7 Features to Look for in Corporate Training Solutions

Over the past few decades, corporate training has evolved from "traditional" classroom-based training to technology-enabled corporate training solutions. In the digital age, corporate training no longer follows the "one-size-fits-all" approach that focuses on sharing knowledge among corporate employees.

Organizations can now customize their training programs according to their employee skills and knowledge. Besides that, employees can leverage a corporate online training system to track their progress using learning metrics. Despite the economic toll of the 2020 global pandemic, business enterprises increased their employee training expenditure from $17.7 million (in 2019) to $22 million (in 2020).

How do organizations support employee upskilling (or reskilling) to prepare for the future? Let us talk about 7 essential features to look for in a corporate training solution:

1. Easy and user-friendly

The most desirable feature in any learning solution is that the tool must be easy and user-friendly for different types of employees (including non-technical users). Lack of an intuitive interface is a major reason why learners switch to other training service providers.

To check if the training solution works for your employees, organize a product demo, or begin with a free trial version to make sure all users are comfortable with the solution. Further, the best corporate training tools must support bite-sized learning or microlearning methods that ensure continuous learning in your enterprise.

2. Seamless integration with existing learning systems

Typically, any organization will have many enterprise systems used to store and manage employee records, product information, or learning resources.

Any corporate training solution must be easy to integrate with existing systems including learning management systems (or LMS) or document management systems (DMS). For instance, LMS integration is useful for storing and delivering a range of learning content and resources to remote-working employees.

Similarly, DMS integration allows organizations to store training-related documents like work instructions, guides, and even learning modules. Overall, third-party integration creates an environment of collaborative learning and enhances the learning experience.

3. Mobile-friendly solution

Among the essential features of any modern corporate solution, the tool must be easy to use on any mobile phone or personal device. On its part, mobile learning improves learning engagement by 72%.

Mobile-friendly learning tools enable flexibility as employees can now self-learn at any time, in any place, and from any device. For instance, training courses can be accessed between (or after) working hours, or when traveling on working days. Additionally, organizations offering mobile-based training can ensure higher cost savings. They can also ensure that their employees continuously learn and stay updated about the latest news in the industry.

4. Supports gamification

Over 70% of corporate employees say that the use of gamification (or gamified learning) motivates them to work harder and improve their productivity. On the other hand, over 60% of users who go through non-gamified learning methods feel unmotivated or unproductive.

Gamification brings together the best of multimedia elements like videos, images, and assessment tools like online quizzes & competitions – that keep employees engaged throughout the corporate training program. Further, the use of gamification in corporate training recognizes and rewards consistent performers in the form of badges, leaderboard rankings, and awards. This encourages employees to complete the training and learn from it.

5. Advanced reporting

Any corporate training solution must have an in-built reporting system where managers or HR teams can track the effectiveness of the completed training programs. An advanced reporting tool can provide answers to questions like:

• Which training program is attracting the most employees?

• How much time do individual employees invest in an online training module?

• What bottlenecks are employees facing with the solution?

Ideally, corporate training solutions should enable organizations to customize their training reports to extract the maximum benefit from them and improve decisions about future programs.

6. Adequate security

Over 60% of organizations in 2021 have reported a data breach happening on their enterprise systems. No matter how feature-rich any training solution is, it should always be able to secure all training-related data from cybercriminals. Before choosing, make sure your training solution is packed with security-related features like data encryption, single sign-on (for online users), and proper access control to keep away unauthorized entries.

Further, the growth of a remote or distributed workforce (following the COVID-19 pandemic) has expanded the challenges of IT security teams, with employees signing into enterprise systems from different locations and using different devices and networks. Hence, it is important to be extra careful about data or information leaks.

7. Easy to configure

Apart from being easy to use, training solutions must be flexible and easy to configure for any organization’s training needs. For instance, enterprises must be able to add, modify, or remove courses based on learning needs and requirements, without creating any constraints for existing users.

At the same time, the best solution should offer effective content management, so that employees do not waste too much time looking for the right content, but instead focus their time and effort on gaining knowledge. Effectively, corporate training solutions must have the ability to annotate (or tag) learning modules so that they can be easily located by learners.

Also Read: Efficient Employee Training through eLearning

Conclusion

Be it for employee onboarding or upskilling, corporate learning enabled by digital technologies is the best way forward for organizations to improve workforce productivity and engagement. Before selecting the right solution, make sure it fulfills all your specific business and training requirements.

Now a part of BetterPlace, Oust Labs is a leading digital learning platform offering the best of corporate learning services. Powered by a microlearning platform, Oust Labs has helped business enterprises across the globe with services like onboarding, upskilling, and reskilling of a distributed workforce.

If you are looking for the best corporate training company for your organization, it is high time you get in touch with us.