The creation of business training courses is an undeniable trend in the labour market. Both large and small companies now create their own training programs.
Every corporate academy aims to increase business profits by enhancing employee knowledge and incorporating new methods in the workplace.
A platform that creates corporate programs from scratch, Lectera.com, shares with you the best practices on how to design your own courses that will improve your business results.
TIP 1. SEGMENT YOUR AUDIENCE BY BUSINESS TASKS
For instance, maybe you need to boost the efficiency of a specific department or create a work environment that promotes employee ideas, or improve work processes. There will likely be separate tasks assigned to separate teams of employees. It is necessary to identify these tasks, formulate 2-3 hypotheses regarding each (“We assume the translation of workflows into a new app will interest such and such an audience, since …”) and present them to the managers.
TIP 2. EXPLORE HOW THE AUDIENCE RECEIVES THE INFORMATION
Corporate communications play an important role here. Select 2-3 employees from the selected segments and observe how they consume information, what method of memorization works for them, what they enjoy in training, what they dislike, and why. With this information, you can set the minimum program requirements and begin building your road map for students.
TIP 3. BREAK THE BUSINESS PROBLEM DOWN INTO SUB-OBJECTIVES AND CREATE A MAP TO ACHIEVEMENT
Say you’re transferring the workflows of a part of your employees to new software. Most progressive employees, including the majority of those (and you are lucky!) who switched to it on their own, are already part of this service. Those who remain “laggards” will be your students.
First and foremost, they need to understand why the company wants them to use new software, and why the company is not happy with the way it works now. You need to help them get used to the new app, set up channels for them, and transfer their files to them. Present through presentations, group calls, or face-to-face seminars, help master the interface, create channels, and transfer files through guides or Zoom workshops.
Similarly, you should decompose the actual business problems. The more options there are for achieving intermediate goals, the easier it will be to design a course.
Let’s say you are transferring the workflows of a part of your employees to new software. Most progressive employees, including most (and you’re lucky!) Who switched to it on their own, are already part of this service. Those left “behind” will be your students.
TIP 4. DESIGN A LEARNING JOURNEY MAP
The “road map” of the student is a kind of skeleton of the course. An accurate map will contribute to the development of a high-quality program.
- Which are the essential things to remind when making a learning journey map?
- The basics. The what, whom, why and how of teaching.
- The introduction. What the course is about, how it works, where it is located, and how it should be completed. It should be as simple as possible.
- The training format. How students will take lessons and tests, how you will check and assess homework assignments.
- The control points. How will you monitor student progress, what are the deadlines?
- Working together. Students will remember information better if they work in groups, carry out projects together and analyze cases together.
- Committing to changes. How do students get involved? What skills do they need to acquire? What information should they find out? How will you know when they have achieved their goal?
- Maintaining knowledge and skills. The course must be put to use in the workplace – otherwise, it can be considered useless. Make sure the skills students learn are relevant to their daily lives.
TIP 5. SELECT AND ADAPT THE CONTENT
At the very least, the material should be checked for relevance, and then small details not mentioned in the sources have to be clarified by experts. Be sure not to limit yourself to the first search results on Google. Try searching in different languages, use scientific databases. You can only consider the content search complete if the information you gather answers all your questions.
Adapting the content means arranging the same meaning in different words and ways for different audiences. Let’s say that you are explaining how to add the “On Vacation” badge to your Slack profile. You can create a presentation, a PDF guide with screenshots, or a video screencast – the students can choose which is more convenient for them.
The experts at Lectera, who are experienced in setting up corporate universities within large organizations, believe that starting a course without clear answers to these questions is at least short-sighted. Corporate training can be challenging to develop in-house. If your organization does not have a dedicated T&D department, you can always ask for help and advice from corporate training providers.
