Building Successful Custom Employee Training Programs

To prepare yourself to conduct a relevant and customized training program for your company, it’s important to do your research. This means gathering information in several key areas and making sure you have the right training platform. Echo360 and Echo360 have come together to redefine learning engagement for employee trainees that is especially effective when used for custom employee training. Continue reading to learn what to consider when planning a custom training program and how our programs, developed using our e³ philosophy that focuses on equity, engagement, and evidence can help.

Determine Specific Training Needs

The following resources can help you determine your company’s training needs as well as the specific employees that need particular training. Some training applies to all employees, while some training will apply to certain individuals, and researching the following will make it clear which is which.

• Company goals
• Job descriptions
• HR complaints – discrimination, harassment, overtime, etc.
• Legal obligations – OSHA, Department of Labor, etc.
• Company policy
• Employee records
• Performance data
• Observations
• Informal discussions
• Focus groups
• Interviews
• Questionnaires
• Skill tests or demonstrations

How to Motivate Trainees

Once you have used EchoPoll and Echo360 to create dynamic, custom, engaging content that will engage even the most reluctant trainee, it’s time to get them learning. Placing trainees in the courses they belong in is as easy as clicking and dragging their name from a master list into the course they are to take and setting the parameters as to how long they have to complete the course.

Most people prefer to be self-directed learners. They want to learn what they want, when they want, and how they want. People have their own style of learning and they are aware of what it is and how they best learn. Knowing this, you can easily encourage your trainees using the following motivators and allowing them to take it from there.

1. Personal achievement
   EchoPoll includes gamification features that work well to motivate learners of all ages, including trainees. Learners can earn completion or achievement badges that are displayed on their dashboards. Trainees can see each other’s badges so the element of friendly competition comes into play. Leaderboards are also available for specific training tracks that allow for further competition to be the best in a training section.
2. Social wellbeing
   EchoPoll includes features that allow trainees to work on projects together, which can enhance the learning of all types of learners, especially those who learn best by socializing with others or discussing content verbally. When you design custom training, you can put some or all of your trainees into these types of training modules depending on their needs.
3. External expectations
   By setting acceptable achievement parameters for assignments, you can force trainees to reach a certain level of accomplishment in order for them to “pass” the training course. This motivates them to do well the first time because few people will want to retake a course. However, if they do have to retake the course, the information will sink in even better the second time around.
4. Stimulation/interaction
   EchoPoll has features that allow you to embed quizzes, polls, and other interactive features that keep trainees’ attention constantly on the content being presented. When an employee knows they will be questioned every couple of minutes on the information they are learning, they will be motivated to pay close attention and remember what they are exposed to.
5. Assessment
   Using EchoExam, you can easily create end-of-unit or end-of-training tests at any level of difficulty you require. You can even create up to 26 versions of the same test so trainees aren’t tempted to share answers. Knowing that they will be assessed at the end of their training motivates trainees to learn and retain information so they can do their best.
6. Transference
   Trainees who know they are going to be using what they learn on the job are highly motivated to pay close attention to and remember what they learn so they can perform the tasks properly when the time comes. Using Echo360 to create videos of real-life scenarios where employees use the skills that trainees will be required to use gives trainees an opportunity to truly learn how to conduct the tasks that will make up their job once training is completed.

Your Custom Employee Training Program

Using EchoPoll and our other software, you can create the best custom employee training for your organization. To see what that might look like for your organization, contact us today for a demonstration. We’ll be happy to share the features that will help you create your best custom employee training program.