The future belongs to smart companies. These companies use e-learning to train their employees from the moment they start working and throughout their careers. Nothing new under the sun.

But what if we trained potential employees during the recruitment process? What if learning and knowledge sharing became a tool for attracting new candidates?

This is essentially what is happening. Companies give lectures at schools, and some even establish their own accredited courses. IT companies like to organize various meetings with people interested in different technologies, passing on their experience to them—and gaining contacts with new talent.

In connection with employer branding, there is often talk of the experience of candidates and employees gained during their “life” cycle in the company.

HR professionals in particular aim to constantly innovate and improve this experience. Nothing can replace a positive personal experience.

However, digital technologies and tools for communication and online education offer great potential.

Where are we going with this?

We put everything together and came up with the idea that online education could be an important part of creating a positive experience for people on their journey through the company.

From recruitment, through joining the company, during the working relationship, and even after leaving the company.

Through well-thought-out education, you will not only create a competitive company, but you will also give people a positive experience, and they will think well of you and speak well of you.

And they will have fond memories of you, even if they forget all the hardships of work.

1. More Varied Communication with Applicants

Let’s now consider how e-learning can be used during the recruitment process.

Online education offers new possibilities for expanding the traditional process of advertising -> CV -> interview with new tools (experience points), thanks to which:

• passive candidates begin to perceive your company as a potential employer
• job applicants gain their first positive experience with your brand
• you, as HR professionals, can test candidates before inviting them to an interview

E-learning is another way to communicate digitally with potential and active job seekers. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Educate Future Employees

Are you familiar with the rule “help first – sell later”? It says: Help first, then sell (which in our case means: offer cooperation).

Stand out from the crowd of companies offering jobs (“We are looking for you…, We are currently hiring…” etc.) and offer applicants something more: education.

Create online courses that are relevant to your target audience. Develop the knowledge of potential employees. Don’t be afraid to offer them certification as well.

Build a brand that is so strong in its industry that it can educate others. This will gain you the attention and favor of candidates who will perceive you as professionals from whom they can learn a lot.

Note: A big advantage is that once you create such a course, it will work for you for a long time without any additional costs.

Test Candidates Before the Interview

Prepare online courses that are relevant to your target group of applicants and the job position you are offering. Provide applicants with unique information related to the job position. Offer them a sense of advantage.

And vice versa. Use cleverly designed quizzes to obtain information about their current knowledge. Ask different types of questions to test their competencies from different angles.

Use open-ended questions. These questions require deeper reflection and essay-style answers. You will need to evaluate these answers yourself. However, this will allow you to get to know the candidates better and you can also move on to direct interaction via chat, phone, or in person.

Tip for you: Involve colleagues as lecturers. For example, give managers the opportunity to evaluate the essays of their future colleagues and thus establish communication even before the interview.

Use E-learning for Simulation Training

Test candidates’ practical skills. As the name of the training method suggests, simulation training involves creating a learning environment that reflects real work and scenarios.

Students can thus apply their actual knowledge and skills through practical activities in this simulated environment, where there is no risk involved.

Although nothing can replace a real-life environment, e-learning gives you new opportunities to move simulations more into the online environment.

Prepare Candidates for the Interview

Interviews can be stressful for candidates. Try to make this important event as pleasant as possible for them. This will increase your chances of discovering interesting talent, for example among introverts.

The best way to achieve this is to prepare them for the entire process in advance. Describe the entire interview process, how the interview will proceed, who will participate, and how many rounds they can expect.

It is good to indicate how formal the interview will be. Many candidates get stressed just standing in front of their closet for hours, unable to decide how formally to dress.

Emphasize the information they should know about the company before they arrive for the interview.

You can also add photos or videos of the building and the location where the interview will take place. If you have the option of creating a virtual tour from the door to the room where the interview will take place, you will save the candidate a lot of worry.

2. E-learning for Easier Onboarding of New Employees

Would you believe that 1 in 3 people leave their job within the first 12 months due to poorly defined processes? Or that 22 percent of employee turnover occurs within the first 6 weeks?

