Author Archives: Digital Printing Expert

Remote Employee Training and Development

The ongoing COVID -19 pandemic has disrupted life in profound ways. It has changed the way we interact, shop and work. It has also changed how businesses conduct their activities. With social distancing norms in place, many companies have asked their employees to work from home. Although a trend toward working remotely had been growing even before COVID-19, companies had to quickly make arrangements for their employees to move out of the main office into the home office.

Among the numerous logistical issues for companies to address has been remote employee training and development. Remote training is not an easy fix. It is crucial to understand that remote working presents a lot of challenges – technology, distractions, staying organized and various other factors. However, remote working offers several benefits.

To make remote training effective, we will look at how you need to train remote employees, the benefits of remote training and why you need to document everything.

How to train remote employees during COVID-19

Unless you give your employees the requisite training, it could be difficult for them to adapt to the work-from-home model. To ease the transition for your workforce, it is crucial to know how to train remote employees. HR Daily Advisor provides some valuable tips.

Provide advanced training to your employees – While it may seem too late if your employees are already working from home, the current crisis is not likely to be the last or only time companies need to shift staff to remote work arrangements. Advanced training while employees are still on-site can give them the tools and skills they need to succeed in a remote environment. For those now working remotely, providing a broad overview of available online tools and strategies will set them up for success with subsequent training programs.

Teach your employees time management and how to organize themselves – Everyone can’t excel in the work-from-home model. Time management and staying organized are the two main challenges that remote workers face. Some who are good at this in the office might struggle when they work from home – especially when they deal with such distractions as children and day-to-day domestic demands. Provide any necessary resources and support to help them cope.

Share remote communication etiquette with your employees – You need to make your employees understand that dealing with people virtually is no different from in-person dealings in the office. Establish etiquette standards for video conference calls – such as not shouting, and the need to dress appropriately.

Make sure training resources are accessible remotely e-learning is an extremely potent tool for remote workers. According to Kimberly Cassady, chief talent officer at Cornerstone, companies should provide online access to learning and development materials. Your L&D materials should also include how to make remote learning more effective.

“For example, if your organization has adopted a more flexible work from home policy, a learning course on how to stay productive when working remotely can help employees manage their tasks and stay engaged. Meanwhile, online courses about stress management and mindfulness can help employees navigate worrisome situations – while simultaneously equipping them with important soft skills for the future of work.”

Look after the emotional health of your employees – You do need to train your remote employees on technology, logistics and adapting their work ethic. But it is important to understand that you should also address their mental and emotional well-being.

According to Peter Jackson, CEO of software company Bluescape, “Loneliness and depression are major pain points for remote workers, and those that are new to working from home can be negatively impacted by the sudden drop-off in social interaction. This can lead to a breakdown in collaboration and productivity, especially as those who are used to face-to-face meetings struggle to identify how to establish those same connections virtually.”

To overcome this hurdle, you need to focus on building team culture. You can start your virtual meeting by interacting with your team members on a personal note. For example, you can ask how they feel about the remote work environment, or simply general day-to-day questions. When you interact with them on a personal level, you can get to know how they are feeling, and address early signs of burnout or disengagement.

Benefits of remote training

You can conduct remote training in various ways, such as e-learning courses, instructor-led face-to-face training over the web, webinars, customized podcasts, etc. There are several benefits of remote training, which include the following:

Affordability In traditional training, you need the instructor as well as the trainees to be present in the same room. You either need to bring all your employees to a particular geographical location or pay the instructor to visit your office or any other preferred location. However, that is not the case in a remote training setting. Employees and instructor/s can join in from wherever they are, making remote training more affordable.

Availability of resources Regardless of your location, you can get the best trainers in the world to instruct your employees. You don’t have to bother about visa issues and programming conflicts. In traditional training, you have to call the trainer to your physical location

Convenience – In traditional training, you need to follow a strict routine because you have to meet the trainers face-to-face. External problems like travel issues, inclement weather or any other emergency can hamper the training schedule.

The need to document everything

There is no doubt that remote training can prove to be useful for the development and growth of your employees. However, when it comes to remote training, make sure you document everything.

If your organization has only one person in charge of training, that person’s knowledge about your training programs leaves when they leave your organization. Documentation is essential to keep your programs and materials accessible to subsequent employees who fill that position.

Document all your training processes and store them in a centralized place where more people from your organization have access to your training materials. Make sure all your documents, slide presentations and videos are marked so that people other than your primary trainer can assume the duties if necessary.

When it comes to training documentation, security is always a priority. After all, training materials comprise your company’s valuable intellectual property. As most training materials and programs are now in digital format, you need a robust solution to keep them secure from theft or compromise by disgruntled former employees, competitors and cybercriminals.

DocuServe is a cloud-based digital data protection company providing services that include cloud-based document management, content encryption and distribution, and digital media replication and encryption to businesses in every industry. Contact us today to learn about our full range of solutions. 


How Can Your Business Benefit From Online Proofing?

How Can Your Business Benefit From Online Proofing?

