In light of the current situation, interstate travel is limited as well as travel out of the country. If cleared for travel, you may need to quarantine for fourteen days upon arriving at a training location and another fourteen days upon returning. This is time consuming and disruptive to training and operations processes.
Here are five pitfalls of the impact of COVID on training and operations followed by our latest Speach and ways Speach can help you overcome and work through this new set of challenges.
Due to travel restrictions, we must get creative with the way we communicate to clients in order to continue supporting them.
In-person or OTJ (on the job training) is either not an option or requires safe distancing practices that can limit the impact of meaningful training operations. When you’re unable to travel and you have teams that are spread out across the globe, how can you be consistent with training operations?
Although WebEx and Zoom are great tools for meetings, they cannot support or scale effective training. We’ve all been on many Zoom calls and it’s just not enough. Participating in so many of these calls can also cause “Zoom fatigue“.
There are also limitations with organizing WebEx and Zoom calls across time zones. Finding a time that works for your team can be a challenge especially when working from different locations.
Communicating globally requires the need for translation. If you don’t communicate in the same language as your teammates how do you share your vital information with each other?
Lastly, the interruption in business can hinder the adoption of best practices, training and other initiatives. To learn more about how you can overcome these five challenges, watch our latest Speach here.
The possibilities of keeping your clients and teammates engaged with Speach are endless however the seven attributes below highlight the top uses of Speach for a better understanding of how you can achieve global success with the platform.
Enhance your training with asynchronous content with the following capabilities:
Working in this environment requires the adoption and creativity that remote workers have been practicing long before the health crisis. With tools like Speach you will be able to work within this new normal and on a global scale to help you remain connected despite time zone and location constraints.
Click here to request a demo.
The field of knowledge management identifies two types of knowledge. Explicit knowledge is knowledge or skills that can easily be articulated, understood, and shared with others. Typically, in written work instructions or diagrams on the shop floor. Tacit knowledge, on the other hand, is knowledge that is difficult to articulate and share because it is usually intuitive skill sets such as an aesthetic sense or innovative thinking.
Companies are now recognizing that capturing and sharing both forms of knowledge is a primary goal that will help improve decision-making, build expertise and increase efficiencies that will lead to making more informed, faster and more profitable decisions.
Companies that are embracing knowledge management experience more collaboration and idea generation, recognize human capital as an asset, have a culture of knowledge sharing, and have captured and stored knowledge for their future workforce.
One of the biggest challenges of knowledge management, however, has been how to implement it. That is where the knowledge sharing platform comes into play.
A knowledge sharing platform is a technological solution that allows employees to easily connect with one another to collaborate on products, services, and operations of the company. There are many different platforms out there and choosing one is an important decision. You’ll want to make sure you do your homework before selecting a platform that is right for your business.
You’ll want to make sure that your platform encompasses the various needs of your company. Here are some tips on how to use a platform:
Speach takes knowledge sharing platforms to the next level. Digital visualization is at the heart of Speach. Speaches are interactive, how-to videos that any employee can use to capture, transfer, and store knowledge, and it can be used in every aspect of your business. Supporting both iOS and Android, you can use it on any device right on the factory floor.
If you are interested in learning more about a knowledge sharing solution that can keep pace with your changing operational environment, contact us to learn more about Speach or request a demo. We look forward to helping you transform the way you share knowledge.
By improving the onboarding process, companies can craft a better environment for employees throughout their time at the firm by starting with the moment they are hired. To learn more about why leveraging interactive How-To video in the onboarding process can improve employee retention and build strong, reliable teams, check out the information below.
Nothing can disconnect an employee with their new place of work faster than the feeling that they aren’t valuable, and when a company doesn’t put forth the resources necessary to create a high-quality onboarding experience for new hires, it sends the message that your organization doesn’t care about them enough to dedicate those resources. With the right solution, you can create professional quality video content that can be used to enhance onboarding, providing your new hires with not only a more engaging learning experience but also a collection of information that they are free to access and reference at any time, so they will always have the tools that they need to do their job effectively and efficiently. Micro-training video solutions make new video content easy to create and distribute to your employees, so your new hires will always be able to get the most recent and relevant information that can prepare them for the challenges they’ll face in their new role.