The first few days are very challenging for new employees. They have no idea what to expect and need to learn everything. A well-thought-out onboarding process, i.e., introducing and training a new colleague, can significantly increase their engagement.

Conversely, dysfunctional or outdated processes can lead to employee turnover as a result of disorganized and sometimes uninteresting activities.

Online training can play an important role in creating a smooth and engaging onboarding process for new employees in your company. It will help you convert processes to digital format and automate routines such as knowledge verification.

Let’s look at a few examples of how to use e-learning during employee induction and adaptation.

Welcome on Board

This course should be the first one your new hires study. While they are getting their bearings in the company, you give them the opportunity to get to know it better. They can do so on their mobile phones while waiting at the reception desk, or on their PCs while getting acquainted with their new workplace.

Or even a few days before they start working.

What should such a course contain? It should definitely introduce new employees to the company’s mission and core values. It should also show where the company operates and who its customers are.

It is a good idea to use a message from the director, ideally in the form of a video profile (don’t forget to update this video if you change management).

Company History

For young companies, looking back can be part of the initial welcome. For companies that have been around for decades or even centuries, this chapter deserves a separate online course.

Show newcomers what a big part they are of. Describe the company’s history from its inception to the present day. Mention the most important milestones, ups, but also downs. Tell them the story of your company.

Navigating the Company

It’s easy to get lost in large companies. That’s why it’s a good idea to familiarize newcomers with the company structure and the activities of individual departments.

Introduce the people in the company, their roles, and responsibilities. If you have multiple branches in the country or around the world, show where they are located.

Once again, video profiles come in handy. Let representatives of individual departments talk about their role in the company structure and how they contribute to its main mission.

This will give newcomers a sense of belonging to the community and let them know what they are getting into.

First Day at Work

Courses should definitely include the first few days at work. These courses will vary depending on the department, position, and level of experience of new employees.

Build this course around video content. Shoot videos together with colleagues who work in the department. This will give the content the necessary authenticity and make it easier for newcomers to identify with it.

Again, you can share this course with newcomers before they join the company. It will give them a playful introduction to their first day and will certainly reduce their stress and nervousness.

What We Do and How We Do It

Show newcomers your products and services. Describe what you do and who you do it for, who your customers are. Explain what your products are used for.

Present your technologies and processes. Shoot a series of videos showing individual work procedures. You don’t need to go into detail with newcomers. The goal is to give them a general overview.

In addition to videos, photos, animations, infographics, 3D models, and the like can also be useful.

Career Opportunities

An interesting topic for an online course could be careers and personal development within your company. Describe how an employee’s career progression might look and what other development opportunities your company offers.

You can then use smart quizzes to check whether new colleagues understand what they need to do to grow with you.

3. More Effective Employee Training

When companies use e-learning, it is usually associated with developing the knowledge and skills of existing employees.

This usually involves mandatory and recurring training. Companies also offer their employees specific courses related to their particular profession.

Let’s take a look at how to take traditional online courses further and what other topics we could communicate to employees in this form.

Traditional Mandatory Training

One of the basic obligations of an employer is to train employees in the field of occupational health and safety (OHS). OHS training should also include fire protection training. This also includes driver training and first aid training.

We will not discuss these traditional trainings in more detail. It is worth noting that if this training is also created in the form of e-learning, the employee has the opportunity to return to it at any time if they need to refresh their knowledge.

Sharing Knowledge Across the Company

A frequently mentioned problem in most companies is the transfer of know-how between employees. Experienced employees usually do not have the time to train newcomers, or do not have sufficient motivation to do so.

Another problem is that with each newcomer or group of newcomers the training process needs to be repeated and this is time-consuming. This is a problem in companies with higher employee turnover (but more on that later).

Although there is no substitute for personal transfer of experience, e-learning can make this situation much easier. Courses created together with experienced matadors can contain valuable information that can be shared with both new and existing employees across the company at any time and anywhere.

