16 May 2022

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Why is hybrid training useful in offices after the pandemic?

Hybrid training has become a feasible solution for companies ever since the Covid-19 pandemic became a reality. The employees shifted to the work-from-home mode and didn’t want to rejoin offices. The Hybrid Training concept means providing training to all the employees, including online means for those working from home and offline to those working from the office.

Hybrid training is useful because it addresses all the employees at the same time.

But is holding a hybrid training event always essential? The situations in which such an event must be held are the following:

Crucial event

Sometimes, an important situation has arisen in the office due to which all the employees need to be informed about. In that case, hybrid training becomes crucial. Apart from that, when some employees work from home, they are not aware of the latest product developments. In that case, remote employees must be brought online to get an introduction to a new product. Sometimes, a special speaker is also called to the office to discuss his industry experience. All the employees need to be gathered together for a hybrid training scenario. Such a scenario ensures that the remote workers also can interact with such speakers, which are only called on exclusive occasions to the office.

Anyone should not feel left out

When meetings are held in the hybrid training model, it’s advantageous for the team because remote workers get to see their office colleagues; this helps in culture building because they learn about other people’s ways of working. Such hybrid training sessions ensure that remote workers who often feel isolated because they are not attending offices don’t feel that way anymore. Since important discussions occur before them in the office, they feel included and don’t suffer from FOMO, leading them to quit.

They might feel that the office workers are being given undue attention because they are included in decision-making. But hybrid training events ensure that such things don’t happen.

Product launch

Sometimes such training is the only option for companies when introducing new products. And all the employees have to be contacted at once to get information about the product. When remote employees are excluded from such training sessions, it can affect the product launch, which is detrimental for the company, given the competition.

For example, sometimes, the sales professionals working remotely and from the office have to be given sales training simultaneously; otherwise, the sales process gets delayed.

In hybrid training, the companies have the advantage that someone present from the office has a good attention span. But what about those attending the meeting online, who could be checking their phone every time. They might have turned their camera off and not listened to anything in the meeting.

Training material is the crux of such a training event

Hence, the most important concern in a hybrid training environment is the training material, which has to be designed properly. The remote participants must feel that the content is as per their needs. If the company does not design the environment in such a way, the whole idea of hybrid training can backfire. The hybrid training must be intentional and can’t be organic because it might not deliver the required results.

The hybrid training presentation must be recorded pragmatically because the remote workers must find the webinar interesting. There must also be PDFs shown in the videos and slide decks that can excite the participants. There can also be ebooks that can be given to the participants so that they have gone through them before attending the class.

Encourage employees to attend such training

The organizations have to make sure that the certifications are also awarded because they give motivation to the participants.

But for that, a tech-based platform has to be used so that there is no extra work for the HR team to keep track of participants who have to be issued certificates. If such software is not given to the HRs, their workload can be increased immensely because of the maintenance of spreadsheets for recording participants.

Organizations have to consider their work culture because presenteeism is not the only matter of importance now. The companies have to see whether the employees are meeting the goals regardless of how much overtime they put in. If an employee cannot deliver the required output, his efforts can’t be rewarded.

Hence this is how hybrid training must be conducted.

19 Apr 2022

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Can medical training increase allied health care workers?

The Covid pandemic, which brought the world to a standstill, has made many changes necessary. One of them is the regular medical training which can only ensure that the health care workers don’t quit. It has been true that health care workers gave their best during the critical times of the pandemic, but they were exhausted after a certain time. The reasons for their leaving jobs were an unexpectedly high number of hospitalizations and working during odd hours during this medical emergency.

Who are allied health care workers?

There has been a lack of talent in the medical sector, majorly in the allied health care sector. This branch of health care involves helping the doctor diagnose a disease. So this includes lab technicians and doctors who run laboratories. Without an X-ray or an ultrasound, it’s tough to determine why someone is ill. There are also assistants working with dentists who clean your mouth before he examines it.

