In response to the uncertainties presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, many organizations switched to remote work and asked their employees to work from home (WFH). With employees at home, businesses needed to ensure that new hires were trained adequately and existing employees were kept up with company policies. And so, with the adoption of a work from home model came the increased adoption of remote training techniques by companies as well.
Training, in general, has always been and still is extremely important for both quality assurance and employee retention. In 2020, 87% of millennials and 69% of non-millennials considered career development to be an important part of a job, and 94% of employees say that they would be more willing to stay in those corporations that prioritize and invest in employee career development.
During the pandemic, training was even more essential. Businesses had to adapt to the new circumstances and keep employees motivated and prepared to deliver quality work.
In 2020, 82% of organizations conducted their compliance training online in response to the lockdown.
"Remote working and training is now fully accepted in business, and ways to train and develop employees remotely came into a renewed focus as a result of these unprecedented events," said Kim Jones, AVP Digital and Solutions Marketing from Kandy, a cloud-based, real-time communications platform, and division of American Virtual Cloud Technologies (AVCT). "Companies realized the benefits technology and distance learning can have are endless with tools and solutions that offer real-time access to data only continuing to improve the role of technology in remote training."
One emerging technology businesses use to conduct their remote training is Communication Platforms as a Service (CPaaS).
A CPaaS is a set of communications APIs and SDKs that let businesses and developers integrate features like telephony and messaging into the software.
Entirely cloud-based and software-driven, it caters to application developers and product owners who need to tap into exciting digital and mobile features without having to build or locate any of the expensive (and complicated) physical network infrastructure. Basically, a CPaaS solution lets you turn devices and apps into communication tools.
"By leveraging Communications APIs and SDKs, it eradicates the need for users to communicate within channel-based silos for instant messaging, web conferencing, text messaging, voice calling, and other forms of communication," said Jones. "Solutions, such as Kandy's Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS), will leverage APIs and SDKs to upgrade remote training, in both quality and efficiency."
CPaaS gives organizations of any size the power to deploy new technologies at a fraction of their typical complexity and cost. One crucial advantage exists in the CPaaS solutions' ability to deliver smooth, quality video chats between the trainees and instructor.
Voice applications with IP-to-IP voice calls, SIP Trunking for PSTN calling combined with high quality, low-latency video with scalable resolution gives businesses the ability to communicate clearly in real-time with their employees, ensuring there are no misunderstandings due to poor connection.
CPaaS also includes collaboration abilities, allowing for co-browsing screen sharing and WebRTC voice and video, enabling a truly immersive, collaborative training experience to drive employee satisfaction and retention.
Some CPaaS offerings include an array of unique chat and messaging options, giving employees a quick and complete file, document, or any form that needs to be passed between instructors or other employees during training.
"For some industries, remote learning doesn't really promote hands-on learning, unless the work is of course from home, it's important to make sure visuals can be used effectively and efficiently during training, so employees get a sense of what is going to be happening," said Jones. "CPaaS solutions, such as Kandy's, provide interactive one-on-one and group chat with presence, address book, enterprise directory and file-sharing of pictures, videos, and files."
While the last twelve months have seen a huge shift in the world of work, it did bring a rise to remote working. Remote learning isn't merely a backup plan for the pandemic, as it's set to become a permanent potential improvement for training moving forward.
"The impact technology has had on training has been too significant to turn back from remote training now, as the flexibility for both business and employees are just too great," said Jones. "And with technology only continuing to improve, more technological adoptions will be brought into to optimize remote training."
Edited by
Luke Bellos
