If No One is There to Train a Workforce, Does It Learn?

When I started working in Silicon Valley, I noticed two things during my first few weeks on the job. One was the steep learning curve that comes from taking on any role in a tech company. The second was the phrase used by almost everyone I talked to about the experience - “it’s like drinking water out of a firehose.” I’d never heard the phrase before, but it perfectly describes the experience of the typical classroom-style, onboarding approach.Using the cloud to share training documents, presentations and videos might be a better approach to empowering the workforce and helping them continually learn. Why hit people with a firehose when all they need is to know where the water cooler is? And with all of the dispersed and mobile workers, getting everyone in the room at the same time may not be possible. Here are a few benefits of using the cloud to deliver real-time training.

Anywhere, anytime access to training. The most obvious benefit is, of course, the anywhere and anytime access that the cloud offers. It’s easier to learn something when you immediately apply it. Being able to find the right training content at the right time not only saves time but also helps foster knowledge through real-world scenarios. Store and organize training content in the cloud so your users can access it when they need it.Group-specific training. Organizing training content in the cloud can allow trainers to set varying levels of access for different teams. Need to onboard a new employee on your R&D team? You can give him or her special access to training content and resources for learning about new projects in that specific department. Limiting access also prevents users from going out of order on the training schedule or being overwhelmed by material that isn’t relevant to their jobs.Hearing it from the horse’s mouth. Training isn’t the responsibility of just one department but veterans and experts from all teams. Typical training sessions involve the standard 30-60 minute onboarding presentations, which can sometimes involve even more time in preparation. Instead, subject matter experts should just upload and update training content for their areas of expertise as products and processes evolve. This saves time and allows your workforce to always have access to the latest training information.Onboarding should be about getting to know the teams and people you’ll be working with and learning where to find the resources you need to succeed. Training, on the other hand, is an on-going process that can benefit from the cloud. Using the cloud to deliver training helps save time, improve productivity and foster inter-team relationships.Egnyte allows trainers and administrators to organize and specify access to training content in a central repository in the cloud. Training content can also be synchronized to on-premises storage to enable fast access to larger files, such as videos and presentations, to eliminate bandwidth slowdowns. Permissions can be defined to allow trainers to upload content while giving employees read-only permissions so they can consume content from the same central location. Finally, Egnyte’s web interface, mobile, and desktop apps can allow employees to access training content from any device at the time they need it most.