The pandemic exposed the shortage of workers in the allied health care sector. It’s true that now there is an increased need for doctors’ assistants. They check whether the patient has any disease through an examination like an ophthalmologist’s assistant checks whether the patient has an eye problem by putting some eye drops. These kinds of people in allied health care save the time of a doctor who examines those patients who have some genuine problem. Doctors also get tests conducted on a patient for a preliminary analysis of his disease, like the reason for abdominal pain. This helps the medical practitioner prescribe the right medicine depending on the cause.

The medical system cannot run smoothly without the allied health care professionals. For example, a doctor who diagnoses a blood sample cannot do so accurately when the wrong one has been sent to him. Phlebotomists ensure that the blood is collected in the right amount and correctly marked before it reaches a doctor’s laboratory.

Why did the need for such workers heighten during the pandemic?

When the pandemic spread, there was a shortage felt for such allied health care workers who conducted the viral tests to find out whether someone had the virus or not.

Due to the unexpected situation of Covid19, the importance of these professions was realized. It’s because pharmacy assistants had to carry out the job of giving out the self-administered Covid-19 tests. The following were the major functions performed by the pharmacy technicians during the Covid-19 crisis:

Telehealth calls

Pharmacy technicians played such a great role during the pandemic because they ensured that patients took their medicines on time during telehealth calls. This made sure that the need for visiting patients at their homes was decreased, reducing the risk of infections. With licenses, these pharmacy technicians provided telehealth services like demonstrating to a person how to conduct a Covid-19 test. They also helped patients get better knowledge about the disease through telehealth calls. So this made sure that patients who had the symptoms didn’t have to visit doctors in person. The hospitality workers also had to be retrained to ensure that they could check who a foreign visitor was coming into contact with.

The pharmacy technicians were even administering the vaccine during the pandemic. They were doing so when supervised by a pharmacist licensed by the state. So, there is a need for such workers in the future should the need arise.

Remote order verification

Pharmacy technicians have also done remote order verification, which involves validating whether a prescription contains correct entries or not. If a patient has asked for medicine again, then the pharmacist technician can check whether he is buying the medicine too soon. He can check the previous orders of the medicine by the same patient on the PC. Due to remote order verification, the pharmacists can carry out the prescription verification of people living in far-off areas and supply medicines to them. During the pandemic, when the pharmacy technicians were working from home, the prescription verification was done on systems, and hence patients were supplied medicines. But medical training is vital for pharmacy technicians to use such systems. It also helped the pharmacist cope with the lack of technicians, which happened due to lockdowns because online working became easy due to medical training.

How can medical training help in getting such workers?

Medical training can ensure no scarcity of allied health care workers because it provides reskilling to them to prepare for their roles.

This kind of medical training imparted in videos can help these workers learn how to take blood specimens, for example. Elearning is a crucial form of medical training because such aspiring workers might not have time, or even their location might be too far from the place of offline education. Reskilling is also an important part of medical training for such roles. The medical clerks must be promoted to the allied health care workers’ roles. This retains such data entry workers and ensures that the nurses are not faced with an intolerable workload.

21 Feb 2022

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How has globalization led to pharma elearning?

The world around us has become easily dependent on the e-learning industry. Pharma e-learning is truly revolutionary in this industry because it can ensure that the employees become acquainted with the latest compliance rules. Employees also get frustrated with employers who are unwilling to update them about the new rules. Elearning in the pharmaceutical industry has become a critical factor because it can determine whether medical devices are used correctly or not.

When the pharmaceutical companies provide training to their salespersons, they can assure that sales happen. Quick sales are important for such companies because of the short shelf life between product launch and its copying by the competitors.

These are the reasons why pharma e-learning is indispensable in this industry now:

Higher hiring of freelancers

Elearning can as be used to train freelance employees who are getting increased employment in this industry.

The reason why freelancers are getting such high employment is that they can modify their working hours. In certain countries, rules about overtime of employees are very stringent and, as such, prove to be costly for companies. Since freelancers can easily adapt their schedules as per the requirements of the companies without imposing any huge costs on them, they are preferable employees. When the company has just launched a new drug in the market and needs a worker to work overtime for making sales, freelancers are a better option. Sometimes, they are also a necessity in those countries where the company might not find any regular labor.

