What Does an Instructional Designer Do in Corporate Training?
An instructional designer is foundational to quality training, learning, and employee development. An instructional designer not only develops entire courses but also redesigns old courses to make them more engaging, as well as creates training materials, curriculum, and learner guides. So, in what ways can an instructional designer improve your corporate training program?
Keeping up with the industry
Instructional designers specialize in creating efficient and effective training that will help employees develop skills and learn the latest industry standards quickly. This is extremely important today in the ever-changing fast-paced business world. Instructional designers can help keep your employees up to date on the latest information by using a variety of media, such as video, audio, images, and text.
They can also incorporate industry publications such as online trade journals, blogs, and webinars into training programs. They create immersive learning experiences that help to keep employees focused on the material and can lead to increased workflow productivity.
Increased workflow productivity
Training developed by an instructional designer can help employees increase their workflow productivity. Instructional design helps to decrease the amount of time that employees spend on training, allowing them to get back to and focus on work. Well-designed workflow training helps employees learn quickly so they are ready to apply their new training faster. Instruction that uses workflow learning can help guide an employee through a task so that they are able to be more effective at their jobs.
This is especially useful for infrequent tasks. This type of training can be on-demand online learning that allows employees to seek the information they need and then continue with the task at hand. It might also be something as simple as an effective job aid or checklist that allows an employee to ensure the precision and uniformity of a skill. This type of learning is also useful when employees need to learn new skills and capabilities.
Expand employee capabilities
Good instructional design used in training helps expand employee capabilities by being readily available when learning is most needed. Employees can use training to help them expand their current knowledge, learn a new skill, or apply new knowledge.
This can be on-demand and especially useful in times of change when employees need to quickly adapt to situations or add new skills. This type of training helps employees manage tough tasks and adapt to change quickly, improving productivity, and efficiency. As a result, employees that feel empowered by well-designed on-demand training are more likely to be satisfied employees and less likely to change jobs.
Decrease turnover
Losing new employees within the first year of employment can be devastating for the company. Many of these exiting employees have stated that a lack of training and onboarding and training was one of the reasons for their departure. Well built, aligned training can help make it easier for new employees to integrate and achieve success early in their role. Employees that blend well with the company are less likely to leave after a brief time period, which overall, saves the company money.
Improve decision-making skills
When company goals are well-defined and clear to employees the decision-making process becomes more intuitive. Instructional design can help employees develop decision-making skills and define the processes needed to reach company goals.
Scenario-based training presents employees with various choices and then shows them the consequences of their decisions. Built-in feedback can then help learners see any errors in their thinking and correct behaviors that go against reaching company goals. Instructional designers can also help keep employees up to date on the latest trends and technologies.
Stay up to date
Keeping up with the latest trends and technologies can be a challenge for an organization. an instructional design consultant can help by creating relevant training that is engaging and immersive. Using a variety of media, instructional designers create interactive experiences that engage employees in the learning process and help them retain the most relevant information.
This can help lead to better employee adoption of recent technology and improve return on investment (ROI). Instructional designers can customize training to emphasize features of technology and trends that deliver the desired ROI for a specific role, team, or department. Well-designed refresher training helps keep employees up to date and ensures they know how to use the features of technology most relevant to them.
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