Encourage employees develop both soft and professional skills using Ayris

In this technology-driven world it is important for companies to motivate employees to accomplish new skills and knowledge.

Employees are the company! They need to know that their managers genuinely care and are committed to support their professional advancement and even their personal growth.

Employee development is a long-term initiative, but it also leads to short-term benefits like increased loyalty and improved performance and engagement.

Max DePree once said: ‘We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are’. It is important to understand that success begins when we start growing personally and professionally.

One of the many ways to build soft and professional skills are:

• Professional Training – Employee training may be required to ensure competency and even excellence. Being excellent at what you do is very important, but passing on this excellence to new hires then creates an outstanding team. As previously mentioned, employees are the company, so having the best means being the best.

•Feedback sessions – Being interested in your employees and sharing with them positive and negative feedback shows concern. This way managers and employees, together, can fix issues and discuss future success and growth.

• Coaching – Being there when you are needed. Some employees may not have enough experience and telling them what to do may not be the right way. The more conceivable approach would be by setting aside time to show them the process they are struggling with. Every employee is different, therefore coaching tactics may change from team to team or even employee to employee.

• Develop ‘Soft skills’ – Teaching employees how to communicate and read body language is extremely important. When the team is in harmony and they have the correct communication, work gets done more efficiently and the achievements are immense.

By helping your team develop the skills listed, you are just one step away from growing and improving your business.

Ayris can help companies by:

• Allowing managers to assigning courses, submit tests or surveys to employees to help them develop personally or professionally.

• Help them create programs and establish gradual learning plan.

• Build beautiful courses using different course formats (including SCORM).

• Take advantage of corporate branding and own storage space!

Ayris is a clever way to check how your team is doing. To be productive and develop new skills it is important to constantly learn. Ayris can help managers to connect with their team’s results, development and to be aware of their team’s achievements. And most of all, Ayris can make your employees feel free and confident in finding their way to be better than yesterday.

Author: Mariya Ivanova

Five ways to expand your course reach and grow your learning audience with Ayris

Many learning organizations own and offer valuable content but often fail to present it in an attractive way.  As a result, organizations are unable to reach a wider audience and achieve the goals they are trying to reach. What are the tricks to increase your course engagement? Based upon the OutCons team’s years of experience, here are some suggestions below:

1. Browse trending headlines to select topics

Keep up to date with the most recent developments in your industry and always try to be one step ahead of your audience and the rest of the eLearning industry. People want to learn about what is new in their business niche. For instance, if they want to start trading Bitcoins, provide them with all of the relevant information about it – what they should know before they start, what to watch for, how to mitigate their risks, etc. You can always improve your existing course list. Just try to be in line with the ongoing trends and tailor it to your audience.

2. Customize your content by interest groups

While you are adding value to your course materials, why not study your selected audience a little closer too. Group your contacts by interest and create different groups for each one of your topics. Look for branches within your learning organization, areas of professional development, or self-improvement topics. This way you can differentiate your types of audience and create custom content grouping. Pick the suitable courses for each group so you can satisfy personalized learning needs. In cases where the content is required, make sure you make it as short and as effective as possible to it peaks and holds the interest of the required group.

3. Create original content and ensure it is visually appealing

Make your content attractive and visually pleasing. This is probably the most important thing in online education today. According to The Telegraph, people have shorter attention spans (because of massive usage of the smartphone), which only lasts for eight seconds. Yes, if you don’t catch the attention of your audience within this timeframe, you probably won’t catch it at all. Be creative and entertaining, improve and upgrade your learning materials constantly.

4. Work your groups

Managing your learning group is a process, not a one-time, set-up case. You need to be active and engaged with all participants. Start an industry related community and post information, start chats, update statuses about the nature of your learning content and create a community of learning.

5. Ask industry influencers for quotes

Quote people who have taken your courses in the past, especially if they are recognized as leaders in your industry or organization. You can get creative and use tools like Canva to improve the visual representation of the quote itself. Individuals like to be associated with famous and influential people, so if you know someone appropriate, don’t forget to contact that person for a quote.

Always keep in mind that you are not promoting just a course. You are promoting your services, your company and your brand. Make sure that you present your courses well and get closer to and work with your audience groups. Do not get in a passive mode. If you do your homework and create courses of interest to your audience, your audience will grow.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

How do you get your learners to focus on your content?

With so many distractions, staying focused on anything is a real challenge. At OutCons, we aim to change that and enable quality learning. Too many people get carried away by social media and their smart phone apps, which turn out to be a burden for lifelong learning and successful career development. One research suggests that the average person unlocks their phone 110 times a day! If we assume that a person’s day is 16 hours long, that accounts for roughly one smart phone pick-up every 15 minutes! And if all other activities the average working person has are added, it makes it very difficult for an educator to help someone learn, stay focused, and remember the learning material in order to implement it later.

How can you help your learners focus on the content?

1. Organize!

The key factor is the organization of the learning process. Make sure you establish an easy to understand schedule and course length. In our experience, breaking up learning into smaller chunks (5-10 minutes max) will help your learners focus and then get the break they are looking for.  A good distribution system (like Ayris) can help you distribute multiple chunks of learning, let your learners step away and then promt them to return through notifications and events. Within the calendar in the Programs menu of Ayris, you can schedule events for the upcoming weeks, months or even years. All you need to do is plan and organize the events, and Ayris will do the rest for you.

2. Set Goals/Gates

Set goals after each step of the education process. Setting an exam or questionnaire survey to supplement each course will allow you to keep track of learners’ performance and knowledge obtained. Engage all users by setting personal goals too. This will challenge the learners and they will be more willing to commit to the task and complete it.

3. Communicate the Schedule

Make learners aware of the time they need to accomplish the course.  If they are behind schedule, you have the option to send them a customized notification to proceed with the assignment when they can, by utilizing distribution tools like Ayris. All you need to do is be realistic about these time estimates and give students ample time to accomplish the course at their own pace. In this way, you will also have an indication of how committed the student is to learn and develop.

Many organizations we have worked with have giant libraries of content. One client we worked with had almost a one learning course per employee!  This client continued to post new courses in an effort freshen up their available courses, but failed to retire out dated content. This made it difficult for users to find new and releveant training. Distributions system make it so only the courses that are assigned to users are available to view.

Once your learners have gone through their program, allow for time to apply the learning and relax to prepare for the next challenge!