Since so many companies are entering global markets these days, it might not be plausible to find someone local at quick notice for sales. Hence, hiring a short-time employee might be a good solution for a company. Since the pharma companies hire temporary workers on such a large scale, elearning has become a prerequisite to training them. Elearning is a fast delivery mode and can get a company to rush up to its sales processes.

Need for localization due to globalization

Localization is also becoming a major requirement in the pharma industry. Since so many companies are selling their products internationally, they require someone to interact with the local employees.

This is only possible when someone is aware of the native language of such countries, and hence pharma e-learning imparts the knowledge of such languages.

It has been proved that Asian countries such as India, Russia, and China will be major buyers of international drugs, and here e-learning is necessary for imbibing their cultural and linguistic nuances for making sales.

In addition, there is an increased demand for imports of pharmaceuticals in developing countries and reduced domestic production, which can be attributed to a rise in incomes in these nations. The pharma companies have started understanding the importance of Middle-income countries for their sales, and hence a lot of research and development activities are now focused on them. Hence, there is an increased necessity for language training.

Apart from that, although the local labor is hired in such countries for making sales, it’s important that they are trained adequately in teaching customers. The sales executives must be trained diligently about the consumption of a drug. Therefore, e-learning unavoidably offers the best possibilities for standardized training about drug consumption.

The companies need to systematically train local sales executives because any translation error can cause losses when the consumer takes drugs in the wrong quantity.

Increasing access to local customers

Pharmacists in every country have to be given e-learning to deliver the best of explanations to patients and doctors. That’s why, e-learning is the new paradigm for them given the globalization of pharmaceutical companies.

Such training has to include questions about dosage levels and what can be the side effects caused due to wrong levels of consumption. Moreover, the pharmacists and the sales executives have to be precise and compassionate in dealing with patients who might not read the product instructions, such as the right dosage levels when they are ill. Hence, pharma companies have to enhance pharmacists’ communication and technical skills to make sales and become effective resources for them. Also, the sales executives have to be trained in how to use technology to reach out to customers trying to access them via apps.

More R&D is happening in developing countries

Research and development have also become an important need for such companies. It’s because, without the right formulation, effective drugs can’t be produced. With so much competition, companies have to invest in research and development. But R&D being a costly initiative, the companies have to hire the most efficient workers. The companies have to hone their skills through e-learning to effectively interact with departments like marketing as to what kinds of drugs are needed. Language training is crucial so that the R&D employees in the headquarters can understand a local marketing team and the concerns of patients. Language learning is also significant because pharma companies must serve people, and hence they must have knowledge about their requirements. In addition, such industry has to deal with functional pathways in every country, including the governments, so language training is crucial.

Is e-learning the right choice?

Elearning is a practical alternative for pharma companies because they can’t provide instructor-led training in every country. Apart from being too costly, this can also prove to be a location-centric problem. The learners might not be willing to travel.

Hence, e-learning localization is a great resource for them to provide training in all languages accessible on all devices.

01 Feb 2022

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How a company must develop an elearning app?

The e-learning is now seeing new demand owing to the pandemic. That’s why companies are just coming up with new platforms, not to be left behind. There are many e-learning platforms in the market; hence, the companies need to decide which one to implement, depending on the user preferences.

For example, a company can provide users with a mobile eLearning app that ensures easy accessibility and is also the preferred choice given the wide availability of smartphones.

The companies can choose an e-learning app based on the following parameters:

The companies can develop an e-learning app after knowing the content to be circulated. However, any business which wants an elearning app for its employees must take care of the following features:

Social media integration:
Social media integration should allow an employee to sign in to the app through his Facebook account. This way, he can also share any new training certification badge on his Facebook page so that his friends can see it. Then, when his friends compliment him on seeing an achievement, he feels proud.
Push notifications must also be there in an Elearning app that facilitates employee information sharing. This way, employees are aware when a new course is uploaded on the LMS. Employees can also be alerted when they have not used an app in a long time, reminding them it’s time to finish a course they have left in between.

