How to choose the right training for your software users

by Team Userlane

2 years ago ・ 5 mins.

The saying goes, ‘there’s an app for that’, but this is typically used when we are thinking about our personal lives. If you think about the average employee’s day-to-day activities and interactions, this now rings true for how we operate at work. 

Technology is prevalent across the business and solves a number of employee and leadership challenges. Colleagues will communicate through collaboration tools, like Slack and Microsoft Teams, and marketing and sales will spend a lot of time navigating Salesforce and HubSpot. Employees are also expected to input personal development details into the company’s HCM. For the majority of tasks and processes, there is an application that you need to work with. 

They play a heightened role in organizations nowadays and are considered by many business-critical. But as leaders introduce new applications and tools, an often-overlooked factor is if people are actually able to use them to their full potential? 

There are plenty of training methods available and relied upon within user enablement journeys and initiatives; from classroom-based training, to webinars, to lengthy PDFs. However, a successful enablement journey will not focus on a single type of intervention. 

“If you only focus on classroom training, then it will be a very one-sided conversation”, says Wolfgang Hufnagel, a management consultant and digital adoption expert from PwC. Wolfgang adds that “You need to utilize all channels. We recommend the 70/20/10 rule; 10% of learning happens in classroom settings, 20% of learning happens in a social setting, and 70% actually happens on the job. Your enablement journey needs to tackle all three of those aspects. There are different technologies that can support your users here, a Digital Adoption platform like Userlane is one of those.” 

In a recent webinar we hosted that explored how to future-proof your learning & development strategy, our guests from Lloyds Register and RIB spoke of the different types of learners that organizations also need to consider when training users on software.

Check out our infographic that looks at these different types of learners and how to satisfy them: 

The key is to give users the confidence that they’ll be supported with learning material that suits their needs throughout their adoption journey. A Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) can be the final piece of the blended learning puzzle, and offer all learners the guidance they need to give them confidence adopting software. 

A DAP can support your learning and development initiatives by providing users with interactive guides to take them step-by-step through an application’s processes, and can offer 24/7 support and access to content from existing knowledge bases. 

There really is an app for everything. So make sure your users feel empowered to master any software so your organization can reap the benefits of a productive and focussed workforce.