Modern Learning Platforms Boost Onboarding Effectiveness
Modern sales learning platforms enhance onboarding effectiveness by enabling pre-boarding orientation, ensuring consistent and high-quality training delivery through recorded videos, eliminating the need for substitute trainers, and embedding interactive questions to increase engagement and track trainee progress.
If you’ve ever organized a classroom-based onboarding session for new hires, you know what it’s like to pour a lot of time, energy, and money into a “live” production that may go over well one day, but fall flat the next—a show that pleases one audience, but puts another to sleep.
It’s for these reasons (and more) that many sales enablement teams are now integrating modern sales learning platforms into their onboarding programs.
Here are five ways that modern learning tools make sales onboarding programs more consistent and more effective:
- 1.
“Pre-Boarding.”
Many organizations use learning platforms to provide new hires with an orientation tour before they enter a classroom. New employees receive introductions to topics ranging from the company’s structure and culture to the people and departments with whom they’ll be interacting. By giving new recruits this baseline knowledge in advance, enablement teams can devote more time to hands-on training and less time to basic orientation.
- 2.
More consistent delivery.
Trainers, like athletes and presenters, have good days and bad days. Sometimes trainers deliver show-stopping performances, and sometimes they flub their lines. With the ability to practice on video and deliver key training presentations via recorded video, only the best performances and most carefully crafted messages are delivered to new hires time after time.
- 3.
No more fill-ins.
When star trainers or subject matter experts are unavailable, finding replacements can be time-consuming and may result in substandard sessions. By contrast, a good video presentation is always available, ensuring consistent quality.
- 4.
Embed questions into the videos.
Modern learning platforms allow you to embed questions into video content. This offers two big benefits: (1) participants are more likely to pay attention if they know they’ll be quizzed, and (2) you can track their progress. You can create a “paper trail” of how well a trainee is doing, gauge their understanding, and prepare remediation activities if needed, such as additional sessions, supplemental materials, or one-to-one coaching and remote practice. These analytics wouldn’t otherwise be available.
- 5.
Cost savings.
There can be substantial savings associated with increasing the share of virtual training versus live training. This includes reducing expenses for travel, meals, and facility rental, as well as fewer paid person-hours devoted to live training and logistics planning. Getting new hires into the field faster also helps organizations see returns on their investment more quickly. Cost savings from reduced or removed training days is one of the most tangible and trackable benefits of adding modern learning techniques to any onboarding program.
Learn More
For a deeper dive on how to build a modern sales onboarding program that will be a success each and every time, download the Essential Guide to Modern Sales Onboarding.