learning managers need to identify the relevant opportunities to impart training to upskill and reskill people using these tools. Such an effort helps employees and businesses stay relevant, contribute more to the organizational goals, and progress on their professional journey.