As the world continues to navigate the aftermath of the pandemic, remote work has emerged as a game-changing solution. Although remote work has been in existence for years, the pandemic catapulted it to a whole new level.
Now, companies are not only embracing the hybrid and remote work model but also considering making it a permanent solution. According to data from Zippia, 16% of companies are fully remote, and up to 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely by 2025.
Working from home has many benefits, including improved work-life balance, less commuting time, and increased productivity. But as these jobs become more commonplace, the challenge becomes promoting learning opportunities for remote workers.
When employees stop learning, they stop improving, become complacent, or worse, start looking for their next job. Eighty percent of employees rank professional development and training opportunities high on their priorities when job seeking.
Promoting continuous learning empowers your workforce, helps you reach your business goals, and shows team members you’re invested in their long-term success.
Create Communities and Social Learning Experiences
Learning shouldn’t happen in silos, especially with team members in different locations. Learning is a process that occurs in social settings, and social interaction can drive curiosity and motivate individuals to learn.
Social learning offers several benefits, including:
- Helping learners stay engaged
- Increasing retention when employees learn from each other
- Leveraging a natural way to learn; social learning is already happening in your organization through observation and interaction, so you can easily create more social learning opportunities
- Unlimited job posts
- Low, flat membership fee
- Access top-level remote advice
- Unlimited resume searches
- Reach the right candidates
- And so much more!
- Promoting a sense of belonging amongst team members
Discover a better way to recruit remote talent
Founded in 2007, FlexJobs is the most experienced remote & hybrid hiring platform.
There are several ways to incorporate social learning in the workplace, including Zoom breakout rooms; lunch and learns; sharing learning content or activities via Slack, Teams, or other messaging platforms; Q&A sessions; job shadowing; mentorship; collaboration, and more.
“We eat lunch together virtually, and one employee, who has created a presentation on the details of a project they’re working on, gives tips to help coworkers understand another side of the company and perhaps be more effective at certain tasks,” Vladimir Gendelman, Founder and CEO of Company Folders, Inc. says.
“For example, our email marketer recently gave tips on improving the effectiveness of emails by creating engaging subject lines, something our customer service reps might not know a lot about but will help them in future communication with clients.”
Get Learners Involved
Employees will be more motivated to pursue learning opportunities when involved in the process. So, communicate with employees about what they want to learn and how they learn best. You can do this through anonymous surveys, polls, or feedback forms.
“You want to maximize adoption, and that’s harder to do when everyone is remote,” says Jen Scopo, WorkRamp’s Instructional Design Manager. “So, figure out what they’re most interested in and use that as a starting point to get them most engaged and focused.”
No one has time for busy work, so ensuring employees understand the purpose of what they’re doing or learning is vital. However, when training seems like another item on a never-ending to-do list, it can decrease motivation and retention.
“Once you show them this is a good use of their time, strike while the iron is hot, so to speak,” Jen says. “You want to focus on engagement and ensure everyone sees the value in what they are learning.”
Make Learning Interactive
While remote work has several benefits, it can also cause isolation and boredom. As a result, it’s essential to make learning stimulating and interactive to promote participation, engagement, and retention.
“Online learning may become a bit boring, especially if all content is prerecorded,” according to Karolina Kijowska, Head of People at PhotoAiD. “This can lead to employees not paying attention and, as a result, quickly forgetting the material. Recordings lack what makes the knowledge stick, practice, and experience. That’s why we incorporate as many interactive elements as possible, including quizzes, games, simulations, and hands-on activities.”
Try these strategies to make e-learning more interactive, engaging, and effective:
- Use a variety of content types, including videos, podcasts, games, images, and virtual activities
- Leverage microlearning and break up longer courses or sessions into sections
- Gamify learning to make it more exciting
In addition to incorporating interactive elements, giving employees opportunities to use learning in real-life applications is essential.
“Look for any ways you can to encourage learners to revisit the content in an applied setting,” Jen says. “This helps learners recall the information and also gives them that self-awareness that puts them in the application mindset of how to apply what they’ve learned in their specific role.”
Incentivize and Recognize Employee Learning
Employee recognition helps team members feel supported and valued in the workplace, leading to higher engagement and productivity.
Just as you can use recognition and incentives to promote performance, you can also use both to motivate employees to pursue continuous learning opportunities.
“We motivate remote employees to pursue continuous learning by rewarding them for their efforts,” Simon Bacher, Cofounder of Simya Solutions, shares. “For instance, we give them an allowance or incentive after completing a course with topics highly relevant to honing their core knowledge and upgrading their business-critical skills.”
Other ways to recognize and incentivize learning include:
- Providing company-wide shoutouts in messaging platforms or during All-Hands meetings
- Awarding certificates or badges employees can share or display on social profiles
- Promoting friendly competitions or challenges to complete training or earn a high score
It’s also important to show employees how pursuing ongoing learning and development will help them improve in their current role and how it can help them achieve their professional goals in the future.
Managers should meet with team members regularly to discuss career development and which resources or learning opportunities employees can pursue to reach these professional goals. This could mean anything from learning content, courses, and training materials to matching employees with experienced mentors or coaches.
Learning is the ultimate growth engine to empower employees to do their best and help team members feel challenged, motivated, and valued in the workplace. With strategic planning and the right combination of e-learning methods and materials, you can ensure remote employees never stop learning and improving.
Maile Timon is WorkRamp’s Content Strategist. She has over 10 years of experience in content marketing and SEO and has written for several publications and industries, including B2B, marketing, lifestyle, health, and more. When she’s not writing or developing content strategies, she enjoys hiking and spending time with her family.
Don't forget to share this article with colleagues!
