Introduction
Combating this serious issue requires not just thoughtful training program designing that takes into account the preferences and needs of the learners but also an effective software training solution that can cater to those requirements without burdening the L&D department unnecessarily. Assima can be that solution for you. Digital tools provided by Assima are built to combat employee training fatigue and disengagement and create a future-ready workforce.
Learn more about how Assima creates a workforce that is engaged and eager to learn.
What Is Employee Training Fatigue?
Employee training fatigue can be defined as feelings of exhaustion, disengagement, and stress, even to the point of anxiety and burnout in extreme cases, due to being overwhelmed and overloaded by workplace learning efforts. Fatigue can arise not only from spending too much time or learning too much, but also from the medium or type of training used.
People often confuse training fatigue with general workplace fatigue. It is important to understand that these two are completely different phenomena to handle them accordingly. Workplace fatigue is caused by overworking, either mental or physical, micromanagement or other mismanagement issues, having to take care of responsibilities beyond your role, etc. It has little or nothing to do with training.
Ever since the pandemic, with a rise in remote and hybrid work models, employee training fatigue has increased. This is due to the decrease in interactive, social learning opportunities, which play a huge role in enhancing knowledge retention and recall, learner engagement, and application skills. This has been inhibited greatly by one-directional digital and remote learning techniques that do not involve or immerse the trainee properly, resulting in what is commonly known as digital training fatigue. Digital training fatigue is only one type of employee training fatigue; however, it is the most common type nowadays due to the widespread use of digital training tools in workplaces.
Causes of Training Fatigue in the Modern Workplace
The most common reasons for employee training fatigue in today’s workplace are:
Overloading Employees with Long Training Sessions
Long training sessions often lead to cognitive overload due to the overwhelming amount of information consumed in one sitting. This can lead to mental fatigue and a reduction in information retention among learners, especially the younger generations.
Passive, One-Directional Learning Formats
One-directional training lessons like long text materials, static videos or audios, non-interactive slides, etc. can quickly make learning boring and drain learners of any interest. They are one of the biggest reasons for low employee engagement in training.
One-Size-Fits-All Training for All Employees
Every learner has certain learning styles, requirements, and preferences, which makes them most effective in retaining and applying knowledge. A one-size-fits-all approach may suit some, but the majority of learners will not train effectively.
Lack of Opportunity for Immediate Application
One of the most effective methods of learning involves the application of knowledge at the point of or right after information consumption. The longer the wait between the two activities, the higher the loss of information from the memory of the learners.
Frequent Context-Switching Between Tools
Most digital training tools do not take into account the context of an action, like role, responsibility, and task, when delivering training. As a result, when switching between two tools or platforms, the context often switches, causing inconsistent information delivery.
Best Practices for Measuring Training Effectiveness
How can you know if your workforce is experiencing any kind of employee training fatigue? Look out for these signs:
Low Course Completion Rates
If more and more employees are dropping out of the training course, one cause can be that they are too exhausted or overwhelmed to complete it. Even though most employees value growth and development opportunities, they will not sacrifice their cognitive health over it.
Drop in Post-Training Performance
Even if employees somehow labor through their training, it will not be as effective if they experience training fatigue. You will notice a drop in their productivity and efficiency as well as their enthusiasm and engagement at work.
Negative Feedback About Training
If you put in place a system to rate the training program deployed, then, chances are there would be significant negative or barely satisfactory reviews about it if employees experienced fatigue. A low NPS score is the biggest indication of dissatisfaction.
Frequent Doubts and Helpdesk Calls
Employee training fatigue causes disengagement, which in turn results in low knowledge retention. Consequently, employees do not develop the necessary know-how or skills to get their job done, resulting in more helpdesk calls and queries.
More Compliance and Security Issues
Employees with training fatigue are more likely to commit errors in their work. While some errors will be easy to correct, many could lead to serious compliance and security issues that can even jeopardize your business as well as your clients.
The Impact of Training Fatigue on Productivity and Performance
Employee training fatigue can have a serious effect on the productivity and performance of employees, including:
Missed Goals and Deadlines
Learning fatigue reduces the effectiveness of the training provided to employees, causing them to lose efficiency and take longer to perform tasks. As a result, they miss goals and deadlines at a higher rate, affecting business.
Increased Support Ticket Volume
Training fatigue also results in more errors at work due to doubts and misconceptions. This causes a rise in the volume of support tickets created as more helpdesk queries are raised to clear these doubts and correct these mistakes.
Delayed Software Adoption
Employees, particularly those from generations less familiar with technology booms, may struggle to enthusiastically adopt new software if they experience fatigue during systems training. User adoption would either be delayed or never pick up as expected.
Frustrated Employees and Managers
With lowered performance, more mistakes, and a general inability to get work done as anticipated, both employees and managers would experience a rise in frustration. This would not only affect the workplace environment but also their job satisfaction.
How to Combat Training Fatigue with Assima
Nowadays, a lot of enterprises are adopting digital learning solutions to tackle fatigue, burnout, and disengagement during employee training. A robust and innovative digital adoption solution has become imperative to help employees navigate a highly advanced technological landscape in the office. However, the wrong solution can add to employee training fatigue rather than dispel it. Assima is a systems training platform that correctly cracks the code every time. As a highly interactive, flexible platform, you can use it for any workplace training scenario.