Such notifications are handy when the employees are informed about the turbulent weather conditions to reach home after work safely. If there is no light in the stairwell, the push notification can also tell employees to turn on the mobile torch. The authorities also become vigilant about repairing such issues before they can cause any harm.
Search feature:
Also, there should be a Search Feature integrated into the app so that employees don’t have trouble finding any information. Enable this search feature to find any content containing keywords, images, videos, or text in the app.

The learners should have every kind of facility in the app, making it more usable; for example, they should have a Forget Password feature when they lose track of their credentials. They should set their profile picture and other account details on the home page. Every course must feature a course description number of lessons and be included in a category. Again, employees should have the option to download a lesson to read it without an internet connection.

The e-learning app must have private access once it’s for the employees of a company. It should not be accessible to anyone outside the network. It’s also the task of the app admin to see that the user profile is deactivated once an employee has left the company.

Also, even if someone gets access to the app through the Playstore with an employee’s credentials, he should not download the app on a nonrecognizable device.

Chatrooms:
Employees can solve any queries regarding the content on the app through a chat functionality managed by senior employees or chatbots. There can also be a chatroom functionality where employees can discuss their work-based problems with other employees if available online.

The technical features of the app are crucial because businesses must consider that employees are taught the latest. Competitors implement new technologies to train employees about better work practices, which you could also use.
Pop up quizzes:

Suppose the safety regulations have been updated at the workplace, but how to check employees for their knowledge. It is possible through pop-up quizzes that analyze employee retention about policy changes. Employees can also be rewarded as positive reinforcement through gift cards etc.

Providing information to employees through a mobile learning app gives them the safest way to access any precarious situation. They can get acquainted with the necessary protocol to be followed when near dangerous chemicals. Any accidents can be prevented when the information is within the most accessible reach of an employee. Hence, a mobile learning app acts as a pocket guide with immense knowledge for an employee.

How to ensure the app’s security?

Moreover, there should be controlled access to the mobile app, and its API should not contain any bugs. Finally, ensure that the developers who have developed the app use obfuscation to ensure that the hackers can’t decipher the code and reverse-engineer it.

In obfuscation, you can change the name of the variables and methods using unprintable characters, etc., but it does not alter the result of the program. Furthermore, since the code can’t be reverse-engineered through this technique, an app can’t be hacked.

Reverse engineering means that the executable file is broken down to get the source file because it is discovered how various functions are included in the source code. Here, a decompiler creates a source file from an executable file. It’s like opening a machine and then assembling it all over again.

For example, one can get the source code of an android app through so many free-cost tools. Hence, the app developers must obfuscate the source code to prevent it from being decompiled using one of these tools and reconstructing the app. But ensuring this is the responsibility of the eLearning companies USA hired for creating the app.

Hence, these are the benefits of using an e-learning app for a company.

31 Jan 2022

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How can financial wellness be ensured with 401(k) elearning?

The employees are struggling with financial wellness, especially due to the pandemic. And companies know that when an employee has financial worries, it leads to adverse consequences. The employees have a lot of needs like constructing a house and paying for their children’s education. But they have to manage other important expenses like taxes, retirement savings, and healthcare. Companies can help employees manage their financial expenditures.

Employees have to manage their financial expenses well. Hence, they have to be taught how to do so. They could be given financial coaches who can prepare their spending and savings plans depending on their health, family members, and age. Employees can also be given software training to get an idea about how much they can spend every month, depending on the possibilities of any health-related contingencies. There are retirement plans available for employees, but they have to consider how many returns they offer.

What is a 401(k) investment plan?