A key element to any good training program is the ability to adapt to different types of learners. You may have new hires that will absorb information best if they get to read through a wealth of text or analyze images and graphics, while others may learn best in a collaborative group setting, watching others perform an action, or by trying out certain actions and tasks themselves. With a video onboarding presentation, you can now offer something to all of these types of learners, allowing you to combine elements such as graphics, text annotations, audio, and much more. This makes your organization’s training process more adaptive, as a wider range of learners now have the information presented to them in the form that they prefer.
As an example, let’s say that you just created a How-To training video to show a new employee joining the mergers and acquisitions team how to understand the basics of financial modeling and best practices for building a simple one in Excel. With narration audio present in the video that walks the viewer through each section, you’re catering to the auditory focused learners. By enhancing the video with annotations or captions that put the audio narration into a text format throughout the video, you appeal to the visual learners who are able to retain the information best by reading the text and seeing the financial model come together.
Breaking the video down into simple chapters, you help learners organize the information while encouraging them to follow along and try it for themselves if they prefer. Finally, since the video is available anytime and anywhere, learners can watch and discuss the video in a group setting or watch it on their own time and at their own pace. By creating a training experience that caters to as many types of learners as possible, your new-hires are more likely to have a positive experience during the onboarding stage that they will carry with them into the later months and even years of employment.
Cognitive stress is the effort we put into understanding or absorbing new and complicated information. If it’s something simple like learning someone’s name, the cognitive stress level is low, but for understanding complicated banking concepts and best practices as a new hire, the cognitive stress can be high. Unfortunately, humans are hardwired to avoid cognitive stress as much as possible, instead seeking out the most efficient and stress-free approach to obtaining the information that is deemed necessary. Training programs that don’t effectively simplify the information or organize it in a fashion that is easier to understand, will typically result in newly trained employees retaining very little of the information they were just presented with, leaving them unprepared for the trials that accompany their new job.
The natural solution to reducing cognitive stress during the learning process is to use video, which is actually processed 60,000 times faster than other formats such as text. While you may think that video has a greater amount of information that needs to be absorbed between the collection of various visual and auditory stimuli, what makes video reduce the amount of cognitive stress is the fact that the viewer is taking a passive role in the learning process.
When a new hire going through onboarding reads through a text-heavy training guide, their brain needs to actively process every word, sentence, and idea that they read through to effectively comprehend it, resulting in a high level of cognitive stress. With a video that presents the exact same information as that text-based training guide, the trainee is presented with a variety of stimuli that their brain can select from based on their learning preferences, piecing together a more complete understanding of the material. Looking at information retention by the numbers, new employees retain approximately 95% of the information presented in a video, compared to a mere 10% of the information that they read in text format. Armed with more information, your new employees are more likely to feel prepared to start their new job and help them feel more comfortable at the organization.
While managing the amount of cognitive stress that your new-hires face during training is already a challenge, keeping them interested and engaged in the process is another barrier that learning and development managers must overcome. Engagement plays a big role in the realm of information retention for new hires, meaning the more engaging your company’s training program is, the better your employees will perform in their role and the more comfortable they will feel at the company. The good news is that just like with the case of cognitive stress, video is a perfect solution for improving engagement levels for new employees during onboarding.
One of the most important factors to consider when trying to maintain employee engagement during the start of their tenure at your organization is the pacing of training. If the pace is too slow, your new hires will quickly become disinterested and tune out, but if the pace is too fast, they will be left scrambling and failing to retain large portions of valuable information while they simply try to keep up. With an onboarding strategy that is built around a micro-training video solution, you not only ensure that the pacing of training is always consistent, but you also give your new hires more control. While they may watch the video once during their initial training, they can always go back to access the video later and watch it as many times as necessary to absorb every bit of vital information.
