Remote working and online conferencing have been a huge benefit to many, even if they don’t allow for in-person interaction. Anybody making the switch to the remote office may be wondering how they can still train staff and keep the entire team informed of new developments and up to date on their skills if they can’t meet up to do so. It is possible through the use of a video group chat with BlueJeans.
Remote Seminars
If you have a large number of people to instruct all at once or want to keep your entire remote workforce informed regularly, you can use online seminars for up to 100 participants. This is a great way to provide tuition or regular updates and provide an opportunity for people to socialize with each other and meet their new colleagues, which is an opportunity often lost when working remotely.
Provide the Right Tools
Mashable says that the very nature of remote working means that it is essential that employees have all of the tools they need and access to the information they require. They won’t be able to begin working until they do. Remote staff can easily use their own devices for working, but you can make things easier for them by providing access to your conferencing software, which is accessed through a web browser, and tuition in how to use it if people should need it. Using cloud storage also means you can upload and store all useful information for all relevant parties to access whenever they need to. You could produce a video tutorial in using the conferencing software, or any other tuition your team needs, save it to your cloud storage, and make it accessible for all new staff to watch at their leisure. If there is a change to a procedure or how a piece of software works, you can quickly and easily provide this tuition too. Your team will instantly be able to gain the tuition they need and will respect you much more for providing it to them.
Hands Off Education
Remote working means you will be leaving people to their own devices most of the time to complete their work at whatever time of day is best for them. This also means some degree of hands-off education along with tuition through the webcam. You can achieve this through providing the right education materials, as detailed above, and letting new hires complete them at whatever time is best for them. This will also prepare them for remote working and your work culture; doing some work while interacting with others and the rest on their own.
Screen Capturing
HR firm TLNT recommend using screen capturing for training new staff in using their software. This means live recording everything that is happening on your computer screen so that others on the virtual call can see it in real time, making for a great software training opportunity. It is much more effective than writing out a tuition sheet and relying upon still images or simply a spoken description. There is again the option to save this video and upload it to cloud storage to allow future new hires to view it, eliminating the need to give the same demonstration over and over again for every band of new employees.
Safety
Even if your new staff is used to computers and conferencing software, it is still worth going over safety procedures and how to prevent data hacks. It is still possible for conferencing software to be hacked and for sensitive information to be stolen or leaked. Make it an essential part of the training regime of all new hires and maybe hold a company-wide seminar on the subject to ensure that all staff understand the importance of online safety and are aware of what to do in an emergency.
Troubleshooting
Things will inevitably go wrong with software at times, even with the best systems, so it is also best to let new staff know how to troubleshoot their software if it does. This could be instructions on how to collaborate audio and video settings and recommendations to check internet connection speeds before each online meeting is scheduled to begin. This will prevent future meetings from being held up by fixing technical errors and ensure that everybody on the team knows how to fix faults in their software. Be sure to let them also know who to contact if there is a problem they can’t fix, how they can contact others if they lose connection, and what backups are to be used during emergencies.
Using these techniques and providing the right training materials will ensure that all new members of a remote team are properly trained in using their hardware, troubleshooting, and safety procedures. This will result in a productive workforce who can begin their remote work efficiently from the very first day.
Photo: @Crew