How To Increase Your Training Program Adoption With an Online Training Software

What’s the biggest motivation to invest in online training software? To effectively train your employees without the hassle of face-to-face sessions, right? But, what if your employees are still hesitant to attend training?

Worry not. In this article, we’ll share with you some potent tips to increase the adoption rate of your training program by maximizing the use of your corporate training software.

Tips to improve training program adoption via online training software

Let’s face it: None of your employees are interested in taking static online training nowadays. With the advancement in technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR), your trainees anticipate more than just text and visuals.

Here’s the good news: The employee training software (which you’re probably using already) is inundated with features that support interactivity.

Want more and more employees to participate in training? It’s time to implement an interactive online training program.

Here are a few ways you can make your online training more interactive:

1. Include an interactive component on every slide/page

You can’t build an interactive online training program without using any interactive components.

If you’re using slides/pages, the rule of thumb is to incorporate as many interactive elements as possible on every single slide or page. It could be something as simple as a button to make something pop up or a mere drag-and-drop functionality. The point is to encourage the user to take any action to proceed.

For instance, if you’re creating a course using PowerPoint, ensure that the user has something to do on every slide.

For more complex courses that need intermediate user interaction, you can use animated videos, tailored audios, and interactive imageries.

The lack (or absence) of regular interaction in online training in a way kills the essence of a fully immersive learning program. Remember, you want dynamic learners, not unreceptive viewers.

2. Leverage digital storytelling

Wondering what’s digital storytelling? It’s a fairly new terminology that means illustrating an individual’s ‘story’ via digital resources. And guess what? It’s the users who produce content for this method. However, the most important feature of digital storytelling is that it appeals to human feelings.

So, how to incorporate digital storytelling into your employee training program?

Use it to record workers’ day in the workplace, and then utilize that as content for your training. This can help you onboard new hires, and can also set the correct prospects for specific roles in the business.

Here’s another tip: Encourage your employees to record their learning themselves and include their experiences in your courses.

This can be as simple as sharing on social media, clicking pictures and making videos and posting them on the company’s intranet, or offering brief testimonials for the online training.

To make digital storytelling fruitful, these ‘stories’ must be seen, retrieved, and utilized as content in the training itself.

3. Make use of interactive 360° visuals

To make your training program more interactive, consider using interactive 360° visuals. Such visuals allow trainees to glance through the surroundings.

And, isn’t it what an immersive learning experience is all about? You can encourage your learners to take charge of their training environment.

Use interactive 360o videos to offer virtual expeditions and to depict working environments. You can also use them to make trainees interact with various characters in a scene.

This kind of interactive media is a great contribution of VR to the world of e-learning. So, if you’ve got any plans to implement VR in your future training programs, now is the right time to get more familiar with this technology.

4. Integrate a simulated training environment

The millennial workers are tech-savvy and hands-on when it comes to learning. Why not use this to shape your training program?

Provide your learners with an environment where they can easily practice all the skills they’ve learned without worrying about judgment or the fear of committing mistakes. Give your employees an interactive online training program that simulates a controlled learning environment.

Your employees can review and revisit such an online learning environment until they have become skilled at the training. Owing to the ‘safety’ of such an environment, it’s a great opportunity to show employees the probable outcomes of making incorrect selections – without any real disorder.

In general, a simulated online learning environment not only engages trainees more but also encourages exploration.

5. Formulate branching situations

Branching situations allow trainees to take control of how the whole training will proceed. They can change the training’s direction depending on the choices they make at specific decision points. And, every decision point impacts the tide of the whole training.

Visualize open-world, interactive, immersive games – that’s how your online training modules should go.

These branching situations make the training more like an adventure-type game, with different culminations and plots based on trainees’ selections. This way, your trainees are more engaged in learning. Plus, it’s a great way to evaluate trainees’ decision-making, critical thinking, and logical abilities.

Key Takeaway

If you really wish to increase the adoption of your training program, you should focus on increasing the interactivity of your online courses.

With an interactive online training program, you can enjoy several benefits. It improves exploration and when your trainees have the ability to explore their training environment, they feel more fascinated and keep coming back for more.

Plus, interactive simulations that are based on real-life circumstances offer better learning prospects than static lectures do. These kinds of situations give the trainee the opportunity to put training into practice.

Another huge benefit of an interactive learning program is that it allows your online training software to evaluate user performance instinctively and non-invasively. Evaluations for interactive training typically occur as decision points for branching situations, rather than formal examinations or assessments.