Another way in which video further boosts the engagement of your new hires is a phenomenon called the “mirroring effect”. Simply put, when a person watches a video of someone performing an action, the viewer feels as if they are performing that action. For example, watching a video of someone running will give you the feeling that you were also running without having the physically taxing effect on your body. While most of the time you may not notice the mirroring effect, the subtle sensation is something that will keep you engaged with the video, while also improving the rate of information retention for many learners.
Just like a video of someone running, the mirroring effect can take place for anyone watching a training video for creating a financial model, giving your new hires the feeling that they are following along and putting the model together themselves and getting hands on experience, even though they are just watching a video.
What separates good onboarding from great onboarding is how far it goes beyond the initial training. Providing your employees with high-quality information resources during their first few weeks into their new job will create a strong foundation of knowledge, but that foundation is not everlasting. Months and years down the road, that foundation can start to become shaky, as your employees fail to retain some of those crucial bits of information that they learned long ago during their onboarding, or the information that makes up their foundation becomes outdated.
With an interactive How-To video solution, your onboarding library becomes a long-term information repository that your team can access anytime, anywhere, and on any device, so they can get the information they need to keep that foundation of knowledge strong. With easy video creation and seamless sharing, your company can even send out an update regarding best practices, a groundbreaking strategy, or an adjustment to a previous video that was missing information to your entire team, from new hires to senior employees, making sure that outdated information never becomes an issue.
When the right person has easy access to the right information, expertise sharing can help employees reach operational excellence. Pharma companies should capitalize on the know-how and best practices of their SMEs in order to stay at the top of their game in such a fast-moving and highly competitive environment. Constant and quick access to in-house expertise actually makes it possible to speed up implementation of new tools, processes, and operating procedures.
The approach used to distribute GMPs (Good Manufacturing Practices) does not always facilitate practical implementation in production and QC laboratories. However, pharma companies must continuously train employees on best practices to ensure safety and guarantee that regulatory requirements for manufacturing, packaging, analysis, and storage processes are respected.
Though digital technology has become an integral part of our world, most companies continue to depend, for example, on paper documents to specify their operational procedures and ensure the best practices. It’s no secret that reading resource articles and partaking in PowerPoint training classes takes time for both student and trainer. Furthermore, these knowledge transfer methods aren’t always the most effective or engaging.
To respond to these challenges, companies can turn to step-by-step immersive video instructions filled with presentations, PDF documents, voice-overs, and notes… Pharmaceutical companies evolve in a highly controlled context and therefore have at their disposal an excellent means to promote and share knowledge and skills among peers.
Videos are more appealing and easier to use than written documents. The use of microlearning videos within a company allows it to enhance knowledge transfer. Work instructions through an immersive video contribute to the digitization of the best practices in manufacturing and quality control. They complement paper documents—or are a step towards going completely paperless!
In the pharmaceutical industry, instructions must always be clear and precise and can in no way be modified or incomplete. Operating procedures allow technicians to carry out tasks without the risk of error or omission. Adopting the best industry procedures and permanently optimizing processes prevents manufacturing incidents, delays, or issues from recurring while also contributing to reducing non-quality costs.
Microlearning videos make it easy to record the best practices and can be further enriched with diagrams, illustrations, photos, text, and markers. Laboratory technicians and operators can consult the interactive how-to video at any time and as often as they wish in order to fully comprehend a specific procedure.
The video format helps certain topics—oftentimes quite complex within the pharmaceutical industry—be more easily understood. It is reassuring for technicians to receive work instructions via an immersive video; showing rather than telling considerably improves precision and dramatically reduces the way in which something can be interpreted. video format helps certain topics—oftentimes quite complex within the pharmaceutical industry—be more easily understood. It is reassuring for technicians to receive work instructions via an immersive video; showing rather than telling considerably improves precision and dramatically reduces the way in which something can be interpreted.
Furthermore, the tutorial format makes it easy to organize and showcase information. SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) must have a logical arrangement. Step-by-step immersive videos make it possible to divide a specific operating procedure up into multiple segments and can therefore focus on how every single action should be done in great detail. How-to videos can also evolve and be easily updated at any time. This is a great time saver for laboratory operators who no longer need to look up the latest operating procedure through paper documents.
