A team in Chicago chimes in on a lively discussion in a real-time chatroom, brainstorming solutions with colleagues in London who are just starting their workday. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, another team member uploads a video tutorial they created to the shared workspace, instantly accessible to everyone.
This isn’t just a vision—it’s the potential that your organization can uncover with the right remote training software.
The right software will help you deliver an interactive, enjoyable, and personalized training experience to your team regardless of their geographical location.
But with so many options available, how do you make the right choice and create a training program that truly engages your employees? Learn how to leverage remote training for team development and explore some tools that can enhance your team’s remote training experience.
Leveraging remote training for team development
Remember those days when remote work wasn’t as common? COVID-19 flipped the script, making it a way of life for many and forcing workspaces into virtual collaboration.
But here’s the twist: Remote work might have been a necessity at the start, but now it’s a strategic advantage for companies. In a McKinsey & Company survey, about 50% of C-suite executives reported improvement in individual productivity, team productivity, and employee engagement after the shift to remote work brought on by the pandemic.
It’s worth investing in remote training to build a thriving organizational culture, whether you have a remote or hybrid team. Doing so will help you train team members and managers in skills required to thrive in a remote workforce, including giving and receiving feedback through regular one-on-ones and peer reviews, communication using project management tools, and seamless collaboration with platforms like Loom, Google Workspace, and Slack.
So, how can your company leverage remote training to build a stronger, more connected team? Here are some tips:
Foster a culture of continuous learning
Focus on upskilling, creating a growth mindset, and encouraging your team to take ownership. Make sure you offer learning opportunities through webinars, training videos, online courses, workshops, and mentoring programs.
Prioritize soft skills
Technical skills are essential, but it’s the soft skills that hold remote teams together. Even the most skilled software engineer who can code complex algorithms will struggle if they can’t clearly convey project requirements or updates to coworkers.
Train your team for better communication, collaboration, and adaptability, helping them thrive in a virtual environment. Conduct regular workshops on effective communication, use tools like Slack and Trello for teamwork, and promote flexible work practices, like adjustable schedules and regular check-ins, to adapt to shifting remote work conditions.
Invest in team-building activities
Virtual team-building activities can be just as effective as in-person ones because they foster connection and teamwork despite physical distance. Think virtual escape rooms, online trivia nights, or even virtual coffee breaks. These interactions help team members bond, understand each other’s strengths, and develop better collaboration skills, ultimately reinforcing a sense of camaraderie, building trust, and cohesion within the remote team.
Make remote training engaging and easy to consume
Your remote employees should find it easy to comprehend and consume training materials. Use asynchronous video communication tools like Loom to quickly create and share video-based training content, allowing employees to learn at their own pace.
Create Training Videos for FreeMeasure and track progress
Use data to track the impact of your remote training initiatives. Measure engagement, knowledge retention, and performance improvement.
Remember: Remote training isn’t a one-and-done deal. It’s an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring and evaluation, so you can adapt to your team’s current and future needs.
Capabilities: What separates good remote training software from bad?
Not all remote training software is created equal. Here’s what sets the best platforms apart:
Interactive learning modules to make lessons memorable
Remember hands-on science experiments or interactive museum exhibits? They stick with us because they engage our minds. The same principle applies to remote training platforms.
That’s what interactive modules help you achieve—helping you make the passive learning experience more engaging. It’s the difference between your remote team watching training videos passively versus actively and, ultimately, how well they retain that information.
Here are some simple ways to make your remote training more interactive:
- Mix it up: Make sure your remote training platform offers various interactive elements, including self-paced courses, Q&As, quizzes, video conferences, and assessments, to cater to different learning styles.
- Provide feedback: Your platform should let you provide immediate feedback to reinforce correct answers and guide further learning. For example, if a trainee does well in a sales module, you can record a quick Loom video praising their performance and linking to resources to deepen their knowledge. You can also share this personalized feedback with your entire team.
- Gamify the experience: Motivate learners by incorporating rewards, badges, or leaderboards.
Take Duolingo’s gamification experiences, for instance:
The language-learning app gamifies the learning process with interactive exercises, quizzes, and rewards, making it fun and engaging.
Real-time feedback mechanisms to ensure accurate topic understanding
According to Emma Harrington, assistant professor at the University of Virginia, remote workers receive 20% less feedback than their in-person counterparts. Delayed or outright lack of feedback can make your employees feel disconnected and frustrated.
Remember those agonizing waits for test results back in your school days? The feeling of uncertainty can hinder productivity.
