Blog

10 September 2020

Save time through automated training and learning

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If you are finding it even harder than usual to manage your corporate learning programme recently, you are not alone.

The effects of the pandemic, including scattered workforces, new reskilling requirements and an increased demand for digital learning has left 42% of learning and development (L&D) professionals struggling to cope.

But what if the time-consuming management aspects of L&D could be taken care of without your constant input? Better still, what if your system was smart enough to automatically identify and roll out suitable courses and materials to the right employees? 

For HR & L&D professionals, automated training dramatically reduces managerial and administrative workloads, freeing up valuable time. It can help make best use of employee time, too; by ensuring they have access to precisely the training they need, right when they need it - wherever they happen to be based.

Here’s a closer look at next generation learning automation in action.

It’s all about automation

Any management software system worth its salt will offer an element of automation. But by combining admin automation with the ability to create stronger learning experiences, Docebo’s market-leading offering goes one step further. It’s the reason why we partnered with Docebo for the creation of the iTrent Learning Management Suite (LMS).

Here are just a few examples of how best-in-class automation makes life much easier...

Cut down on routine admin

You can define specific rules and triggers in your management platform for key processes to be activated automatically. In short, set your rule, and the system does the rest. Examples include sending notifications to instructors when an employee has enrolled in a training session, managing location schedules and automatically removing a user from a course if they have been inactive for a defined period of time.

This helps you take care of management essentials such as granting employees access to the right materials, live webinar invites and communication with L&D stakeholders. These important yet admin-heavy tasks are easy to overlook if dealing with them manually.

Smarter enrollment

You’ve just created a new series of best practice training webinars. So, which employees should be encouraged to participate in them?

With a large workforce and a growing library of courses and training materials, there’s a lot to keep track of. With an automatic enrollment feature, you can define your criteria for enrollment and the system automatically matches employees with suitable courses for them at the right time. The system can then automatically invite or enroll employees on new courses, depending on the rules set by you.

Easier compliance

Are your fire safety officers due a refresher session? Is your group finance team keeping on top of professional certification requirements? With the right management system, you can manage all certification and mandatory update requirements across the business. Record expiration dates on the system to manage renewals. Always know when it’s time to complete the next retraining session, and auto-enroll employees where required.

Clearer visibility

A single, handy dashboard means less time searching for information and compiling reports. From here, you can schedule tasks for automated completion (e.g. adding new employees to the learning database and issuing reminders), delegate tasks and manage all your automated rules.

You can track how often materials are being accessed, monitor performance and attendance, assign employees and instructors to courses and set up alerts.

Employee training made easy (and more personal)

Does automation remove the ‘human touch’ from L&D? Not at all. In fact, with the right system, automation makes it much easier to deliver training programmes tailored to individual employees’ profiles, while also meeting the needs of the business.

Take the example of a new recruit. In an ideal world, their training programme should cover three areas:

  • The mandatory element: e.g. familiarisation with your cyber security policies and gaining proficiency on technologies necessary to carry out the specific role.
  • The professional development element: the type of training that helps the employee build on their existing competencies and perhaps advance within the organisation (e.g. learning a new coding language).
  • The personal development element: specific areas that the individual employee is interested in exploring (e.g. ‘people management for beginners’).

Automation helps ensure all three of these elements are covered. As a start, you can use an authoring tool to quickly and easily create guided tours and in-app help so that your new starter can find their way around unfamiliar technology and workplace procedures.

Once this essential onboarding is taken care of, you can use your auto-enrolment tool to offer access to some suitable natural next-steps career progression training.

Alongside this, you can schedule invitations for the employee to undertake the basic management training they have expressed an interest in. You might also want to configure your system to nudge the employee towards the type of material that will be a good fit for their profile.

In this way, the mandatory and discretionary elements of the programme are handled efficiently. And of course, at all times, you can quickly check in on the employee’s progress via your LMS dashboard.

Learning on Demand and Self-Study

For most employees, learning is something they want to do. But as LinkedIn highlighted, the number one reason why employees are not engaging in workplace learning is because they don’t have the time. 

Typically, employees want the ability to dip in and out of your learning materials in bite-sized chunks and at their own pace. And especially when it comes to finding their way around unfamiliar processes and technologies, they prefer to learn at the point of need.

So whether they are working their way through a pre-recorded webinar, completing an on-screen tutorial or checking their progress via a quiz, you should aim to actively encourage this flexible approach.

The right LMS should be accessible across multiple platforms, including laptop, mobile or tablet, with progress saved automatically. It’s seamless, user-friendly - and it makes it much more likely that the training will be successfully absorbed.

Next steps: build better learning experiences AND save time

The new iTrent Learning Suite covers all of this and more. It puts automation to work to free up your time and to enable you to create the type of engaging, personalised learning experiences your employees deserve.

It comprises a complete LMS solution for you to host, track, optimise and scale up your corporate training programmes. There’s optional access to our iTrent Authoring and eLearning Tool, making the creation of on-the-job learning material easier and quicker than ever before. Alongside this, there’s seamless integration with our iTrent, allowing you to create comprehensive profiles for each employee, giving you a clear overview of an individual’s training history and progress.

Want to discover more? 

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