To benefit from new technology and automation, every employee must proactively and continuously self-train in order to update their skill set. Expertise sharing empowers employees and allows them to independently upskill the handling of new tools and new procedures. Work instructions in video format can be accessed on demand and through any kind of media, directly in-house.
The P4 approach to medicine (Predictive, Preventative, Personalized, Participatory) largely relies on constant health data digitization, collection, and use through new technology. However, professionals within the pharmaceutical industry are constantly surrounded by new knowledge and material. This makes it difficult for them to find the exact information they need when they need it.
Microlearning videos can instantly respond to and remotely resolve these operational issues. Laboratory operators have direct in-house access to the information they need, which allows them to avoid manufacturing delays or standstills. Gathering the best practices for manufacturing and laboratory quality control will allow employees to access the required knowledge when they need it and help them in their decision-making process.
As it is better to predict rather than heal, QC analysts, in an effort to work towards continuous improvement, must be able to anticipate the smallest issue that could appear or become redundant. Managing inconsistencies and controlling risks therefore represent a major challenge for pharmaceutical companies. Implementing a knowledge management strategy will allow you to keep your competitive edge in an already highly competitive sector.
SMEs can therefore distribute their knowledge on a large scale and have it exponentially shared as a result of the network effect. Employees will consequently feel connected with each other and their SME peers.
Distributing a team’s best practices to other sites also places it in the global spotlight. Once SMEs see how their know-how is valued after being shared, they’ll feel further recognized and become more engaged. Sharing knowledge between employees also makes it possible to identify the most talented players.
“We’re living in a world that’s changing; it’s a revolution. Digital technology and networks are shaking up companies’ rules of the game. A good customer experience does not exist without a good employee experience.” – Olivier Delabroy, VP Digital Transformation, Air Liquide
Sharing the best practices through step-by-step immersive videos drives performance by improving on-the-job skills. It significantly improves processes and operational procedures. Each speach, which is in an immersive video format, facilitates continuous and independent employee upskilling to help reduce training costs. It also reduces non-quality costs by reducing non-conformities and therefore legal sanctions. Interactive how-to videos complement and complete manufacturing and quality documents. With this dynamic format, your SMEs’ knowledge and best practices are transferred efficiently and used to their fullest.
About Speach
Speach is a video instruction format that guides operators step by step in performing a technical method. These immersive videos can be enriched with other elements to detail a process, describe a technical method, share know-how or best practices.
Learn step by step how to get into Industry 4.0 video instructions, by leveraging your three most powerful internal resources: people, processes and technologies.
To take full advantage of automation, operators need to develop and upgrade their skills. The modernization production also involves process optimization to facilitate decision-making in operational daily life in order to increase productivity.
The transition to Industry 4.0 is relevant to these three levels of your company: the employees, the processes and equipment used. Each of resource contains critical information to identify potential areas for improvement:
Let’s see together how to rethink the organization of your means of production in order to optimize the “cost-time-quality triptych”.
According to a 2018 World Economic Forum report, more than half of employees (54%) will need to upgrade their skills by 2022. To take advantage of technology, companies must capitalize on the continuous development of employee skills. Indeed, the promise of automation in terms of productivity and cost reduction will only be maximized if industries make “upskilling” a priority.
With the digitalization of production chains, operators must acquire new technical skills and integrate new modes of operation. For example, employees may have to change how they course correct, manage data or define a maintenance plan. In Industry 4.0, employees learn to work online, on the go, to instruct robots, or to repair an engine with step-by-step visual instruction.
The development of technologies and data in real time on production lines also requires operators to have “soft skills” such as autonomy in decision-making and the ability to “learn to learn” to grow.
Promoting knowledge sharing and supporting employees’ daily skills development is therefore a key challenge for the factory of the future. In addition, generations Y and Z are entering the workforce and have unique learning methods. They want short, immersive content, available anywhere, anytime and on demand, according to their needs.
A continuous improvement approach constantly challenges current practices to optimize existing processes. This can be done, for example, by improving work stations, eliminating waste and reducing risks.
