Jan 3, 2015
What if there was a way to increase employee productivity by 10%? What would be the impact on bottomline? Even a 2% gain would be significant for most organizations.
Using the right technology and training methodology would enable you do that.
In the age where teams are competing for budget and every dollar of training investment needs to be justified, CIOs have to show ROI in training. Using the right training methodology would help you do that.
In a flipped classroom, employees watch lectures at home at their own pace communicating with their peers and instructors via online discussion. Tasks and assignments are done in the classroom.
The “flip” essentially moves all of the lecture or the instruction online, outside of class, and takes the homework or activities and moves that into the classroom itself.
Take for example the case of sales onboarding…
- New hires go through the training and learn about their buyers, product and how it connects in an online environment
- Then in 1-on-1 sessions with managers, sales trainees practice with role play.
Based on our data, this has proven to decrease new hire onboarding time by 40% while maintaining the effectiveness of 1-on-1 training.
Here are a few questions to help you identify whether the flipped classroom can address employee training challenges you may be facing. A flipped classroom approach may be just what the doctor ordered for your organization to get the most bang out of your employee training investment!
Should You Consider Investing in the Flipped Classroom Approach? Find Out Now With These Four Signs.
1- Do Your Employees Require a Flexible Training Approach?
Your employees are extremely busy with day to day activities and deliverables. In addition, you may have employees staffed remotely in locations around the world. Delivering ongoing training in this environment requires flexibility and ingenuity.
Your employees will appreciate the flipped classroom’s flexibility due to just in time training. Employees can also work ahead when they know that many important commitments are approaching or when they’ll be out of the office. When they return, that’s one less item on the to-do list!
For example, your sales reps might not appreciate training in the middle of chasing targets. Making training flipped where sales reps can consume content anytime anywhere and on any device enables improved preparedness of sales reps.
2 – Do You Have a Range of Performance Capabilities Among Your Employees?
One of the struggles in today’s businesses is accommodating the vast range of abilities across employees. Not every employee is going to understand new training at the same pace. There are employees who excel and there are average employees. Flipping your training allows you to reach employees across the spectrum of ability.
Typically, the employees who tend to get the most attention are the top performers. In the meantime, underperforming employees may be passively cruising along. Trainers can identify underperforming employees and gaps in knowledge through online training. They can then use face to face time to better coach them.
In addition, the flipped classroom allows professionals to collaborate and communicate with their peers and instructors in online discussion forums. Employees that require more time can can watch lectures at their own pace. If they have to rewind the lecture, it is as easy as pressing a button.
Minimizing frustration for struggling employees is key and can be accomplished with the instructor and expert colleagues providing support. Just remember, the flipped classroom method is not about ignoring top employees. It is about shoring up performance with employees who require more support.
3 – Are You Seeing Low Engagement in Your Current Training Program?
You know that increasing engagement leads to better education outcomes. With every training class, whether you are training a group of newbies or established employees, you want to be sure that they are absorbing the information needed to be successful.
Flipped classrooms allows trainers to leverage technology to increase interaction with employees. One of the greatest benefits of flipping the classroom is that overall interaction increases: both trainer to employee and colleague to colleague. The role of the trainer shifts from presenter of content to learning coach, trainers spend more time interacting with employees whether they are answering questions, or providing individual guidance.
When employees are working on an assignment they can spontaneously collaborate in a group. In this way employees help each other learn instead of only relying on the instructor. It is really fascinating to consider what this might do for your organization!
4 – Do You Have Employees From Different Teams Who Need Ongoing Learning for Different Skills?
Diversity as a training requirement is another question to consider. Ongoing training for sales reps prepares sales reps on the latest success stories, changes in buyer personas and the addition of new features that solve customer problems. Customer success teams need ongoing training which enables them to upsell products and services effectively. Tech support teams need ongoing training on the latest trends in technology and how to use them to build better products.
The flipped classroom makes sure that face to face time is used more efficiently as you scale training across your organization.
For example, one of our clients soon realized that they needed an effective solution to speed up ramp time for sales and customer service employees.
Using Mindtickle, they were able to flip the training process and codify the key messages around the buyer, product value proposition and sales pitch. Now, our client is no longer constrained by the training team’s availability. With the training needs of their staff taken care of, they can now focus on other high priority tasks.
Getting Started With the Flipped Classroom Approach
Flipping the classroom, done well, can foster an ideal merger of online and live instruction known as blended learning. Great things start to happen when you purposefully strive to tip the balance of your training program toward meaningful discussion rather than “busywork”. You become a guide in your employee’s learning journey as opposed to being just a lecturer.
The hesitation among many corporate trainers is that they simply do not know how to get the ball rolling. If you are convinced that the flipped classroom method can empower your employees, stay tuned for the next blog post in our flipped classroom series where we’ll be delivering an action plan with an example or two to get you started!
What are your thoughts on flipped classrooms for adult learners? Let us know in the comments!
