Training in your workplace does not have to happen the formal way. In truth, some industries have a lot of updates happening every now and then that coming up with a training program to keep employees informed can be quite costly. That being said, you need to teach your employees to keep themselves updated themselves. You won’t have time to always bring them together to teach them something new. They can actually get the information themselves and learn on their own.
But what is the best way to do this? The key is to find a platform by which you can feed the new information and your employees can get them.
Fortunately, you have a very reliable tool or tools. Social media.
The great thing about this tool is that it does not take much to set it up. Chances are, all your employees have a personal account in the major social media networks. And you can bet that they will check it all the time. So all you really have to do is to create a company account in the major social networks and feed your new information there.
So how can you use the major social networking sites for your continuous training program? Here are some tips for each network that you are most likely going to utilize.
- LinkedIn. This is the social network for professionals. You want to start with this. What you can do is to tap into known and respected professionals in your industry and get tips and tricks from them. What you want to do is to connect your workers to these experts so they can learn from them.
- Facebook Group. Who does not have Facebook right? Everyone does. You can create a Facebook group and invite your employees in it. You can post anything here: videos, articles, tips and various updates about the company. Not only is this a great way for you to provide relevant information, it is also a great way for the whole workforce to interact with each other. Not only will you have the power to put information, the other members can also do the same. If they see something relevant, they can post it in the group as well.
- Twitter. This is a great portal to provide instant updates. You can give continuous comments about initiatives in the company. If there is a project or an event going on, your employees can keep tabs on what is currently happening through this portal. The problem with this is that your update might be buried under a lot of tweets so try to connect it with your Facebook Group so it will be easier to track.
- YouTube. You can create videos that employees can access at their own pace. These videos can be used to show work-related scenes and situations that will teach employees new techniques. How to videos can be very useful for employees with questions about their daily tasks. It is also a great way to train newbies in the company.
Take note that you can also use blogs in your company website to provide your employees with more details about company news or updates that are relevant for their informal training. Chats and messaging can also be utilized to get real time updates and interaction with the group.
While there are other social network sites that you can use for your training program, these are the most popular sites that you can use. Just make sure that you establish ground rules and monitoring to ensure that your employees will utilize this portal of information.
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