Leadership and soft skills training are essential for organizations looking to remain Agile and retain talent in a highly competitive workforce. After all, they are the skills required to support talent development and human performance — which impacts organizational performance. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the job of human capital management more complex than ever; learning and development (L&D) leaders are being called on to digitize and deliver virtual leadership training to accommodate the work from home era.
Organizations need a solid remote learning and training strategy to remain competitive and attract leadership talent, and leaders need every opportunity to build the critical skills necessary for leading in the digital world. It makes sense that virtual leadership training is the future of delivering high-impact, human-centered learning programs. L&D needs a learning solution that can scale easily to support the growing need for leadership development and executive coaching, and virtual modalities provide L&D with the tools to provide consistent, relevant and flexible leadership training.
Let’s look at a few of the ways that virtual leadership training can have a positive impact on your leaders, managers and employees.
Scalable Solutions That Can Reach More Learners
Some companies are in a hiring frenzy. Despite the complications around COVID-19, last year, Amazon announced 33,000 openings for corporate and technology workers and even more for other positions. With the influx of new talent and the restrictions on in-person training, many organizations need to provide virtual leadership training to an enormous number of new hires. Luckily, remote learning provides scalable tools that can deploy training around the globe. With these tools, learners can experience a consistent learning program that the organization can update in real time to ensure knowledge and information are always relevant and timely.
Virtual Leadership Training for the Future of Work
In addition to leadership skills involving communication and collaboration, new virtual leaders must master working from home and managing remote teams. They need to support their team by bolstering their technology enablement and strengthening employee engagement and motivation.
Virtual leadership training gives leaders the opportunity to use the same digital tools and face the same challenges as their team. This experience builds empathy with employees who may feel overwhelmed by the new ways they need to use technology — for example, making a presentation using videoconferencing tools. In many cases, leaders are accessing virtual leadership training on the same platform that their team will be using in their day-to-day work.
Microlearning Adds Versatility
You already know that your leaders are strapped for time and would find it challenging to attend a live course, but you don’t want a busy schedule to detract from the critical training skills they need to succeed. Microlearning is a great strategy to deliver small, consumable pieces of training to busy learners.
Microlearning is ideal for training focused on specific skills or ideas leaders will need on the job. And, because learners can access microlearning on a smartphone or tablet, you can keep them engaged by delivering virtual leadership training right to their pocket. Since you can track, monitor and measure this learning, you also have easy insights into how learners are progressing and into the program’s success.
Video Learning Provides Flexibility
Video learning also enables you to deliver training asynchronously to give learners a flexible, self-paced learning experience. It’s also easy to create and update video to distribute new information quickly. For example, some organizations send weekly video messages from their chief executive officer to provide current information and updates about the company, which can also be an opportunity to model an organizational value of transparency and integrity. Leaders can benefit from the use of video as part of virtual leadership training, and it’s also a good idea to encourage them to leverage video in their own interactions with their virtual team.
Delivering Personalized Learning
Busy leaders don’t need the distraction of information or training that isn’t relevant to their work or career. Rather, they need training that aligns with their current tasks and needs. By leveraging learning technology such as a learning management system (LMS), you can deliver a personalized learning experience to your leaders. Rather than trying a one-size-fits-all approach, strategic, personalized training can address specific skills and knowledge gaps that persist in a leader’s day-to-day interactions.
Through an LMS, leaders can access virtual leadership training and other task-related resources when they need them. For example, managers can download a refresher on leading a team huddle moments before a meeting to help them remember the most successful ways to communicate, ask questions and listen.
We’re living in extraordinary times with great challenges. However, we’re also living in a time of enormous technological and learning innovation. There are many tools available to help you design high-impact training that you can develop at scale and deliver around the world. Now’s the time to learn more about how technology can support your long-term learning strategy.
Contact us to start on the path toward developing a virtual leadership training program at your organization. Together, we can identify skills gaps and implement a learning management system (LMS) to help support your leaders and your organization through these challenging times.