Thanks to digitization, the demand for high-quality creative content is growing at a rapid rate. To remain up-to-speed with the growing competition, creative teams get less time to produce such content.  The turnaround time for delivering content is shrinking, putting a great deal of pressure on the creative teams.

However, producing creative content is a lengthy and arduous process that involves many stakeholders.

Many people need to review and approve the content before its final release. If you follow traditional proofing methods, it takes time, numerous meetings, innumerable email exchanges and unending instant messaging threads for each decision-maker to give his or her final approval.

A bit of miscommunication or delay anywhere in between can result in deadline extensions, which at times lead to failed projects.  If you are on a marketing, advertising or content creation team, you can relate to the importance of getting timely feedback. 

To fill the gaps in the traditional proofing methods, you now have online proofing that can sort out most of your problems. With online proofing, multiple members of your team – or even other teams – can collaborate easily without any delay or problem.

Therefore, let us take you through how your business can benefit from online proofing – what it is, how to make online approvals smoother and a look at the online proofing market.

What is online proofing?

Online proofing is the process of reviewing and approving creative content. The purpose of online proofing is to help the content teams collaborate more effectively, as well as to ensure an accurate, error-free final product. This can be challenging when several people are involved – especially when team members and decision-makers are in different locations, either working from home and/or in different cities.

With the online proofing software in place, all you need to do is add a quick comment or suggestion in the right place for others in the team to see that you have reviewed and approved – or made corrections. Your digital signature is proof that you have reviewed and signed off on the content.

Make online approvals smoother

Even before today’s workplace profoundly changed, online proofing provided a smooth process for coordinating project progress and approval. Online proofing software has an even higher profile now as an essential tool for working remotely.

Here are some ways in which online proofing can benefit your business:

You don’t have to search for old emails to track communications about earlier changes made to a document – It is not easy to search for emails that you received two weeks ago to refer to the most recent version of the design or content. When you use online proofing software, you don’t have to depend on emails to share feedback and get approval. Even remote workers can share their feedback and communicate changes because one central online cloud-based location keeps all the records.

Online proofing software is a central online repository where you can keep all your designs, content, and collaterals safely and securely – more about this later! It allows users to batch feedback together and send the approved design or content to the creative team. There is no chance to miss out on any of the feedback.

It is a challenging, time-consuming task to manually update spreadsheets, especially when it comes to tracking a project. But when you use online proofing software, it streamlines the approval process by automating the tracking process in one central place. You can display the tracked progress on a simple interface on proofing software. Your team members can log in at any time to provide feedback, interpret or explain, and track the status of the project. Also, with online proofing software in place, you can create reports easily and reduce compliance risks.

Most online proofing software comes with markup tools. You can use them to highlight sections and mark explanations so that no one misses the important points. It means there is no chance of miscommunication, as everyone is on the same page. Because online proofing software saves all the feedback in one place, it decreases the possibility of missed changes, which means there are fewer chances of compliance issues.

Online proofing software promotes transparency – It is possible to log in at any time and track the progress of the project. You can also check to confirm that approvals are in place.

Online proofing software can reduce your revision cycles – As it makes the process of feedback and approval more effective, fewer revisions are necessary. It also increases your team members’ efficiency. They can finish the project in less time.

It keeps a record of every change made to the document – The digital signature helps promote accountability, as every team member who reviews and revises the document is on record. Someone who missed a typo or did not spend adequate time on the task can be readily identified. Using online proofing software ensures that you deliver your work on time and offers improved quality.

It provides data security – Industrial espionage is rampant in today’s highly competitive business environment. Online proofing software prevents data breaches and theft, keeping your company’s proprietary materials safe. Access permissions ensure that only those working on the project are able to see and make changes to it.

Online proofing is on the rise

A recent HTF MI study released on the Global Online Proofing Software Market takes into account the market, its size, growth factors, facts, opinions, and market development data. The study also provides estimates for Global Online Proofing Software Forecast till 2025.

Some relevant features from the report include:

The analysts at HTF MI have taken into account the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on growth and local reforms required to come out of this situation. They have also spoken to industry experts and opinion leaders to assess the present scenario minutely. There is also a detailed chapter, Impact Analysis of COVID-19, on the Global Online Proofing Software Market.

To understand the Online Proofing Software market dynamics in the global perspective, the analysts have examined the worldwide online proofing software market across major geographical regions.

To improve production efficiency and realign product lifecycle, major companies in this market are concentrating on innovative technologies. The companies are improving their existing solutions to cater to the growing market demands. The report provides a competitive analysis of companies present in the market.

The take-home message

Such international-level growth is definitive affirmation of the prevalence of online proofing software throughout businesses of all sizes, in every industry. If your company is still proofing the old-fashioned – and unsecure – way, it’s time to implement greater efficiency and security.  

If you are looking for cloud-based solutions to manage your digital assets safely and securely, get in touch with DocuServe today. We help you build stronger content distribution programs. When you deal with us, you can get complete control over your content. Contact us to learn more about our solutions.


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