It’s no secret that good, strategic employee training can bring incredible benefits to an organization. In fact, a study from ATD showed that organizations that invested in training are, on average, 218% more profitable than organizations that don’t invest in training!
Training your staff should be an imperative, and the more effectively you train, the more effective your workforce can be.
However, you know that there can be challenges with training. Along with hesitant leadership, or budgetary concerns, one of the biggest challenges is finding training content that effectively changes employee behavior.
Modern Content Makes a Difference
BizLibrary’s collection of more than 8,000 videos uses strict criteria to define effective learning content. We create and curate content that is:
Short
Microlearning is the way employees today want to learn — training content should be around 15 minutes or less, and longer topics should be broken down into shorter segments that build on each other.
Engaging
Engaging content uses techniques that capture learners’ attention. While a typical training video might start out with a lengthy, tedious introduction, effective content skips these tedious elements, and gives the viewer a reason to watch.
Modern
Content should look refreshed and recent. Outdated content is distracting and detracts from the learning process. Modern-looking content sends a message to learners that training is important to you, and should be important to them.
To keep up with the pace of market demands, we have a team of content experts who monitor lessons within The BizLibrary Collection and work to identify what no longer meets our requirements.
Because of our relationship with more than 40 content producers, and our very own in-house production studio, filling gaps in our library can be achieved quickly, meaning the process of identifying, removing, and replacing soon-to-be outdated content is a seamless experience for organizations who partner with us.
Good content creates a learning ecosystem – employees begin to trust your training program as a source for new knowledge, and feel empowered to proactively build their skills because they’re confident in the content you’ve provided.
This effect not only brings a learning culture to your organization, but so many of the hardest parts of running a training program – marketing your program, proving its effectiveness, and bringing in results – all become significantly easier when your training content works for you, not against you.
The Plague of Poor Training Content
Bad or cheesy training content is so prolific that low-quality training videos have become a genre of their own on video sharing sites like YouTube. Here are some classics if you have time and want a quick laugh:
There’s a reason these videos found life outside of a corporate training setting – experiencing bad training is very common in the modern workplace, and the experience is so pervasive that millions of people now bond over it.
Outdated content damages the brand of your training program and gives training a bad reputation.
Strong training content, on the other hand, demonstrates that you genuinely care about your employees’ development.
You’ve taken the time to select engaging, relevant content, and that signals to employees the organization is invested in them – which happens to be a great way to reduce turnover, among other positive results!
What a Modern Training Provider Can Really Offer
Oftentimes, training content isn’t the only thing that is outdated about a training program.
In today’s rapidly changing marketplace, implementing a meaningful and progressive training program requires strategy, marketing, and proper implementation.
However, many content vendors have struggled to adapt to these market demands, and their support models are often clunkier and more outdated than their content or platform.
A good partnership between training program manager and vendor includes strategic support, and a vendor who is actively invested in the success of a training initiative.
Too often, we see content providers who act complacent within the marketplace and fail to innovate. However, a training program that’s meant to act as a catalyst for change within a company requires working with a vendor who provides flexible support and serves as a source of inspiration and innovation.
Vendor support can often be frustrating for program managers who need answers or have specific questions. Most support models include implementation, with little to no additional support, which means that program managers are on their own when it comes to marketing their program, developing goals for their training outcomes, or improving utilization of their content and platform.
We believe that a model that does not include strategic support increases the chances that training will fail to result in desired outcomes.
Instead of settling for simple account management, modern programs should be able to rely on their vendors to provide suggestions and personalized advice when it comes to their program management.
Instead of calling a generic helpline and being put on a wait list, a modern vendor should provide personal access to an actual person, who understands the unique challenges of your industry, organization, and program. Only with that personal relationship can your program benefit from a vendor partnership.
Without adapting to this modern, more strategic model, training initiatives are left spinning their wheels.
We can often attribute under-performing programs to some outdated, ineffective component with training – be it the learning platform, content, or strategy.
| What Isn’t Working | A Better Solution |
|---|---|
| Long, boring content that fails to capture attention. | Concentrated bursts of learning that focus on developing core concepts of a skill, and progressively build on those core concepts. |
| A clunky, slow, and outdated platform with a poorly designed user interface. | An intuitive platform that resembles consumer products which employees are familiar with, such as Netflix or YouTube, and receives regular updates and new features. |
| Limited or poor reporting capacity, making it difficult to understand how learners interact with content. | Robust reporting that delivers actionable data and can be customized to focus on entire workforces, separate departments, or individual employees. |
| Vendors who offer limited support. | A relationship with a vendor who is invested in the eventual outcomes of your training initiatives and offers strategic support to increase the likeliness that those outcomes are achieved. |
Modernizing Your Employee Training Program
For employee training and development that impacts today’s workforce, you need a solution that can help you reach your organizational goals, while catering to the specific needs of your employees.
The only way to accomplish this is through content and technology that scales with your organization, gets regular updates to remain fresh and relevant, and allows administrators to easily engage learners with content.
If you’re interested in seeing how BizLibrary ensures our content and platform are modern and effective, be sure to request a demo. You’ll get to see how a modern solution can make your life as a training administrator much easier – less headaches, more positive results!