One of the founding principles of Kaizen is to appeal to collective intelligence and to promote the empowerment of employees. Facilitating the sharing of knowledge between employees and the feedback of information from the field makes it possible to obtain regular and progressive improvements in the process. Employees on the production line know the machines used and have already experienced certain situations. They are therefore able to give context to events that have occurred. By offering the possibility to each operator to contribute to the improvement of a process in the form of short and simple content, you will develop their autonomy and their commitment.
Despite the ubiquity of digital, operational procedures, there is still a dependency on written documentation. Written documentation can sometimes be difficult to find and consult, especially for younger generations, who are used to consuming short, interactive and immersive content. Work video instructions take less time to produce than written formats and are more easily viewed by employees.
Employee errors are the number one cause of quality control problems in manufacturers today. Interactive video instructions provides a clear and concise explanation without the risk of misinterpretation.
Today, too many companies are finding temporary solutions to recurring problems. Even when a process is improved, it is not always communicated quickly and on a large scale to other production sites. An operating procedure filmed step by step in the form of enriched video can be instantly shared with all other sites and factories around the world.
In addition, watching a technical procedure filmed step by step can provide improvement opportunities which help gauge performance or efficiency. Operators can also quickly document a problem on the production line.
In the era of Industry 4.0, renewing machines and integrating new technologies offers a more connected, better controlled and more profitable production tool. Updating equipment and digitizing the production line will increase the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and therefore reduce machine downtime.
As we have seen, digital transformation is driven by people who develop their skills and rethink processes to take advantage of technology. The gradual digitization of the production tool will make it possible to entrust repetitive tasks to robots to free up time for employees with missions that have a higher added value. Technology should not decrease the capabilities of employees. In fact, technology applied effectively will empower employees. Connected operators will use the power of artificial intelligence and real-time data to make informed decisions. Thus, investing in technology will expand your capabilities for increased productivity.
Immersive video instructions assist your operators on a daily basis. They are part of a process of continuous learning and improvement for the use of new machines. With Speach, employees get accustomed to digital by using a digital mobility solution, which facilitates their daily operational life. Your teams can develop skills independently and proactively, according to their needs. Thanks to a structured and easily updated knowledge base, they will be able to make decisions more quickly and unlock situations on the ground. Your employees can quickly consult and optimize the processes and operating modes on the machines that enter the company each year. With Speach, deliver the right expertise to the right person, when they need it.
About Speach
Speach is a video instructions format that guides operators step by step in performing a technical method. These immersive videos can be enriched with other elements to detail a process, describe a technical method, share know-how or best practices.
In the manufacturing industry, safety is always at the forefront of leadership’s concerns. Workers often operate in potentially dangerous settings, operating heavy tools and handling hazardous materials alongside large, complex machinery. In that kind of environment, accidents are always a risk. But modern technology can help make the factory floor safer than ever before, and at SpeachMe, we’re helping make manufacturing everywhere safer through video.
Even with a highly-skilled workforce, the primary cause of manufacturing accidents is operator error. New workers may not feel confident with company protocol, seasoned veterans may get too comfortable, or there may be miscommunication in the training process – wherever it comes from, many accidents occur due to slip-ups on process or procedure.
Enterprise cloud video technology can change that. A robust knowledge sharing solution for work instructions and best practices videos offers a new way for workers to access and interact with the information they need to do their jobs – eliminating the knowledge gap between employee and procedure.
Digital tools put best practices videos directly at employees’ fingertips, 24/7, making it easy for them to brush up on skills or perform an action correctly. For new employees, cloud software such as Speach offers detailed analytics on watch time, engagement rate, and quiz results, providing a surefire check to ensure that every new employee understands company procedures 100%. This new level of interaction and control helps make sure nothing falls through the cracks so that when your employees start a task, they know the SOP through and through – and that makes the plant floor a safer place for everyone.
When it comes to safety, organizations cannot take shortcuts. An interactive digital format like Speach means your safety training process is more efficient and effective, creating a safer environment for each and every work at your company. See the difference that 21st-century digital work instruction software can make in a smart manufacturing organization: talk to us about how Speach can help your company today.
