Tips & The 20 Best Remote Training Tools for Employees

Updated on January 30, 2022

With the recent focus on remote work and the increased prevalence of distributed teams, businesses have been hard at work, devising new strategies and introducing new tools to maintain employee productivity within remote work spaces. As ground-breaking as some of this progress has been, these innovations haven’t completely bled into remote training just yet.

Whether you're recruiting interns or a senior manager, it's crucial to provide every new employee with an effective onboarding process and intuitive learning experience. Thankfully, well-developed virtual training tools and a well thought out onboard process go a long way to getting your recent hires up to speed quickly.

Get this right and your recent onboards will hit the ground running, entering the remote workforce with a toolkit packed full of all the skills they'll need to succeed.

What are Remote Training Tools?

Remote training tools (RTTs) are technology-based solutions that can be used to train people remotely.

RTTs have become essential in an increasingly globalized workforce, reducing the need for face-to-face time with new hires and providing a more flexible and cost-effective option for remotely based businesses and distributed teams.

They can be used for on-demand real time training sessions, online courses, as well as training courses that are delivered over a period of a day or more.

Why does Remote Training Matter?

Apart from getting new hires up to speed with the remote tools they need to carry out their jobs effectively, a remote training program also familiarizes new employees with the remote workplace culture, best practices, and company expectations. While training remote employees, they will have a chance to meet their coworkers and start building stronger relationships with their new work-based community.

Remote onboarding and online learning also helps new recruits engage with your company and better help them understand how they can contribute to your team's workflows.

What Makes Remote Employee Training Difficult?

Lack of engagement

As great as remote working and mobile learning tools are for verbal communication, remote employee training and onboarding limit nonverbal communication. And unlike in-person onboarding, remote onboarding makes it more difficult for your employees to feel a tangible connection to the organization or team.

‘Cause let’s be honest, it's much more difficult to pick up on social cues through a mobile device's screen.

Not only that, but you also can't interact with new hires and oversee their progress as you would when sharing the same office space. In a remote setting, team-building events are also limited, making organic bonding less of a common occurrence.

These difficulties mean the likelihood of trainees disengaging with the training is a risk you may have to mitigate.

Technical hurdles

Remote training requires a touch of technical setup. At the very least, your employees will need a computer and high-speed internet connection. They might also have to install different software to join the training, access various learning materials, and communicate with their coworkers or mentors.

Unlike a traditional office space, an IT team can't be there physically to set everything up. So unless your new hires are tech-savvy, you may have to first train them to use various software tools and help them set up their new work station.

Technical glitches, including power outages and internet downtimes, can also plague a remote onboarding process - so be prepared for that.

And unlike the office, you won’t be able to provide new recruits with a dedicated workspace. Instead, it's up to them to find a quiet corner in their living space to take part in the onboarding.

A task that some new hires can find quite difficult to achieve.

6 Remote Training Tips

So, what's the best way to overcome the aforementioned challenges of remote or virtual training and onboarding?

Let's see.

1. Ensure New Hires Are Appropriately Set Up

New hires transitioning from a traditional workspace often have a steep learning curve in front of them. The various tools they need to get acquainted with, the hardware that's involved, and the challenges of working from home can make for some serious shifts in the way they approach their work.

To help make the move easier, hiring managers should ensure that new hires are appropriately set up with access to IT resources, instructional material, and applications. The most common technique is to provide the new hire with an introduction to using these resources. They may be given directions or meet with someone who will show them how to use the tools they need.

And although it is possible for the organization to automate this process via an email or web-based notification, it is best done through a collaborative session that will allow them to both observe, contribute, and ask questions.

2. Remotely Recreate Traditional Workspace Experiences

As we've discussed, working remotely can limit the in-office experiences that many professionals come to enjoy in a traditional work setting. With this in mind, an effective way of recreating in-office experiences is with the help of remote learning tools like a videoconferencing or co-browsing software.

A video conference would enable employees to take part in virtual face-to-face meetings. Although, going one better, a well-developed co-browsing software, like RemoteHQ, will help to enhance collaboration and communication through the use of live chat, document sharing, and interactive, collaborative sessions.

3. Track progress and refine the elearning experience

For best results, it is a good idea to make the training content you are using a blended learning experience. This can be achieved by introducing assessments, quizzes, tutorials, and live webinars that your new hires can work through. This will vary the training experience and make it more engaging, while introducing touch points throughout the workflow that you can use to track their progress.

Regular check-ins are also helpful for getting a read on your employee's progress. They can help you further refine the learning experience by revealing which formats, modules, and training platforms deliver the best results.

4. Make documents accessible for everyone

In a traditional in-person office space, if a new hire doesn't have access to a piece of material they need, they simply walk down the hall and ask for it. To fix the same issue virtually can often require lots of back-and-forth. The solution is to prioritize permission granting and file sharing from the get-go.

With that in mind, be sure to get your permissions sorted out early.

There's nothing more frustrating for a new hire than to run into a wall of permission not granted notifications. It halts their progress through the training materials and can add to serious delays - particularly if the supervisor and the learner are in different time zones.

5. Keep the virtual meetings small

Virtual meetings are great. The entire experience can be recorded, and, after the fact, any notes or document sharing can be referred to as often as necessary.

