Every organization and business model aims to upskill their employees and keep them relevant, equipped, and aligned with their long-term goals. This upskilling process is mainly delivered through workforce training, and the market for this focus is booming at USD 145 billion as of 2022.

While keeping this training to a high standard is crucial, listening to feedback and understanding workforce training expectations is even more critical.

In this piece, we will guide you through a brief on workforce training basics, their main expectations, and ways to meet them effectively. So, let’s start reading!

Table of Contents:

The Origin Story of Workforce Training Expectations

Workforce training is inherently an organization’s strategic initiative. It focuses on skill development, enhancing subject matter expertise, and ultimately boosting an employee’s performance. All activities, workshops, and training are synchronized with the organization’s objectives.

These targeted workforce training recipients are set in a dynamic environment where their industries and technological advancements constantly evolve. Out of this arises a unique need to thrive in relevance, and amidst competition, employees seek personalized learning modules that also factor in their career aspirations and professional thirst for knowledge.

Through engaging content, interactive approaches, and even gamified assessments, meeting workforce training expectations holds the potential to build an employee’s commitment to the organization while increasing job satisfaction.

Reasons Why You Should Enhance Your Corporate Training

  • Relevant training leads to happy employees, who are more likely to stick around in the organization
  • Employees stay abreast of the industry changes with constant skill development
  • With constant upskilling, you can fill mid-level and senior roles with internal talent

Corporate training is valuable when it is done right, using the best practices to impart knowledge. It may be that you already have existing training content. So, instead of designing a new training program, you can enhance your existing corporate training program to suit your current needs.

Here, in this post, we look at some steps you can take to enhance your existing corporate training programs.

Steps to Enhance Your Existing Corporate Training Programs

Here are the steps to enhance your existing corporate training programs:

1. Use an LMS

Your employees are now busier than ever. Marking out time for training can be difficult when they are already walking a tight rope balancing a range of activities that demand their time and attention. It is therefore important that you make your learning more flexible and accessible.

One way to go about this is to host all your learning and development content on a cloud-based Learning Management System (LMS). An LMS is an easy-to-use option to upload, disburse, and update your existing training content.

Your employees can log in from anywhere and anytime and take the training as per their own convenience. While choosing an LMS, consider one that offers features such as a user-friendly interface, authoring tools, content management tools, and reporting and tracking tools.

2. Create Mobile-Friendly Content

All working individuals today have a smartphon,e which they use to access all types of content. You can enhance your existing content by making it mobile-friendly. This can be done by creating microlearning content. As the name suggests, microlearning refers to content that is packaged in small bites.

Your employees can access these micro nuggets on their phones, tablets, or any other device of their choice. Let us assume you have a very lengthy training PDF file on a subject. You can break down the content into small sub-sections and for each sub-section, create a micro nugget, around 3 to 5 minutes long.

This micro nugget provides to-the-point information about a particular subject. Microlearning is a great way to provide instant performance support. It is ideal for time-challenged employees, and it also prevents cognitive overload.

3. Use Digital Tools to Create Interactive Content

You can breathe new life into your existing content by repackaging it using digital technology. Content in the form of audio, video, graphics, infographics, and presentations is more immersive and engaging.

Besides, you can also use tools and techniques such as gamification, virtual reality, and augmented reality to make online corporate training more relevant and contextual.

With digital tools, you can convert linear learning into an interactive experience. Instead of being passive absorbers of information, your employees will be active participants in the learning journey.

4. Incorporate Blended Learning

While learning at your own pace has its advantages, the role of the instructor and the importance of peer interaction cannot be overlooked. There are certain skills that are best taught in person, for example, operating hardware equipment.

Blended learning, as the name suggests, blends traditional classroom learning with online learning techniques. This form of training delivery combines Instructor-Led Training (ILT) with regular eLearning.

The instructor does not have to be present at a physical location but can deliver the training using an online platform. The participants, too, can access the training from their own location. Another form of blended learning is where the instructor uses online resources in a classroom to supplement the lesson.

5. Make Use of Online Resources

Another way to enhance your existing corporate training programs is to make the best use of online resources. You can hyperlink your content to the online resource, for example, a YouTube video, a PDF article, or a presentation.

This saves you time in creating your own teaching resources. And the time thus saved can be utilized in more constructive interactions with the learners.

6. Use Communication Tools

In today’s dispersed workplaces, it can be difficult to design courses that serve both in-house and remote employees. If you are using an LMS to develop and deploy your corporate training program, you can leverage a host of communication tools such as emails, live chats, forums, message boards, social media ,etc., to allow your employees to share their opinions and experiences with a wide audience.

These communication tools are also of great importance to remote employees who may otherwise feel isolated in their work and training.

7. Personalize the Learning Experiences

One of the greatest benefits of online corporate training programs is that you can personalize the learning experience to meet your employees’ needs. Today’s workforce spans generations; it’s a mix of Millennials and Generation Z, all of whom have different levels of comfort with technology.

And it is not just technology that separates learners’ preferences. Some may be overwhelmed with too many interactive videos, while others may be put off by a large amount of text.