Simulation training is the perfect choice for your company if your current training program causes serious digital training fatigue. It integrates all the advantages of interactive training, which eliminates the cons of one-way training systems even during individual or remote training. Moreover, simulation training employs scenario-based training principles that ensure that employees are receiving contextual, role-based training that directly pertains to their responsibilities.
Since Assima captures screens from the actual software, once training is finished, every employee is completely ready to start working on the live system without any extra onboarding time needed. By reducing the overall training and onboarding time, you help minimize training fatigue. Since every lesson focuses on a particular system process, lessons are bite-sized, and learners can take advantage of micro-learning by doing away with long-drawn sessions.
Get a better idea of how Assima’s cloning technology works from this video.
Key Features of Assima that Boost Engagement
Assima has a set of features that make it the perfect choice to eliminate employee training fatigue and improve engagement:
Clone Technology for Interactive Software Simulations
Assima Train uses a 4X patented simulation authoring technology that accurately clones software processes to create hyper-realistic simulations. They provide a risk-free environment to practice your skills in a fully interactive manner.
Easy and Consistent Maintenance and Updation
Lessons can be maintained and updated quickly and homogenously across locations due to centralized storage and access. Hence, every employee can start training at the same time and not lag or fumble during onboarding.
In-App Guidance for Just-in-Time Learning
Assima In-App Search is another tool from Assima that provides just-in-time training and in-app information access facilities. Working as an overlay widget and providing contextual information at the point of need, it boosts employee confidence and engagement.
Analytics To Measure Engagement and Completion
An in-depth analytics dashboard that tracks and integrates the progress data of every user helps you keep an eye on how well the learners as well as the training program itself are doing. You can easily modify lessons for better performance from this information.
Multilingual Support to Reduce Language Barriers
Assima allows you to translate lessons to any supported language from another in just a single step. You no longer have to worry about translations, nor do your employees have to train in a language other than their native one.
Real-World Example: How Companies Use Assima to Reduce Fatigue
A great case study on how Assima helps enterprises overcome employee training fatigue and provide effective software training is Plan International. Assima’s easy and consistent lesson creation and delivery helped Plan International train thousands of employees in multiple languages with zero inconsistency and saved thousands of dollars. Moreover, the interactive nature of the lessons helped develop their skills and confidence, improve workforce training retention, and boost productivity. Want to know how we accomplished that? Read all about it here.
Best Practices to Improve Training Outcomes
An advanced training solution is not enough to fulfill the requirements and expectations of your training program unless you know how to utilize it to the fullest. Here are some best practices you should keep in mind during the training process.
Break Training into Bite-sized Lessons
Long, one-directional lessons are one of the top causes of training fatigue. Engage your employees at every training session by breaking them down into micro-lessons and making them more interactive.
Offer Role-Specific Content
Ensure that every employee only consumes information relevant to their role and responsibilities. Unnecessary knowledge consumption that does not relate to their tasks makes them disengaged and burnt out.
Encourage Spaced Repetition
Most people need to go through the same information more than once for complete and certain retention. Human memory is wired to forget information it deems excess or unnecessary unless ingested again.
Give Instant Feedback with Evaluations
Evaluations are a great way to not only jog memory but also assess the degree of retention among learners. Instant feedback lets them realize areas that need improvement so they can get back to them in time.
Monitor Using Analytics from Assima Train
Keeping track of learner as well as training success lets you maintain the progress of the training program, by helping those that need an extra boost and modifying the program for peak performance.
Final Thoughts: Rethinking Your Training Strategy
For a long time, the general consensus was that training fatigue was the fault of the learner. However, modern training solutions have paved the path for that misconception to be broken. By putting to practice proven learning theories, tailoring the learning process for individual requirements, and using a digital adoption platform that is equipped to make the above possible, you can fix employee training fatigue easily. A solution like Assima can completely transform the reception of your training program by your employees and help them keep fatigue at bay.
Ready to re-energize your workforce? Discover how Assima Train can eliminate training fatigue.
Frequently Asked Questions
Let’s Answer Some of Your Questions.
Employee training fatigue refers to a feeling of exhaustion or stress from training. It can be due to long sessions with overwhelming information consumption or due to unsuitable training materials or platforms.
Training fatigue always has a marked impact on business performance. Reduction in productivity and efficiency, greater chance of errors and risks, more helpdesk calls, and general disengagements are some clear signs.
You can prevent training fatigue by making lessons smaller, providing just-in-time guidance, tailoring lessons based on roles and learner preferences, encouraging applicational practice, and gathering feedback that you apply to your training program.
Assima Train uses hyper-realistic, interactive simulations that accurately mimic real business processes and allow learners to gain and apply their knowledge in a safe environment without the fear of making mistakes. Experiential learning techniques are always more effective in teaching skills than one-dimensional methods.
Assima Train provides a highly interactive, immersive learning experience that allows application at the point of knowledge consumption and ensures a risk-free environment to apply and practice your skills. Lessons are divided into modules that can be accessed on demand from any place and at any time. These capabilities reduce training fatigue to a great extent.