Although virtual meetings aren't without some limitations - perhaps the biggest headache being group size.

For that reason, limiting the size of your virtual meetings can be tremendously beneficial. Within appropriately sized groups, participants can interact with each other and exchange questions and answers, rather than relying on the team leader to dictate who can speak and when they can do so.

6. Be open to feedback

Employee feedback can help to improve remote training by identifying and correcting any deficiencies in the content, design, and delivery of the training. The results of a training session can be measured before and after the intervention in order to assess whether any improvements are needed.

Feedback from the employees may also lead to changes in the course structure or even module content. This helps provide learners with more applicable knowledge that they will actually use while transitioning into their full-time roles.

What are the Best Remote Training Tools?

Here are a few different remote training software for onboarding new employees and cultivating a cohesive remote work culture.

Video Conferencing Tools

Creating an easy to navigate online workspace is the key to successfully onboarding new employees. That's why it's essential to use a virtual meeting platform to keep all your employees on the same page.

Your video conferencing software should offer essential features, such as screen sharing and video recording, as well as file sharing. Make sure it integrates with other software, such as cloud storage services and project management tools like Trello, that your employees will use. Look for advanced features, such as shared browsers, which will allow for multiplayer co-browsing, as well. This will help elevate the onboarding experience.

Consider these solutions:

1. RemoteHQ: an all-in-one remote collaboration tool with shared browser technology that lets you turn any website or web-based application into multiplayer mode.  
2. Zoom: provides an all purpose secure, convenient, and affordable way to meet, share, and collaborate on remote training with remote teams. It includes a free version that hosts an unlimited amount of meetings, with up to 100 participants, for 40 minutes at a time.
3. Microsoft Teams: a collaboration platform based in Office 365 that combines video conferencing with screen sharing, shared editing and group messaging so teams can connect and collaborate more efficiently.
4. WebEx: you can instantly communicate and collaborate with anyone in the world through voice calls, videoconferencing, and web meetings.

Learning Management System (LMS)

You can't effectively conduct online training without first investing in a reliable and feature-rich LMS. Think of it as the one-stop destination for hosting all your learning platform training modules and study materials. Many modern LMS also provide you with their own video conferencing tools. Commonly used LMS include:

• TalentLMS: An easy-to-use LMS for companies of all sizes.
• SAP Litmos: Comprehensive enterprise-grade LMS.
• Moodle: An open-source learning management system.
• Mindflash: Employee onboarding, training, and virtual classroom tool.

Email Automation Software

Employee training isn't just about enabling your employees to excel at their job. You need to make them feel connected to your company's values and vision. That's why most organizations send a series of onboarding emails to new recruits before their first day of work. You can start with a simple welcome message followed by more detailed emails focused on company culture and their role. It's also helpful to send first day instructions for setup.

This means you should use an industry-standard email automation platform to send timely emails. It'll eliminate the need to send multiple emails and provide you with various pre-designed templates to create eye-catching content. You can choose from an array of popular email automation platforms, such as:

• Mailchimp: A freemium email marketing solution.
• ActiveCampaign: An email marketing solution for companies of all sizes.
• Campaign Monitor: The perfect platform to drive your email marketing efforts.
• MailerLite: A great email marketing tool for SMEs.

Communication Platform

From video conferencing tools to instant messaging apps, you must use an array of software solutions to facilitate uninterrupted communication at the workplace. This is even more crucial when you're remotely onboarding new employees.

Use a communication tool to help remote workers connect with their coworkers and seek help in case of any problems. Here are best in case options:

• Slack: You can create different Slack channels based on discussion topics to help with this. Additionally, you should create casual channels and encourage your employees to do so as well. These can help them engage among themselves on topics other than work and make them feel like they're a part of a community with similar interests.
• Microsoft Teams: if your organization is already actively using Outlook and other Microsoft products, then Teams brings all the features into one communications platform.

Also, make sure you use video conferencing software, such as Zoom or RemoteHQ, to create a semblance of face-to-face interaction.

Project Management Software

A crucial part of remote training and onboarding is to let new recruits easily collaborate with their other team members. They'll have to work on a few assignments with other new hires as part of the training. Or you might assign them to a project right away. In either case, make sure you use an intuitive project management tool. Here are some of the best in case examples:

• Trello: A Kanban board with additional functionality. It's great for basic tracking of an employee's remote training process and is flexible enough for modifying the training for each person.
• Asana: It's great for scheduling all of your projects, collaborating and completing projects. Plus, you can even add notes to the schedule and make suggestions.
• Monday: The interface is beautiful, intuitive and easy-to-use, if you used similar tools before you will be at ease.

Conclusion

Onboarding new recruits is crucial for creating a positive employee experience and ensuring that they do their best work. However, remote training and onboarding create new challenges for entrepreneurs and HR managers.

Fortunately, you can use a collaboration platform and the right communication tools to make the process easier - boosting your team's overall productivity and increasing the retention rates of newly hired professionals.Are you looking for the right tool to create an online collaborative workspace or deliver effective training to your employees? Explore the features of RemoteHQ and get in touch with us to get started.