Modern intranets have a host of uses and benefits. The software can be used to deliver regular company updates, increase productivity, and improve collaboration between team members. It is convenient to use, can be offered to remote as well as local workers, and can even improve employee engagement and workplace culture. But enough about the obvious. Did you know online intranet software can be used to deliver corporate training as well?
Before we explain how, let’s take a look at some intranet benefits
What are the advantages of having intranets in a company?
The benefits of an intranet software are plentiful. Here are a few of our favourites:
- Teams can access the intranet from anywhere: Intranet solutions hosted on cloud-based technology enable teams to access the system from any location. So whether staff work from the office, from home, or on the frontline, they can simply connect to your intranet on the go from any mobile devices.
- It improves company culture: Today’s social intranets are loaded with internal communication and knowledge management tools that boost employee satisfaction, engagement, and morale – all of which lead to an improvement in overall company culture.
- Better information sharing: No intranet is complete without a document management system – it’s your company’s dedicated hub for storing information. By centralising your data into a single space, staff have an easier time finding the information they need.
Now that we understand more about the benefits of intranet software, how does corporate training fit in?
What is corporate training?
Corporate training is an organisation’s strategy for building their teams’ knowledge and skills. By improving employees’ personal development, it allows them to succeed and drive the business forward.
Traditionally, corporate and employee training was delivered face-to-face in a classroom, either onsite with the training provider or at your organisation’s offices. These days, however, corporate training is more likely to be web-based via a combination of tutor-led webinars and self-directed learning (often called “blended learning”).
This brings us nicely to the link between modern intranets and corporate training.
What is the link between corporate training and intranet software?
Corporate training has gone digital, transforming into a dedicated piece of software called a Learning Management System (LMS) which houses all learning tools and company training documents in one place. It’s accessible via cloud-based tech – just like business intranet software – meaning your teams can enhance their personal development from any Wi-Fi connected smart device.
Both cloud based intranet software and LMS platforms are part of the wider digital workplace – a virtualisation of the physical office – and so integrate with each other to share data and provide an effective and collaborative environment to your teams.
Benefits of using intranet based training and e-learning features
1. Save time with online employee onboarding
Employee onboarding is a critical step in your corporate training strategy, but providing documentation and answering questions from every new employee can take your staff away from their mission-critical everyday tasks.
Using a learning platform, you can manage your entire onboarding process in one central place. New employees can register their details, set up an intranet account, and then access company documentation, online courses, and learning content. By providing new team members with an interactive, online onboarding experience, it gives them a level of autonomy whilst saving time for your existing team members.
While your intranet and learning platforms shouldn’t completely replace human interaction, it can supplement it. You can even have an onboarding course that ensures your new employees understand what they’ve read, and make sure that they know how to properly use the intranet platform.
2. Empower employees with self-service tutorials
Corporate training isn’t always about large scale training programmes. Sometimes, the most important skill in a business is learning how its processes and operations run.
In these cases, creating self-service tutorials that walk employees through a process step by step will be highly valuable. Whether it’s simple tasks, like safely storing and titling documents, or complex procedures that are specific to your business and your industry, offering interactive learning experiences empowers your employees and can save you time and training materials in the long run.
Even better, make the tutorials interactive and use gamification techniques to help staff remember the steps that they have to take when following an ongoing process.
3. Easily track learner progress
Being able to track progress is an important part of your corporate training strategy. Otherwise, how will you know how your teams are performing?
Intranet training software allows you to easily monitor who is taking online training courses, who has completed them, who has earned certificates, and who might need additional support. You can pre-schedule progress reports automatically, or run them on the fly, according to your needs.
4. Simplify course scheduling
Good intranet training is important, that much is clear. Upskilling enables teams to work more effectively, and it also ensures that your organisation is being supported by knowledgeable staff.
However, training should not come at the detriment of the day-to-day running of your business. Using automated course scheduling and a live calendar system can help you create a balanced approach, where you can arrange courses and training in advance, send reminders, and reschedule tasks as necessary.
In this way, your intranet will ensure that employees are not being overwhelmed, that they are not missing important meetings or tasks because of training, and it will help set a schedule that works for everybody.