As per this plan, an employee gets a certain amount deducted from his monthly salary subject to a total of 20,500 USD or less in 2022. This plan is taken care of by the sponsor’s employer and remits the employee contribution to the investment custodian responsible for investing such funds and managing them. Employees must know that they can’t contribute more than the 20,500 amount. However, if a larger amount has been deducted, the excess can be distributed to the employee. An employee must also know that he cannot pay any tax on elective deferrals (salary deductions) as per the 401k plan. The amount gets invested in stocks, mutual funds, or bonds, and when an employee turns 59.5 years old, he can withdraw the accumulated amount in the 401(k) account.

An employee must be aware of the elective deferral amounts as per the Internal Revenue Code Section 402(g) limits, and for that, elearning is a prerequisite. If an employer discovers that the elective deferrals for any employee are more than the Internal Revenue Code Section 402(g) limits, the extra amount has to be returned. The aged (older than 50 or more) can contribute more to the 401k plan apart from the 20,500 limits in 2022. They can contribute 6500 dollars more to this plan apart from 20,500 in 2022.

An employee can’t withdraw any amount contributed to the 401(k) account before his age is 59.5 years. But if an emergency requires him to withdraw, he has to incur a penalty of 10% deduction apart from income tax payments on the amount he took out of the 401k account.

Although the 401 (k) is a useful plan for getting a sum after retirement, employees can’t get great returns on the money invested because of restricted investment options. Another drawback is that employees can’t withdraw the money without incurring a 10% deduction(taxes) before they reach 59.5years. However, if an employee is out of a job at 55 because he has opted for retirement, he can still withdraw money without facing a 10% deduction. But, before that, any withdrawal will invite a penalty.

But the advantage is that money is withdrawable without requiring the participant to prove his facing hardship and is in dire need of money.

What are 401(k) hardship withdrawals?

However, he can get rid of the 10% deduction rule to prove that he needs money in certain conditions. All these 401(k) withdrawals are known as hardship withdrawals, and the best part is that you don’t need to repay the amount taken under the following circumstances:

When he needs to bear medical bills for himself, his spouse, or children
When he needs to bear the educational costs of his children
When somebody in the family has died, and funeral charges are to be borne
When unavoidable home repair is needed due to a natural calamity
If an employee is facing eviction from his house due to nonpayment of the mortgage.

But apart from the regular income tax rates levied on such an amount, there is another disadvantage. The employee has to stop making any contributions to his 401(k) account for 6 months after a hardship withdrawal, and can resume them after this period.

Hence, financial advice is needed for an employee about when to start withdrawing money to avoid the 10% penalty.

Hence employers can ensure that the employees have proper retirement planning as per the 401(k) rule and don’t suffer from financial worries.

Are 401(k) hardship withdrawals the best option, or should employees opt for 401(k) loans?

Through finance elearning, employees can learn whether withdrawing from the 401(k) account is the most feasible option for them.

They also have the option of taking a 401(k) loan, in which case they can withdraw the amount from this account but will have to repay it, unlike a hardship withdrawal. In the former case, an employee can take such a loan subject to the maximum amount of 50,000 USD or 50% of his vested 401(k)account amount. But an employee has to pay back this amount in 5 years or less.

Another advantage of the 401(K) loan is that the employees don’t incur any 10% penalty. They also don’t have to pay any income taxes, but if they cannot repay the loan on time, they are subjected to both the income tax and the early withdrawal penalty of 10%.

How can 401(k)elearning help employees?

The employers can arrange the meetings with licensed financial educators, who can also monitor which employees attended the elearning based webinar. With elearning at their disposal, the employees can be taught a lot, like whether they would want a new investment alternative for their 401(k) account, making them earn a higher interest. The employees can also ask questions from such educators during the webinar.

The 401(k)elearning module includes videos, calculators, and articles so that employees know where to invest their money deposited into this account. Such sessions are also attended by the 401(k) recordkeepers who can amend the 401(k) account for an employee once he is interested in a change like selling his mutual funds.

The job of a 401(k) recordkeeper is to get rid of mutual funds or buy them as per the employee’s discretion. They also handle other investments made through the 401(k) account. They also keep track of 401(k) loans and whether the employees who took them have paid them or not.

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