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No matter your industry or vertical, stagnation is not an option. You need to plan for the future — you need a roadmap and a growth strategy. More importantly, you need to set your employees up for success with an effective training program.

Let’s talk a bit about what that means.

Why Would a Business Need Modern Learning and Development Models?

By now, it should be obvious that there’s no going back to the way things used to be. The shift to distributed work and the fast-paced digital transformation brought about by the pandemic fundamentally disrupted the workplace. Older methods like webinars and conferences no longer hold their own.

Where corporate training is concerned, they’re too passive and outdated. In today’s landscape, you need hands-on virtual training. Crucial characteristics of this new approach include:

• The opportunity to develop and apply new skills and knowledge in real-world settings.
• Collaboration with other team members and departments.
• Real-time feedback.
• Personalized training sessions.
• Multiple training formats.

To support the above, your organization will need to adapt and adopt a new training model — or several.

The Benefits of Modern Corporate Training and Development

Meeting employee demands and keeping pace with technology aside, there are several major benefits to adopting a more modern approach to workplace education:

• Access to comprehensive training data. Built-in metrics give you and your team an inside look at how people engage with your training, allowing you to identify bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement.
• Easier personalization. Alongside lesson optimization, you’ll also be able to leverage analytics to provide personalized learning and feedback to trainees.
• Increased engagement. Better, more compelling training will naturally increase participation and completion rates alongside enthusiasm for the training program.
• Reduced overhead. Eliminating the classroom means no more travel expenses and less time spent away from work, while a virtual corporate training platform costs significantly less to operate and maintain than a traditional IT lab.
• Greater flexibility. You no longer need to limit your employees to certain formats or times — with a modern approach to training and development, they can engage with the materials on their own terms and in their own time.

4 Corporate Training Techniques & Models You Should Try

Blended Learning

Blended learning — also known as hybrid learning — is a training approach that combines virtual training with more traditional in-person learning. This allows your organization to gain the best of both worlds, providing engaging in-classroom coursework with scalable online education.

It’s worth noting that blended learning has been gaining a lot of ground recently. This year, it may even become the norm for corporate training.

As far as delivery, you have a few options where blended learning is concerned:

• Rotational. Your training follows a fixed schedule and ‘rotates’ through multiple formats.
• Flex. In-person training is available, but the greater emphasis is put on virtual training, with all other formats treated as complimentary.
• Instructor-Led Training. This can be either virtual or in-person. Either way, the presence of an instructor is mandatory.

Microlearning

Another trend that’s picked up considerably in recent years, microlearning basically takes your training course and breaks it down into tiny bite-sized pieces. It’s a perfect fit for on-the-job training, as it doesn’t require extensive downtime — instead, employees can pick up knowledge and skills as they go.

This considerably reduces the risk that an employee might become overwhelmed and disengage. Consequently, this also makes microlearning an excellent option for cybersecurity training. Employees can see firsthand why their training is important, and materials are presented in a much more digestible format besides.

Mentoring

Mentoring is arguably one of the few legacy training models that has managed to remain relatively unchanged through the transition to a hybrid workplace. It’s exactly what it sounds like — newer employees are paired with experienced veterans and professionals who then guide them through their career development. While not necessarily sufficient on its own, a mentoring program can work as an excellent supplement to your existing training initiatives.

Gamified Learning

Gamified learning is intended to make training more exciting, interactive, and engaging. By incorporating video game elements such as leaderboards, achievements, and challenges into your training, you give your trainees something to strive for beyond knowledge for knowledge’s sake. If you really want to go all-in on gamified learning, you could even create an actual video game.

FumbleChain is a great example of this in practice, introducing players to the basics of blockchain security through a simple pixel-based game.

Whatever your approach, gamified learning is great for both skills and knowledge development.

Don’t Be Afraid to Mix and Match

You need to modernize your training in order to keep pace with the current landscape, and modernized training means modernized learning models. But you don’t need to stick to just one — as a matter of fact, I’d advise against limiting yourself. Instead, you should experiment.

Explore multiple different learning models and formats until you find one that works for your business. After all, no two organizations are exactly the same. It follows that no two training programs should be identical, as well.

Next Steps: Learn How to Create an Effective Employee Virtual Training Program

Now that you’ve gone through a bit of a primer on modern learning models, it’s time to talk about how to leverage those models for employee training. It’s not simply a matter of consolidating some materials and deploying a virtual training solution. Creating an effective training program is a complex, multi-step process — one that’s fully described in How Can You Create an Effective Employee Virtual Training Program?

This blog post goes over how to plan, finalize, and maintain your training program, including:

• What to ask prior to creating a training strategy.
• The most common reasons an organization might require employee training.
• Best practices for ensuring satisfaction and engagement.
• Understanding the needs of your trainees.
• How to select the right training KPIs.
• The characteristics of an effective training roadmap.
• Guidance on how to develop instructional materials.
• What to know about implementation and virtual learning.
• The most important factor to keep in mind with any training strategy.

Read the blog post here.

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