That’s why you need stellar remote work software to guide your team like a virtual mentor, answering questions and celebrating wins—regardless of the time zone.
Timely feedback helps reinforce correct answers and prevents your team from getting stuck on the same issue for days on end.
Pro tip: Even with time-zone constraints, use Loom to provide feedback to your team. Your team members can conveniently view your personalized feedback on their own time.
And Loom isn’t just about communicating outside of scheduled meetings. If you need to explain a complex topic, you can use Loom to walk your team through step-by-step processes, ensuring clarity even for those who may not be available for a live meeting.
Scalability and accessibility: Consistency as your team evolves
Your team is expanding. New hires are joining, roles are evolving, and everyone’s learning curve is steep.
To keep up with your company’s changing needs, your remote training software needs to be as dynamic as your team. It should also be easy to use and accessible to your entire team, regardless of their technical skills or location.
So, what should you look for to ensure your training platform is suitable for your team? Here’s a quick checklist:
- It should be cloud-based—accessible anytime, anywhere.
- The dashboard should be user-friendly and intuitive.
- It should be customizable.
- It should be mobile-friendly to make learning convenient on the go.
- It should integrate with the tools you already use.
These features will ensure that your training platform delivers a consistent learning experience for your entire team, no matter where they are.
1. Loom
Looking for a fresh, intuitive approach to remote training? Enter Loom, an online screen recorder that makes remote training simple yet engaging.
Loom makes sharing information in a remote or hybrid work environment as simple as sending a quick email but with more context, clarity, and personalization.
Loom’s simple interface, interactive features, and instant sharing options make it a standout choice for delivering engaging training content.
There’s no need to fuss with complex settings and editing, either. Loom offers AI-powered editing tools, including filler word removal that eliminates the distracting “ums” and “ahs” from your training video.
Whether onboarding new employees, explaining a complex concept, sharing company details, or simply welcoming a new team member, Loom helps you create engaging training content that is easy to record, store, and share.
Features:
- Screen and webcam recording: Capture your screen, face, or both to create engaging training videos.
- Instant sharing: Share your videos with a simple link or embed them in your learning management system (LMS).
- Viewer insights: Track who’s watched your videos and how much they’ve watched so you can measure engagement and identify areas for improvement.
- Interactive features: Add comments, emoji reactions, annotations, and even calls to action (CTAs) to your videos to make training more interactive. You can also add tasks at specific moments in the video.
Pros:
- Loom automatically stores your videos in its built-in library, making them easy to access and enabling seamless alignment and knowledge sharing.
- Anyone can create professional-looking training videos with a single click.
- You can record your Mac, PC, and even your mobile screen.
Cons:
- Loom lacks more advanced editing and gamification tools for employee training.
- It’s not a full-fledged remote training platform.
Pricing: Loom offers a free plan. Paid plans start at $12.50 per user per month when paid annually.
Create Training Videos for Free2. 360Learning
Imagine a remote training platform where employees are teachers, learners, and coaches simultaneously. That’s what 360Learning is all about.
It’s a collaborative LMS that helps your team create courses, share expertise, and learn together in a social environment.
Features:
- Social learning: Help your team tap into collective learning using forums, Q&A sessions, and online discussions.
- Gamification elements: Incentivize and make remote learning fun with rewards, badges, leaderboards, and challenges.
- Analytics and reporting: Track user statistics like time spent in courses, average score, and progress to assess course effectiveness.
Pros:
- The platform is intuitive and user-friendly.
- It encourages collaboration within the team, which is even more effective for remote and hybrid workspaces.
Cons:
- It might not be suitable for organizations that need a more structured, top-down remote employee training program.
- It can be expensive for small businesses.
Pricing: Plans start at $8 per registered user per month. You can start with a 30-day free trial.
3. Seismic Learning (formerly Lessonly)
Seismic Learning is a cloud-based LMS designed to help businesses of all sizes create, deliver, and track employee training programs that adapt and evolve over time.
Seismic’s learner-centric approach sets it apart, with interactive knowledge checks and instructor-led training.
Features:
- Interactive learning: Create customizable learning paths and interactive sales courses, and make learning fun with real-life scenarios and video recordings.
- Peer-to-peer feedback: Empower your remote team to communicate freely, receiving and providing feedback to colleagues and managers.
- Analyze and measure: Measure the results from your training to improve your knowledge base and scale what’s working.
Pros:
- Drag-and-drop tools and templates let you create visual training programs.