So, while enhancing your corporate training content, talk to your employees, understand their level of comfort with technology and the format they want, and then design your content with a judicious mix of text, graphics, and video elements.

Top 8 Workforce Training Expectations

Now we’ve understood why and when workforce training expectations arise. To deliver effective and engaging workforce training programs, let’s dive into the details of these expectations and where they come from:

1. Content Relevance

Training modules are usually packed with information and can be harder to grasp when the purpose does not match their needs.

One of the main expectations from these modules is that essential content be relevant to their roles and current trends and challenges. Employees wish to get the most of their time in training so they are given content they can use.

2. Flexibility in Learning

Learners retain less when forced into an inconvenient learning schedule and may face difficulty focusing on the learning content. Employees expect that training programs assigned to them be on their terms of scheduling and delivery methods.

This expectation of flexibility in learning may arise from comfort, schedules in current job profiles, or even the preference for freedom in their learning journey.

3. Engaging Content

This one is universal and applicable to any aspect of life, especially workforce training. Employees expect that their training modules capture and maintain their interest levels.

Retention and motivation levels skyrocket when training material is engaging and interactive. Undoubtedly, engaging content has become a hygiene factor for each employee.

4. Personalized Learning Modules

Just as organizations recognize that every employee is unique, it is also vital to address training content based on this originality and aptitude. A significant workforce expectation is to tailor personalized content to match each employee’s learning style and skill levels.

The expectation of personalized learning modules comes from an employee’s desire to receive training modules that resonate with their strengths, preferences, and aspirations.

5. Accessible Content

A critical expectation is to be able to access training content easily. By accessibility, training content is expected to be adopted onto user-friendly platforms and compatible with different devices. With this, an employee will be confident about participating in training.

Expectations regarding accessibility are crucial for an organization because only if employees can embrace the content can its impact be measured.

6. Robust Feedback

Employees expect to have a robust feedback system while taking on various types of workforce training modules.

This expectation extends to having an active feedback or progress mechanism for their training as well as being able to share feedback on ways to improve the training content itself. Either way, this expectation allows learners to improve faster and voice their opinions.

7. Receiving Rewards and Recognition

It is essential to understand that every employee values being appreciated.

Concerning corporate training solutions that work towards equipping them to perform better, employees expect to be rewarded for their achievements. The expectation of rewards and recognition also comes from showcasing their growing skills.

8. Aligned with Career Goals

For every employee, knowing the impact of workforce training on their professional development is crucial. Employees expect that upskilling for the organization must work in tandem with their long-term career goals.

When workforce trainings are assigned to employees, their motivation is hugely affected by how the module impacts their career goals.

Nailing These Expectations

These top 8 training expectations are very close to heart for every employee. Meeting these expectations may very well decide the impact and involvement of employees toward the organization’s goals.

Here are 5 practices to nail these expectations and garner the strength and performance of the workforce,

1. Focus on UI and UX

In recent years, organizations have begun investing in delivering modules through virtual learning. While this has proven to be quite efficient, these virtual training platforms must be developed with a focus on responsive and intuitive user interfaces (UI) that employees can easily navigate; they are engaged and motivated to learn more.

Remembering that an engaging, compatible, and user-friendly platform helps deliver the right user experience and fosters the right learning environment is crucial.

2. Leverage Technology

With the help of cutting-edge approaches, it becomes infinitely more efficient to deliver immersive and personalized content. Here are some of the latest technologies that meet and exceed employee expectations:

  1. AI-powered enterprise training modules help implement adaptive and personalized learning.
  2. Virtual Reality (VR) based learning delivers immersive and experiential learning that tremendously boosts engagement levels and learning speeds.

Employees can also review their progress and get live feedback through these approaches.

3. Regular Feedback Systems

With the help of feedback surveys after each learning module, an organization can receive feedback for continuous improvement. This helps employees know that they have an active hand in workforce training development.

4. Routine Recognition Platforms

By implementing a recognition platform, every employee can access their achievements dashboard and download all necessary certificates. Adding a gamified approach, the platform can also feature a common leadership board where various rewards and prizes are given for each achievement and rank.

This approach helps foster a healthy competitive environment in the workplace and encourages more learning and job satisfaction.

5. Embrace Data Analytics

With all the data that can be derived from training platforms, such as employee performance, progress, feedback, and career goals, an organization can transparently and effectively embrace data analytics with AI. This can help generate content recommendations and roadmaps for employees, enabling them to understand which modules will help achieve their aligned goals.

Implications for the Future

As work evolves rapidly, strategic workplace learning technology will be pivotal for continuous reskilling and talent development. Thoughtful implementation of digital tools can help boost the ROI of learning regarding skills, productivity, and employee satisfaction. It’s time for organizations to embrace tech-forward training to build a future-proof workforce.

Hurix Digital offers custom digital learning solutions leveraging the latest technologies. Our experts can help assess your training needs and design engaging outcomes-driven programs.

Contact us today to learn how we can modernize your workforce development using data-driven tools.