E-learning as a Knowledge Database

Another common problem is preserving knowledge for future generations. Experienced employees leave the company, and with them valuable information on how to do this or that.

Some companies create internal WIKIs and motivate employees to contribute to them. This practice is quite common in IT companies.

It is once again possible to use e-learning as an archive of knowledge and opinions of experienced experts who have worked in the company for a significant period of time.

The most practical seem to be interviews with these people, or lectures, reports, ideally again as a video. Current employees will be able to view this content at any time and recall some important information related to their work.

New Technologies in the Company

Have you started using a new tool? Create an online course that explains to users how to use it.

Of course, you probably won’t learn how to operate a new production line in an online course. But if it’s a new communication application, for example, then this option presents itself.

Referral Program

Do you use this recruitment channel? For many companies, it takes the form of a directive that is deeply rooted in some of the files. However, in our opinion, this activity deserves more.

Create an online course in which you explain your referral program in a playful way. Tell them which candidates and for which positions they can recommend, what does it take to process their offer / application and what reward (apart from the good feeling) they can also receive.

This activity can also include a course for candidates who have been recommended by your employees.

Benefit

Many employees complain that the company offers them training, but it is mostly the aforementioned statutory training or specialized training related to the performance of work.

They want something more and you can give it to them in the form of online courses. Offer them training beyond their work. Provide them with space and materials for personal development and support the aforementioned and desired work-life balance.

You can create courses on

• communication skills,
• basics of digital literacy,
• internet safety,
• presentation skills,
• and anything else in addition.

Of course, it is important to know what your audience (in this case, your employees) want and can appreciate (it has value for them). Then this course offer can even become another of the benefits you offer.

3 Tips for Your E-learning

As you can see, an e-learning platform is a practical solution that you can use not only to train your current employees, but also to integrate new ones and even during recruitment communication.

Although it is about education, it is a tool for communication and sometimes entertainment.

You have all the information in the form of courses in one place. Users / students are not limited by place or time. As an administrator or education manager, you have the opportunity to monitor groups or individuals and how they continue their education.

Finally, we have some interesting tips for you on how to make your online education even better.

School Is a Game

Don’t be afraid to bring playfulness to your online learning. People love to play and they also love to compete. Take advantage of this and motivate them, for example, by collecting points for completed tasks, earning various badges.

Award points for each correctly completed quiz. Use multiple quizzes in the course, for example at the end of each more extensive lesson. This will support memorization of the topic just discussed and increase interest by earning additional points.

At the end of the course, issue a certificate to students. People need a specific goal. You will give them motivation to really pay attention. You will make sure that employees have really gone through the course and your training system is functional.

Go for Video

Video content is one of the most popular. People simply love to watch and sometimes listen. Moreover, some content simply begs to be filmed, such as operating a machine.

Intersperse the text content of your online course with video to gain more interest from your students.

Don’t Shake – Mix It

Online education is a trend that the world is moving towards. But we are still human and without personal contact it is simply not the same. Therefore, mix your online courses with education on a personal level.

One form of personal communication in an online course is open questions. Invite students to work out an answer to your question and then evaluate it, or offer a discussion on the given topic.

Personal cooperation with lecturers can take place “live” or remotely. Include video conferences, online workshops, or personal consultations by phone or Skype.

If the situation allows, meet in person in a group that corresponds to the given course or study topic. Discuss, think, create, share knowledge and ideas.

And while we are on the subject of mixing, you can also use e-learning to educate your customers or business partners in general.

Summary

Online learning means more than just developing your employees. It allows you to communicate with newcomers and even job applicants in an attractive way. Despite some disadvantages, such as the lack of personal contact, the advantages of this form of learning outweigh.

A modern LMS allows you to easily create interactive online courses that are accessible anytime, anywhere via all devices, especially mobile ones.

When used correctly, e-learning will save you a lot of precious time and money that you can devote to further education and development of your people.

And what are your experiences with online education of employees, newcomers and possibly candidates for cooperation? Write to us at info@menseek.eu.