6 Ways Webinar Integration Improves Your Remote Employee Training

As organizations settle into the new normal, where working from home is a common and permanent option, questions arise around training these remote employees. An under-utilized tool for remote employee training is webinars and webinar integrations in your LMS.

What is a webinar?

A webinar is an online training format that is most similar to a large lecture in face-to-face learning — but webinars offer advantages that in-person instruction lacks.

First and foremost, a webinar offers a way to deliver instructional content to any number of learners, regardless of where those learners are physically located.

That sounds a lot like a videoconference, but a webinar is more than a simple online meeting, especially if your webinar platform is integrated with your LMS. Your webinars feature engaging tools to facilitate learner participation and collaboration, for example, and webinar integration with your LMS offers access to training resources and materials that extend and deepen learning.

Advantages of webinar-based training with your LMS

Webinars have several advantages that make them an ideal platform for some training needs. The advantages of an LMS webinar integration include:

• Scalability — Your webinar can instruct 10, 100, or 1,000 learners simultaneously
• Repeatability — Webinars can be recorded so learners can review them or watch them on demand; repetition builds knowledge retention and improves performance, and LMS integration puts the recording at learners’ fingertips
• Consistency — the same webinar (or recording) can be delivered to multiple groups or cohorts of learning to provide consistent training over time, a key consideration for onboarding training or meeting compliance requirements
• Interactivity — most webinar platforms offer multiple ways for learners to interact with the instructor or with one another, such as chat, shared white boards, screen sharing, polls with real-time display of results, and breakout rooms.
• Accessibility — anyone with a connected device can access a webinar; it’s easy to generate a transcript or translation using AI-based tools, too, making webinars accessible to a global audience

6 ways to leverage webinar integration in your training

The flexibility of webinars is easy to apply to remote employee training.

Onboarding in the era of social distancing

Onboarding training might have once consisted of face-to-face instruction where a cohort of new hires covered the basics together over a few days. No longer. With more people working remotely and even in-office interactions curtailed and distanced, face-to-face training is no longer feasible.

The webinar is your answer. The entire cohort can watch, ask questions, even chat with one another in small groups using breakout rooms and chat features. All the new hires will get the same information at the same time, setting them up to succeed in their new roles.

Or, if your new hires start at different times, you can use recorded webinars to provide training, rather than delaying training until you have a large enough cohort to justify bringing in an instructor or having to repeat training multiple times. You can even build webinar-based training into a learning plan that encompasses all of the training that new hires need. Your SmarterU learning plan can include LMS-based elearning courses, microlearning, webinars, and more.

Fill knowledge gaps in real time

Moving training on mission-critical or complex issues to webinars leads to more effective training for remote employees. Since they’re not on site, it’s hard to see what they’re doing and how — so it can be hard to spot knowledge gaps.

In a webinar setting, though, poll questions, group discussions, and simple activities conducted under the instructor’s supervision can bring those gaps to light. The instructor can see the error and adjust the teaching to remedy it, all within the webinar session. A recording of the webinar then allows learners to review the material on demand, reinforcing their learning.

It’s easy to track training with webinars in your LMS

With LMS webinar integration, you can manage enrollments and track webinar activity, making keeping accurate records of who’s been trained a snap. If learners handle their own registrations, no worries — the information is recorded within your SmarterU LMS.

Either way, you’ll know who was there and possibly even have a record of learners’ chats in the webinar as well as from any small-group discussions that occur in breakout rooms.

Having accurate records of learners’ training makes it easy to figure out what additional training they need to excel in their role or prepare for a more challenging step up.

Multimedia training is highly effective

Alternatives to webinars for remote employee training run the gamut from in-depth eLearning modules to printed materials or eBooks. A webinar can include a broad range of media content, though, and link learners to additional resources. And presenting content in multiple engaging formats holds learners’ attention and encourages their participation — which reinforces their learning.

Your webinar can include slides and videos, for example, to improve knowledge retention. And engaging learners in chat to answer questions, suggest solutions, or discuss ideas with colleagues further deepens their understanding and retention of the material. Leverage your LMS’s webinar integration to connect learners with related microlearning or eLearning courses, curated content, or employee discussions on related topics.

Foster continuous learning with webinars broadcasted on LMS

Regular webinars are a great way to encourage and model a continuous learning culture. Offer lunch-and-learns with remote employees to encourage professional development while engaging in a bit of remote team building at the same time, or launch a monthly leadership webinar series. Presenting relevant, interesting learning opportunities in a relaxed manner allows employees and company leaders to interact and strengthen their relationships.

Encouraging continuous learning via webinars offers an additional benefit — it encourages participation. Other strategies, such as on-demand microlearning, are equally adept at providing engaging, relevant, continuous learning. Where webinars gain an advantage is in the participation. Learners see their colleagues asking and answering questions, which can prompt them to join in more actively than an asynchronous or wholly self-directed learning format would.

Bring global expertise to your learners

Even when your organization routinely brought in instructors to deliver face-to-face training, logistics might have limited the options. A specialist in your field might not have been available to travel to your site or the cost might have been prohibitive. Booking that same expert for an hour or two, to deliver or record a webinar, may be more feasible and budget-friendly. Expand your learners’ horizons — and their knowledge — by tapping into the expertise of the top people in your field, regardless of where they are located.

Energize your remote employee training with a seamless webinar integration

SmarterU is integrated with several leading webinar platforms. Learn more about how webinar integration improves training outcomes by increasing engagement and offering learners more choices. Talk to an expert today — and leverage SmarterU’s webinar integrations to boost your remote employee training.