Skills Development Archives - Page 2 of 2

How Can Managers Increase Employee Retention?

When it comes to employee retention, nothing is more important than a good manager. In fact, it’s often noted that workers don’t change companies, they change managers. This trend is applicable across almost all industries, too.

Take, for example, Google, which is already a pretty unconventional company. But it seems that was intentional, as founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin laid out in their founder’s letter.

Truly world changes come from visionary leaders like Larry and Sergey.

Managers reflect your company’s culture and are often the first line of defense when it comes to determining a team’s success. That’s why it’s so imperative that you focus on developing the leadership skills of your managerial team.

So what skills make a manager effective? At Google, it seems they tend to focus on the “3 C’s”:

Coaching

This one was obvious. Managers who can coach produce the most effective and successful teams.

Communication

Whether verbal or non-verbal modes, this skill is key to ensure teams are aligned and able to move forward.

Collaboration

There’s been much ado about collaboration over the last few years: and it’s no wonder. When managers bring teams and workers together, they are able to increase output and problem-solving while also increasing employee happiness. That means your best team performers will stick around longer, boosting your employee retention rates. Read more about measuring business impact due to employee collaboration.

Common Enterprise Video Learning and Adoption Myths

It’s no secret that many people turn to video learning when trying to acquire a new skill. In fact, on Youtube alone, 1 million learning-related videos are uploaded and accessed 500 million times every day.

Enterprises often explore the possibility of implementing this format for their own corporate training but persistent myths surrounding video learning make some offices apprehensive about the technology. Many of these arguments were formulated before the development of advanced equipment and the video online support that we have now. Let’s bust these one-by-one.

“Video is Too Expensive”

Back in the days when shooting a video required big, heavy, very costly equipment that only video experts know how to use, this was true. Now, there are endless options for video recording and playback options, thanks to advances in modern technology. Smartphones have become powerful enough to create edit, and broadcast high-quality video content.

“My Team Won’t Be As Engaged If We Use Video Learning”

It’s a common misconception that video learning promoted individualism over group learning, something that has been addressed by online platforms by offering video conferencing and interactive webinars. Now, learners don’t have to miss out on opportunities to learn from colleagues, while also collaborating and building social connections with each other. By platforms like CircleHD take this one step further by enabling further engagement through quizzes and other knowledge checks in video content.

“Video Won’t Allow Me to Control the Pace of Learning”

The idea that learning with videos is fast-paced may have come from the fact that visuals are processed 60,000 times faster compared to plain text. Content paired up with images is also easier to remember because information goes straight to the long-term memory. Video courses allow employees to access the content at their own time and go through lessons at their own pace. They can pause the video and even playback a section as many times as they need to fully understand the lesson.

“Video Takes Up Too Much Bandwidth”

Many enterprises are concerned whether their internal networks will be able to handle the bandwidth requirement of video courses. There are concerns about the videos causing networks to slow down and get saturated. Truth is, it will take a thousand simultaneous views to cause problems to a network segment. Uploading video content to the internet requires compression which makes it easily accessible even by the lower bit rate wireless connections.

At CircleHD, we understand how video learning can help you achieve your employee learning and development goals. We help set up your system so that video content is easily uploaded, shared and streamed by anyone within your organization. Videos are searchable and accessible even on mobile devices. Book a demo with us and we will show you how video learning can transform your employee training for good.

Using Video Role-Playing for More Effective Sales Training

This bit of military wisdom not only applies to actual war, but to business as well. In any endeavor, proper preparation and training are the keys to success. And in the cutthroat battlefield that is sales and marketing, the more prepared and trained your sales and marketing representatives are, the more money they make. And of all the myriad methods of training available today, nothing is perhaps more under-utilized or maligned than role-playing.

“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat.”

Sales training utilizing role-playing techniques – when done the right way – is one of the most effective methods of preparing your staff for any situation and any customer. Properly conducted role-playing sessions can sharpen your staff’s skills and significantly increase your sales volume. In particular, video role-playing combines the effectivity of actual role-play with the reliability, knowledge-retention appeal and reusability that is inherent in pre-recorded video learning material.

Introduction and the “Swiss Army Knife” Video

Most potential sales situations will involve customers who have at least a mild interest in availing of your products and services but need that last push of persuasion to see the value in your offerings and convince them to finally open up their wallet. In most such cases, a well-scripted “swiss army knife” role-play video that depicts the “usual customer” that will enable your staff to practice the knowledge they have learned in your onboarding resources is a good way to kick off learning using video role-playing.

