The Covid-19 crisis called for a complete overhaul in the business model. With strict lockdown restrictions and regulations, organizations worldwide were forced to implement remote working practices with barely any time to wrap their heads around the situation. That was a completely new method of working, bringing in several advantages. People were able to work from anywhere they wanted, and productivity increased manifold.
However, remote working also brought several problems – lack of personal motivation, challenges with technical equipment, communication issues, etc. And one of the main problems that companies faced was regarding training their employees and keep them engaged.
How do you train your employees when they are no longer in the office? It is essential for business owners to keep their remote employees motivated to achieve results and upskill themselves consistently. Team leaders must implement new training strategies to encourage their remote employees to stay efficient even when working from home.
Numerous tools and methods cropped up worldwide as leaders and managers scrambled to find a solution to the online training problem. However, one of the best ways to train your employees quickly and efficiently is by organizing online events that may help you stay together and share your thoughts and ideas.
In this article, we shall explore the various ways you can use online events in your team to maximize results for your own company. We will also consider how some big names worldwide have successfully implemented online events to achieve strategic outcomes.
How To Use Online Events In Your Team
When your team is working remotely, you are unfortunately left with minimal choice but to use virtual methods of communication for everything. Therefore, online calls are the only way to conduct your training session, whether it is a webinar, a seminar, or a virtual event. However, the question remains: is it possible to make these training sessions just as structured, organized, and beneficial as offline training?
There are three main ways in which you can achieve this.
Create An Effective Training Schedule
Rope in your HR team to analyze and understand what your employees need at this point. Ask your team members what they wish to learn. You can then build an effective training schedule around this to get what they need.
You can achieve this easily and quickly by dividing your employees into different groups and catering to each of these groups separately. Create regular online training programs where each group can attain new skills and knowledge. You might also want to invite some teachers, trainers, or even some well-known influencers to impart valuable information and expertise to your workers.
It should be not a one-day action but an entire long-term strategy of training your employees remotely. So, analyze your and their needs and prepare a list of required courses.
Collaborate Remotely
Social isolation is one of the main challenges when it comes to remote working. As a business owner, you can tackle this problem by introducing some collaborative working practices.
For any remote tech team to function effectively, regular communication is vital. We do not only mean communication regarding workflow and tasks for the day. This kind of communication occurs pretty frequently amongst the members of a remote team. What we suggest instead is communication regarding experiences and situations.
That is what you need to include in your remote training strategies. Create a plan of online conferences when your employees can share their achievements and accomplishments with each other. They can also use this as a platform to simply vent, share their pains, challenges, and day-to-day experiences with one another. A place where your team can gather and simply chat about their situations can go a long way in countering the effects of social isolation that remote workers face daily.
That is the main pain of remote work – team members only chat about the tasks and lose their time to discuss all other experiences. When you provide your employees with this time and way to communicate more, it can help you increase their engagement and motivation.
Motivate Your Remote Team
Remote employees find it difficult to motivate themselves if they are not in the office. Think about it, if you were working from your bedroom at all times, would you feel pumped about your work every day? That is why team leaders must take on motivating a remote team to achieve their goals and remain efficient at home.
You can do this in several different ways. You can bring in some skill coaches who can understand the mood of your remote employees and create a solution. Or you can do it yourself by providing regular motivational speeches online.
It is also essential for team leaders to regularly share their thoughts and provide timely company updates for virtual team building. It is one of the most significant ways to let your remote employees know that they are still an essential part of the company, even when they feel isolated at home.
How To Organize Online Training For Your Team
Dell, named as one of the “Most Ethical Multinational Companies in the World” by Covalence EthicalQuote, was one company that wished to implement a remote work program even before the Covid-19 crisis took over. This program, known as Connected Workforce, was implemented several years ago to move nearly half of Dell’s workforce to remote working by 2020.
How team leaders could use online tools and software to create an efficient business model enabled Connected Workforce to become widely adopted and massively successful over the years.
Hotjar, a company that provides analysis and feedback tools, successfully tackled the issues cropping up about hiring and training remote employees in their company. Building a sense of culture and camaraderie in the remote workspace was their ultimate goal for their remote workforce. Team leaders achieved significantly through several online training strategies, including developing a culture of trust through virtual recruitment strategies, special online projects, and awards.
Buffer, an app to manage social network accounts, faced issues regarding communication and feedback with remote collaboration. However, the company could resolve these issues quickly and efficiently by developing a strategy for day-to-day feedback and checkpoints to discuss quarterly feedback. Remote employees and managers were given a chance to connect and share their challenges through online tools and quick medium platforms. The success that Buffer was able to bring in with their remote teams is genuinely inspirational.
Elastic, a search company that provides various SaaS solutions, has a host of remote working employees spread worldwide. While the remote working practice was never a stated intention, it just so happened that the company turned remote organically over the years.
However, Elastic knew how to handle the remote working situation from the get-go. Right from the beginning, they invested in software and technology that would enable smooth communication and collaboration between their remote working employees. Having overcome restrictions regarding geography and physical space, Elastic has managed to up its talent acquisition game manifold.
After reading all of these success stories, you might be wondering about the kind of online training you should implement for engaging remote employees. Here are some possible training sessions that you can begin with:
Technical And Skill Training
Whether your employees are working from the office or working remotely, they will always need (and appreciate) skill training programs. Think of various ways in which you can make this enjoyable for your employees. After all, nobody wants to sit and listen to someone on their screen drone on for hours about technical problems and solutions.
Work From Home Lectures
Every employee wishes to learn new things and gain new areas of knowledge. Work from home lectures is the best way in which you can provide this knowledge to your workers. Again, you need to deliver these events in a fun and engaging manner. Make use of various tools and software that are available for remote training.
A brilliant tool that you use to provide memorable experiences and build strong relations with your employees is Eventtia. A unique online events platform, Eventtia provides team leaders with everything that they need to create an online event, starting from the registration process to measuring ROI. With tools such as Eventtia, you can connect people and businesses, scale up your online events and use real-time data and analytics to achieve results.
Soft Skills Training
Soft skills training is just as crucial for your employees as technical training. That is especially true for remote workers who face challenges with communication regularly. Create a regular meeting where your HR team or specialized lecturers can help your team evolve their soft skills remotely.
Wrapping Up
Don’t let your team’s efficiency and motivation dip down just because your company has gone remote.
There are several ways in which you continue to upskill your workers and boost morale online. Use the resources within your company (including your HR team) to develop training strategies and solutions necessary for your team. Regular online events such as communication platforms, skill training, soft skills training, and work from home lectures can go a long way in keeping your remote workers happy and motivated.
Understand how other companies have successfully implemented online events and try to implement similar strategies in your team. You never know, you might just be the next success story that makes it significant in the remote workspace!
Author’s bio
Iryna Bilyk is an expert content marketing manager who works at YouTeam – a marketplace for instant engineering team extension. She passionately discovers and writes about technology, innovations, and software development solutions.
