Top 5 Effective Ways To Train & Onboard Remote Employees

Remote Workers Need Corporate Learning Opportunities

Remote work has gained enormous popularity in recent years. In response to this shift in the workplace, employers are moving to update their processes and tools to interview, onboard, and train candidates from afar. 

A recent study of over 800 HR professionals shows that 94% of HR departments have seen an increase of productivity since their workforce started working remotely. This means that more companies than ever before see the value of remote workers, and many companies will make a push towards a remote workforce in the future. 

Since both employers and employees benefit from remote work, it’s crucial that managers responsible for onboarding and training new hires recreate the in-person experience in a virtual setting to ensure remote workers feel valued, accepted, and part of the team. 

But when an employee is remote, they may miss out on these key experiences and feel like they are an outsider looking in. Therefore, the techniques you use to onboard remote workers can make or break their experience. 

Take a look at the benefits of providing virtual training and onboarding experiences for remote workers and some of the best practices to ensure your employees feel like an essential part of the company, even from their home office. 

Benefits of eLearning for Online Training and Onboarding for Remote Employees

Onboarding is essentially the cultivation of new hires. This process takes your employee from “new hire” to part of the team. It’s time for human resources to communicate important information and managers to gauge the training needs of the new crop of employees. 

This can present a challenge for new employees working remotely, as they may not be afforded the same team-building opportunities as an in-person hire. 

You will need to ensure that your eLearning content strategy is geared towards the needs of your remote workers. 

When done correctly, virtual onboarding will enhance the new hire’s productivity by increasing their motivation and job satisfaction. 

Using an online learning platform to onboard and train remote employees can offer many benefits to new hires. 

• Improves Employee Engagement 

• Offers An Accessible Way To Learn New Skills  

• Helps Them Quickly Learn The Company’s Management Style

• Provides The Opportunity To Adjust To The Company’s Culture 

• Understand The Online Channels For Questions, Feedback, and Work-Related Issues 

• Communicates Expectations Efficiently 

You can use many of the onboarding practices you are familiar with for remote employees as well. However, some gain new importance when you are working with a remote team. 

Let’s examine the best practices for successful remote employee training and onboarding. 

Five Best Practices for Corporate eLearning and Onboarding

For your new remote employees to live up to their potential, you will need to facilitate good communication from the start. It’s essential that they feel like they are part of the team decision-making process to prevent isolation and disengagement. 

High-quality interactive learning solutions are essential to bridge the gap between in-person and remote employees and improve employee retention. 

Here are five of the best practices you can use to improve corporate eLearning for remote employee onboarding and training.

1. Have A Clear Process For Online Training And Onboarding

Typically, your goal for employee onboarding is to provide a warm welcome and give them tools for success. When working with a remote employee, you need a more detailed list of what you hope to accomplish to prevent details from slipping through the cracks. 

This means you will need a clear vision of what steps to take before and after the training and onboarding process. 

Once you have found the best way to organize your process with remote employees, you can continuously use this routine to add more remote workers to your company. 

2. Streamline Your Process With An Online Learning Platform 

When working with employees from a distance, it’s vital to offer a user experience that is easy to use and effective. If you don’t make it easy for participants to access the online courses, it will damage morale and render your training ineffective. 

A learning management system, or LMS, offers a central location for everything you need to onboard and train new employees. Using an LMS cuts out travel costs, site rentals, and printed learning materials. 

Your remote employees can access resources entirely online, which is convenient for them and cost-effective for your company. 

An online learning management system offers intuitive features that are helpful to both employers and remote workers. 

• Content And Event Catalogues 

• Preconfigured Event Templates 

• API Integration 

• Custom Dashboards For Users And Administrators 

• Audience Workflow

Many learning management platforms are also mobile-friendly, meaning remote employees can access the eLearning courses from any mobile device. 

This improves the functionality of digital learning and offers easy access to learning tools during and after the training process. 

3. Make Introductions “Face-To-Face”

 Even though remote work has its benefits, employees still crave face-to-face interactions. Eye contact and social cues allow remote workers to make connections and feel as though they are valued team members. 

Host a virtual event, like a real-time corporate gathering, to make introductions and help remote employees put a face to their new teammates. 

You can increase engagement by offering social learning opportunities that incorporate gamification and networking experiences into the learning process. This makes the learning environment inviting and practical. 

4. Use Microlearning To Divide Onboarding And Training Into Steps

Starting at a new company is overwhelming, especially when you are working from home. Managers must find new and engaging ways to ease the transition for new hires while offering high-quality training content. 

Microlearning is a holistic approach to corporate training because it allows participants to complete training content in relatively short learning units. It allows for mobile learning, fast content delivery and provides a flexible learning experience. 

By delivering learning content in OnDemand, bite-sized chunks, you will also increase knowledge retention and engagement for participants. 

5. Make Corporate Learning An Ongoing Process With Virtual Training Programs

Your company’s online training platform will come in handy after your remote employees have completed their initial corporate training modules. 

Offering upskilling and enterprise learning opportunities will keep your remote employees sharp and their skills up to date. You can offer this content OnDemand with engaging webinars or in real-time through online meetings. 

You can even create a hybrid learning program to bridge the gap between employees working from home and those working from the office, which will improve your company culture and create a united team.  

eLearning Is The Future Of Corporate Training

If you’re a company that relies on remote employees, it’s crucial to create and implement an onboarding and corporate training process to help them feel like part of the team. 

You can use these five best practices for your business to keep in touch with their new remote hires while they are getting acclimated so you can retain talent within your company. 

Partner with BeaconLive today to get started! We will work with you to create practical training courses that help retain talent within your company while not sacrificing quality in service delivery. 

Our design team, event planners, operators, and technical support staff will offer successful content delivery for your company’s eLearning needs.