Among the twists and turns of 2020, businesses have been forced to adapt quickly to remote working. Running a remote workforce may have its initial challenges, but it also provides a number of opportunities for Learning and Development that will help your employees (and your business) thrive.
With remote working now becoming the norm for many organisations, it is imperative to continue to upskill and invest in your people through learning and development programmes in order to maintain engagement and increase performance.
Here are five tips that will help you make the most of Learning and Development with a remote workforce.
Prioritise vital learning and development
Ensure that your L&D plans make sense for the time we’re in. Begin by assessing what additional skills or upskilling your team will need in order to work more productively from home. These will vary according to your sector and your IT systems, but make sure that all your relevant teams are properly equipped to do their best work remotely.
Strengthen management skills
Remote teams need well trained managers. Particularly in the uncertain waters of 2020, strong leadership is essential. So focus a good amount of L&D on strengthening management skills to develop high performing teams remotely.
Make sure your leaders are fully equipped to delegate, manage and review work remotely, of course. And also work to bolster people-focused skills like communication, emotional intelligence and motivating teams.
Investing in your team leaders will reap dividends.
Flexibility is key
Just as working patterns have changed, in-work training and development also needs to adapt to your present situation.
Create (or curate) training material and courses that your employees can carry out flexibly, and create space to fit L&D around their workload.
Embrace the opportunities of remote L&D to streamline and adapt your training. If a previous course consisted of hour-long presentations or workshops, consider how you could split these into training modules for staff to undertake at their own pace.
Don’t forget the human touch
For all the talk of embracing systems and software, don’t forget that your team is made up of real human beings.
Check in regularly with employees, listen to their training needs and where they perceive skills gaps, provide encouragement and support where you can.
At 1850 we know that your people are the heartbeat of your business. We’ve created a series of HR Guidance documents, including flexible working and training and employee issues.
Available to purchase here