- You can create interactive and gamified remote training programs.
- The user interface is intuitive for both admins and learners.
Cons:
- There’s no freemium plan or free trial available.
- The gamification features are relatively basic.
Pricing: You’ll have to contact their sales team for pricing.
4. BrainCert
Are you looking for a robust training platform to handle all your training needs, from live virtual classes to self-paced courses to assessments? If so, BrainCert could be the training platform for you.
This unified approach helps you streamline training workflows and the overall training process. It also allows you to market and sell training courses from the same dashboard.
Features:
- Live virtual classroom: Host live sessions with features like screen sharing, whiteboarding, HD video conferencing, live polls, and breakout rooms.
- Gamification: Keep your remote team motivated with certificates, badges, leaderboards, and rewards.
- Interactive assessments: Keep your training engaging with quizzes, assignments, multimedia content, question banks, and detailed analytics.
Pros:
- BrainCert offers an intuitive interface and interactive training modules.
- It’s suitable for both small and large organizations.
- Native integrations are available with popular tools, like Zoom and Zapier.
Cons:
- The volume of training features can be overwhelming.
- The e-commerce features are overkill for businesses simply looking to train their remote team.
Pricing: BrainCert offers a free plan that is available forever for up to 10 learners. Paid plans start at $36 per month when billed annually.
5. Arlo
Arlo is a cloud-based training management platform that streamlines all your training operations, from creating training programs and delivery to team management and tracking progress. Arlo’s unique selling point is its approach to training management, which covers the entire training life cycle.
Features:
- Live online training: Leverage built-in video conferencing to deliver live training sessions.
- On-demand learning: Give your team the option to take self-paced online courses with interactive content.
- Reporting and analytics: Track your team’s progress, engagement, and course effectiveness.
Pros:
- Arlo allows you to handle courses, workshops, and events from one dashboard.
- It comes with a modern, intuitive interface.
- Multiple delivery options, like live or on-demand learning, cater to different training preferences.
Cons:
- It can be expensive for small businesses.
- It may take some time to understand all the features.
Pricing: Plans start at $179 per month when paid annually, and you can start with a 14-day free trial.
6. SC Training (formerly EdApp)
Want to make training engaging and convenient for your remote team? SC Training, a mobile-first LMS, helps you create and deliver bite-size lessons directly to your team’s mobile phones.
Features:
- Ready-to-use courses: Choose from over a thousand pre-built training programs based on your industry. These courses are gamified, mobile-first, and editable.
- Interactive learning: Incorporate interactive elements like videos, quizzes, and gamified assessments to make training fun.
- Create with AI: Enter a topic, related keywords, and a course summary, and it will automatically create a course for you.
Pros:
- You can send push notifications to your team’s smartphones, reminding them to complete training on time.
- Its mobile-first approach makes it suitable for on-the-go training.
- You get to choose from a vast library of predesigned courses.
Cons:
- Customization options are limited.
- The mobile format might limit your in-depth training modules.
Pricing: It’s free for up to 10 users. Paid plans start from $5 per learner per month and are billed annually.
7. Cahoot Learning
Cahoot Learning is a cohort-led learning platform where teams across time zones can collaborate, solve problems, and learn from each other. It’s like a virtual classroom where everyone has a front-row seat, where discussions flow freely, and learning happens naturally through real-time interaction. That’s Cahoot Learning in a nutshell.
Features:
- Live virtual classes: Host real-time training sessions, allowing your team to ask questions, share ideas, and engage with the trainers and other team members. You’ll also get access to features like whiteboards and screen sharing.
- Interactive polls and gamification: Keep learning lively with polls, badges, rewards, and points.
- Session recording: Record training sessions to review later or share with team members who couldn’t attend them live.
Pros:
- Real-time interaction and gamification make team training highly engaging.
- Cahoot helps you eliminate proximity bias and build community in a remote setting.
Cons:
- Teams spread across multiple time zones will need to coordinate around real-time sessions.
Pricing: Contact the Cahoot Learning team for pricing details.
Reach your team members anywhere, anytime
The best remote training software is the one that fits your team’s unique learning style and goals. It should also make remote training fun, motivating, and engaging.
If your remote team prefers real-time interaction and group collaboration, you can go with Cahoot Learning.
If you’re looking for a simple and scalable solution to create engaging asynchronous training videos for a team spread across different time zones, Loom could be your ideal solution.
Ready to create engaging remote training content that your team will actually enjoy? Get started with Loom for free today.
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