Cost-Effective Business Tools for Improving Employee Performance

Written by Eric Sokolowski | July 7, 2015

Behind every successful business is a well-trained, enthusiastic team. As you may have already found in building or contributing to your venture, however, success doesn't happen overnight, and neither does a thriving team. It all starts with investing in your employees, so in turn they will invest in you and your organization. One way to emphasize this is through employee development and training. According to allBusiness, "Investing in your employees’ continuing education demonstrates that the company values its people and wants them to grow. Even after an individual joins an organization and the “honeymoon” period has passed, companies should continue to provide training on an ongoing basis for any skills that may be pertinent to the employee’s job."

Five business tools to help you foster an employee learning environment

1. Webinars

Webinars are a great way to educate and inform your staff, with respect to busy schedules. Webinars allow you to cater to a distributed staff without the associated travel costs for either the employees or the instructor. Your options for webinars aren't limited to one category. They include public webinars—where anyone can sign up—as well as custom, private webinars that are arranged for your learners and designed to address their specific needs. Decide whether your employees would benefit from live webinars where they can ask questions in real time, or if they'd prefer recorded sessions. No two employees are the same, so let them decide which webinar opportunity works best for them and their learning style.

2. Video Training

Video training enables your colleagues to learn at their own pace, when it's most convenient. Whether they will benefit from short, task-oriented videos to help solve a specific problem, or a comprehensive course to help advance their software skills more dramatically, or all of the above—video training has your bases covered.

3. Peer training

While peer training usually sounds appealing, it is not often possible for your busy employees. Nonetheless, it's one of the most cost-effective ways to get the job done. Consider scheduling a time for staff members from different departments to spend some time over lunch sharing their expertise. Be sure that each team member leaves at least five minutes for Q&A to engage his or her listeners. If time is a concern for much of your staff, encourage them to meet over coffee a couple of times a month so they don't use up their entire lunch hour.

4. SharePoint Online

With easy-to-use intranet and extranet sites, along with centralized group communications and document storage, SharePoint Online makes it easy for your staff to access important training documents anytime, anywhere. Whether your employees are training in groups or individually, SharePoint Online helps users organize important information, contacts and documents. If your employees are traveling for business, don't let a checked-bag become a bottleneck. With SharePoint Online, they can access and interact with their news feeds right on their smartphones.

5. Skype for Business

Skype for Business recently replaced Microsoft Lync as a robust and unified collaboration and communication platform. For fans of Lync, you can still enjoy similar features, such as presence, IM, voice and video calls and online meetings. Streamline communication across your entire business landscape, including employee onboarding and training processes, by searching for and connecting with anyone in the Skype network regardless if he or she is inside our outside of your organization. Don't let distance interfere with the quality of your deliverables; with the screen-sharing feature, collaborating on projects is a breeze.

Make sure your virtual-training solution is the best option for your employees and business. Download our complimentary eBook, "Choosing a Virtual-Training Method that Meets Your Needs."

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