Situational Videos and “Leveling Up”

Aside from the “general role-playing training”, you can also utilize video solutions for specific situations, using your staff’s innate skills, characteristics and quirks to emulate such customers or situations. Perhaps, one or two of your team members excel at being bitchy or irate? How about another team member who’s a stickler for the smallest of details? Another one may be the lawyer-type who loves using his or her opponent’s arguments against them. Still, another one may be an expert on “non-commitment”. All of these situations can be captured and stored on video for repeated training sessions. And once all these initial scenarios become “easy mode” for all your staff, you can tell them to construct more difficult scenarios to role-play and learn from. This way, everybody improves and your staff actually develops the sense of anticipating the most difficult scenarios possible in every encounter. Subsequently, everyone will be prepared to deal with even the most nightmarish of situations, quite possibly turning a losing encounter into a buzzer-beating sales victory!

Critique Role-Playing Videos

Evaluating a live sales training role-playing session right after it finishes is a good way to learn. But people are bound to miss some of the details that can sometimes make-or-break the sales pitch. One of the major advantages of video-recorded role-playing training is that they can be repeatedly evaluated by you and your staff down to the smallest of details to pick out which areas to improve. This is similar to how pro sports teams go through film sessions of past games (and even of opponents’ games) to get every possible advantage in future match-ups.

Importantly, the goal of the critique should not be punishment, shaming or calling out “bad” performances. Rather, it must be seen as a way to improve your performance by trying to improve the – as sports coaches love to call them – “little things that matter”. After all, business is a professional sport in its own right, and to become a champion you need to be the best.

Centralize, Organize and Share the Wealth

A centralized platform, like CircleHD, enables content creators, corporate executives and managers to make all their video solutions readily available and accessible in an organized manner, within a secure digital environment. This means that all of your sales training role-playing videos can be just one click away anytime and from almost anywhere.

Schedule a demo with us now and unlock your sales team’s potential with the power of video platforms.

Should You Choose a Learning Management System or Video Platforms for eLearning

eLearning constantly evolves to adapt to the changing needs of the organization and its learners. Once upon a time, a Learning Management System (LMS) was enough to handle all your training needs. But since video has become an integral part of corporate learning, the LMS deemed quite inadequate.

If you’re still contemplating whether getting a dedicated video platform is worth it, this list will help you decide.

Many Learning Management System’s are not designed to handle video requirements

Sure, there are LMS that support video but when it comes to features and functionality, they are very limited. Since LMS cannot support large video files, there are often bandwidth issues and no HD video capability. It also has compatibility issues with different devices and video conferencing tools. If you require on-screen video capture or live streaming of lessons, you’ll probably need a more powerful video platform.

A Learning Management System is not conducive to social learning

Video learning encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing among peers and colleagues. By recording and sharing his own video, an employee will be able to contribute his own inputs/feedback to the learning system. Retiring subject matter experts can also use video to capture their institutional knowledge which will be stored and be shared with generations of employees to come. An LMS won’t be enough to handle the creation and sharing of videos and therefore would limit your social learning potential.

A Learning Management System does not support video analytics

If you want a more comprehensive analysis of your employees’ viewing behavior, you’ll need an upgrade from your LMS. A separate video platform not only tracks whether a video is clicked but also whether the videos were watched until the end. Knowing at which part of the video the learners stop viewing will help course creators tweak the course content as needed.

A Learning Management System cannot build interactive video features

Games and other interactive features such as tests and quizzes make video courses more fun and engaging for learners. LMS cannot make these modifications due to its limited video support capabilities.

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A Learning Management System is a good reliable platform for your corporate learning. But if your e-learning modules are heavy on video content, you might want to get a dedicated video platform. Not only will it be able to provide all your video requirements and customizations, but it also manages video-related issues way better.

How Employee Collaboration Impacts Your Business

Employee collaboration is important for any organization. Not only does it help foster better company culture, but it can also help a business become even more successful. While there are no hard KPIs for employee collaboration, these are some areas teamwork can positively impact.

Expertise Specialization

Often time, collaboration empowers employees to become experts on the specific subject matter. Not only does this help their professional growth, it benefits the company to now have someone who specializes in a particular area. When these experts socialize and work with each other, they share this knowledge and are able to solve complex problems for the organization.

Setting Up A Team-Oriented Environment

In order for collaboration to be effective, the company must first set everyone up for success. Encourage employees to shift their mindset from individualism to focusing on the team. A great way to do this is to promote any existing collaboration efforts the company has already undertaken.

Leaders should also find ways to illustrate how this teamwork strengthens the company using growth, reputation, financial profits and more as examples.

Implement the Proper Technology Tools

One great technology that promotes employee collaboration is CircleHD. With useful web-based tools, users can create and share on-demand videos or interact with live demonstrations throughout the company–easily sharing each other’s specialized knowledge with others.

Leadership can also utilize CircleHD to amplify the new company goals and help employees understand their role in the overall success of the company.

Hot tip: From reports to data and more, staff members can easily dictate which team members can see certain pieces of content and more.

Want to learn more about how CircleHD can help your company increase employee collaboration across your entire organization? Schedule a demo today.