4 Steps to Digitize Your Corporate Training Programs 

If you’ve been running training programs for a while now, we’re sure you’ve thought about digitization several times already. With the last decade’s surge in digital transformation, you’re probably anxious about running behind. 

But there’s no need to rush – a rush job is a risky job and a streamlined process to digitization is always recommended. As George Westerman (MIT Sloan lecturer & renowned thought leader in digital transformation) once said: “When digital transformation is done right, it’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when done wrong, all you have is a really fast caterpillar.” (source). 

In this blog post, we’ll cover 4 steps to methodically running digitized corporate training programs. Read on! 

What are the prerequisites of digitization? 

Digitizing your training program starts with taking your offline methodologies online as seamlessly as possible and establishing an online presence for marketing and sales. But that’s not all! Critical prerequisites include making your trainers proficient in omnichannel usage – from mobile access to gamification and so on – and making them experts in handling digital tools, making a cultural and technological transformation, and generally delivering consistent training experiences across clients.  

Only when you have these areas covered can you offer an efficient and valuable corporate digital training program for your clients. 

1. Assess your organization’s status quo 

It’s important to test the waters before fully committing to anything. Evaluate whether your organization is ready for the change — if you need trainers to create their own content, will they be able to digitize it? How adept they are in conducting training remotely? If the current situation isn’t favorable for the transformation, ensure that the requirements are addressed first. 

2. Plan your program delivery 

If you need content to be created for your training programs, you can consider hiring a qualified Digital Learning Manager who would stage-manage the entire initiative—strategize, design, launch, and conduct the corporate digital training program. 

Alternatively, if you don’t need branded content such as videos, you can digitize your corporate training programs’ documents and collaterals and subscribe to a training management tool that makes it easy for you to take current training methodologies online seamlessly. 

3. Think about success measurement 

Every client today wants to know the ROI of their investment in your corporate digital training. Think about how you currently calculate progress and success, and how you can take that online. Also think about the different ways in which technology can help you quantify success.  

For example, when running offline trainings, creating progress charts is a complex manual process that can be less than accurate. When tracking client progress online, however, softwares automatically create progress charts for each client and participant that you can simply download and share. 

Your proprietary methods of success management should be taken online and added to/improved upon by technology. 

4 Steps to digitize your corporate training programs 

Here’s a step-by-step guide that will help you design an effective corporate digital training program: 

Step 1: Strategizing 

No digital transformation journey can start without a solid strategy in place. Be aware of your organizational goals and values, the objectives of the training programs, the potential challenges in taking certain elements online, etc. 

You should know, for example, the models you will use to gauge the impact of your training, and whether the program goals are in sync with the corporate performance measures, and how these will play out digitally. 

Remember, however, that your strategy has to be flexible enough to accommodate changes based on each client’s requirements.  

Step 2: Build an atmosphere of digital learning 

Prepare your trainers for digital transformation. As we mentioned earlier, trainer readiness forms a big part of digitization – before you start the process, offer them the training required to make a smooth transition from running programs offline to running and managing them online. 

You may also want to focus on change management and bring in a business coach if necessary to help build momentum and a growth mindset. Don’t hesitate to display transformation value and be transparent on how it helps the business – after all, your trainers probably have business experience aplenty. 

Step 3: Identify a suitable digital platform 

This is, perhaps, the most crucial step in digitizing your corporate training programs — choosing the right learning management platform. It’s very important to choose the right digital partner to take your offline methodologies online, create blended or 100% digital programs, and track participant engagement and progress. 

How do you zero in on the right online platform you ask? The effort usually starts with evaluating what your needs are and what you are expecting from the online learning management platform. Then do a thorough recce of the available software – chances are none will meet a 100% of your requirements, but find the one that does most closely. Don’t forget to evaluate their customer support; this will play a large role in the effectiveness of your digital transformation. 

When evaluating, opt for demos before trial periods – that way, you spend less time in the trial periods figuring things out for yourself, and more time evaluating the platform. 

We’ve got to say it – at Simply.Coach, we’ve been awarded several customer support awards and badges by independent review platforms such as G2 and Capterra, quarter after quarter. To quote one customer, “By far and away, the best customer service from a SAAS provider. They listen and hear their customer. The software is really easy to use, and when I need modifications, the support team of developers is there to listen and help me adapt the program to my business services.”  

Step 4: Create content 

How will you deliver your corporate training programs digitally? Consider including video content (for which you may need the aforementioned Digital Learning Manager) in your sessions. Also work on taking your evaluations, exercises, and reporting online – most training management platforms offer digital tools that will help you with this. 

To really lean into digital training the way it can be done today, consider new-age training methods such as learning through social media channels if it will resonate well with your audience. When undertaking blended learning, remember to account for in-person training and maximize the benefits from those face-to-face interactions, while factoring the impact from those into your digital progress tracking. 

It is important to remember that any digital transformation effort must be a journey rather than an event. Evaluating company goals, evaluating client’s objectives, and remaining agile are pre-requisites for effective digital transformation. 

Conclusion 

We’ll leave you with a final reminder: The digital transformation of training programs is a continuous process – even after you’re set up and ready to go, you’ll want to keep improving and changing elements – and it should become integral to your company’s core culture. 

If you need help getting started, consider us your trusty partner in the process and get in touch! 

Sources: Training Industry, LinkedIn, ElearningIndustry, Jabil,  

FAQs 

1. How do you digitize training?  

You may follow a few steps to digitize your corporate training programs: 

• Break down your offline training methodologies and your goals 

• Build an atmosphere of digital learning 

• Identify a suitable digital platform 

• Create content for your digital training programs 

2. How would you use digital transformation to develop and deliver training? 

Digital transformation makes the delivery of training easier, faster, and convenient. A training and development company that’s undergone digital transformation is well equipped to deliver completely digitized training programs as well as blended training programs, complete with digitized content, digitally shareable resources, progress tracking, participant engagement tracking, report creation, and so on. 

About the author

Jayashree Mukherjee

Content Specialist  @Simply.Coach

Jayashree Mukherjee is a content specialist by day and a content junkie (on OTT) by night. Passionate about traveling, street food and overturning the underuse of em dashes — she would have been a globe-trotter if she hadn’t been so lazy.