Online training offers companies an efficient and flexible way to develop their employees' skills. For online training to be as effective and functional as possible, it is important to identify and address the most common challenges associated with it. This blog post discusses the most common challenges in online training and provides easy solutions to overcome them.
Engagement and motivation
Lack of commitment and motivation can affect learning outcomes
Employee engagement in online training plays a crucial role in achieving good learning outcomes. A lack of commitment can lead to poor learning, slow progress in courses, or even course dropouts.
Increase interactivity and incentives to maintain high engagement and motivation
Online training can be made interesting and motivating with a few easily implementable practices. Interactive, focused, and clear content motivates and inspires learning. Pay attention to the structure and diversity of the training material. Courses divided into smaller chapters and paragraphs encourage the users to continue learning more than long text passages. Interactive elements like polls and discussions keep learners active. Varied content, such as tasks, images, and videos, motivates and maintains interest better.
Offering incentives like bonuses for completing training or clearly demonstrating how training can improve career opportunities can increase employee motivation. Often, simply knowing that their supervisor sees the training performance and their effort to develop their skills acts as an incentive for the employees.
Gamification, such as interactive tasks like quizzes or team work, and immediate feedback, like automatically graded assignments, make learning fun and competitive, helping to engage employees in completing the training.
Certificates can also be awarded to the employees as recognition of their effort and the skills they have learned.
Functional technology
Technical challenges as obstacles of smooth learning
It should be noted that there might be employees who have never taken online courses before or those who are not used to using computers. This can reduce their enthusiasm for participating in online training. Not everyone may have access to the necessary technology either.
Technical issues, whether with devices or the platform or the material’s functionality, can cause problems. How do employees cope with technical issues, is there someone to help them, or do they have to manage alone?
The platform's functionality must also be considered - is the chosen platform user-friendly and easy to use even for those not accustomed to technology? Consider also the accessibility of both the platform and the material. Is the material designed for studying on a computer? What if someone studies on a phone, does the material work? How does the material work for example for the hearing impaired or those with learning difficulties?
All these factors - a new, unfamiliar technical environment, technical issues, material accessibility - can negatively impact the learning outcomes. If something doesn’t work or if the user doesn’t know how to do something, it can lead to frustration and loss of motivation. If the user doesn’t have access to the online training platform due to lack of necessary devices or inaccessible material, participation in the training can be completely prevented.
A user-friendly platform and instructions on how to use it go a long way
Choose a reliable and user-friendly learning platform, and provide technical support and instructions for using the platform. Organize trainings that teach the employees how to use the learning platform to lower the threshold for its use. Encourage and help as needed and make it clear to employees where to seek help if problems occur. Ensure that the platform and its material are accessible, for example, by adding subtitles to videos.
Content customization and relevance
Content that is not relevant to the employees does not motivate
Relevance and personalization are keys to effective learning. If the training content is not directly applicable to the employee's daily tasks, it does not motivate them.
Create relevant content that meets the employee's needs
Identify what content is relevant to the course participants and whether they can apply what they learn in their daily work. Conduct needs assessments and create tailored learning paths for different roles and departments. Utilize the experiences of trainers and educators, as well as analytics, to identify the individual needs of employees and tailor the training content accordingly. Also, request feedback on course content.
Time management and scheduling
Challenges in time management
If the employees cannot find enough time to complete training or don’t know how to manage their time effectively, the completion rate of the training may drop.
Allocate time for participating in training
Help the employees manage their time effectively and encourage supervisors to allocate specific time for employees to participate in training and complete online courses. Implement learning material in micro-learning paths consisting of short, focused learning sessions - this way learning can progress even in short moments. Allow flexibility in schedules and let employees participate at their own pace.
Measuring effectiveness
Difficulties in measuring the effectiveness of the learning platform
How to measure the effectiveness of the training? Is the learning platform effective enough? Monitoring and evaluating training are important but can be challenging to implement.
Clear goals and KPIs for measuring training effectiveness
Set clear and measurable learning objectives. They help ensure that your online training is targeted and effective. Clearly state, for example, in the course introduction what the learning objectives are and what the participant will be able to do after completing the course. In the end of the course, you can ask whether the learning objectives were met.
Choose the right KPIs (key performance indicators) to monitor the impact of the training and make necessary improvements. You can for example track participation rates and measure how many employees participate in and complete the training, or the pass rate of the training, i.e., how many employees pass the training at the required level.
Ensure that your learning platform is effective enough and provides this information - for example, with Vuolearning, you can efficiently track various analytics from course completion rates and user progress to platform usage rates.
Continuously collect feedback on the quality, content, and usability of the training to improve the training process.
Learners may be anxious about the new method
Learner resistance
Learner resistance to adopting online training can be a significant challenge affecting the success of the training. It is important to find out what is behind the resistance - why and what are the learners resisting? Is it difficult to learn to use the new platform? Is the material poor? Do they not understand why they should study?
Communication and involvement
For training to be successful, it is crucial that the employees understand the value of the training. Clearly communicate the benefits and significance of online training to the employees. Teach them to use the platform and provide ongoing training and support for using the learning platform. Clear roles for who guides and is responsible for the use of the platform are important.
Involve learners in developing training programs and ensure that the content of the training programs is relevant to the employees.
Lead by example and participate in the online training yourself. When you lead by example, employees are more likely to consider the training important.
Building a learning community
Lack of community
Social interaction is an essential part of the learning process, and a lack of community can weaken the learning experience. Studying alone can be difficult or feel lonely for some employees, and it can be hard to find motivation.
Promote community with forums and collaborative projects
Use discussion forums, social media groups, and collaborative projects to promote a sense of community and cooperation. Encourage participants to engage in peer learning and information sharing, and organize virtual events that increase the sense of community.
Identify challenges, develop strategies, and overcome challenges
Online training involves challenges, but they are usually things that can be solved with small tweaks. Employees may stress about new things but usually want to develop their skills and learn new things. By investing in diverse and relevant content, guiding employees on how to use the platform, and communicating the benefits of the training, your company can achieve excellent learning outcomes and effectively develop your employees' skills.