Trainings are canceled, training and further education are hardly planable for the time being: Social distancing is causing personal development to be quite disrupted. We have gathered three ideas on how you as a personnel developer can use this time productively:

Idea 1: Ask your employees about their wishes

If your employees are currently working from home, seize the opportunity to actively reach out to them. Address your employees directly and ask them about their wishes for their own further education. You could ask your employees the following questions, for example:

• Do your employees want more in-person training sessions or rather flexible e-learning offerings?

• Are your employees currently facing problems because they lack knowledge on certain topics? If so, which topics?

• Would they like to further educate themselves in various topics that the company has not offered so far? If yes, which topics are those?

Depending on how many employees there are, you can either address them individually, for example via email or in a video meeting, or you send a short questionnaire to all employees.

Collect these impulses from the employees and think about solutions and incorporate them into new further education concepts. This way, employees feel taken seriously, and you directly generate new ideas for target group-oriented training sessions.

Idea 2: Review past training successes

Training should be target group-oriented – and of course successful too! Use the current time to re-evaluate the success of past measures.

In many trainings, success is measured directly after the measure. However, more interesting is the long-term learning effect of your employees, weeks or even months after the training:

• Which content do your employees still remember 3, 6, or 12 months after the training?

• How much of what they have learned do they actually apply actively in their daily work?

• How did the employees generally find the further education – what should be improved?

For this, you can also either survey individual employees or design a questionnaire for larger groups. This way, you will find out how effective the previous trainings are – and you can optimize them accordingly.

Idea 3: Educate yourself further

Often, there simply isn't enough time for further education in daily work – this applies not only to employees but also to many personnel managers. Get informed about current trends such as learning times in companies, learning on demand, or storytelling in onboarding new employees.

If your employees desire digital learning offerings, you should gain an overview of e-learning methods and consider how you can digitalize analog training content.

You certainly don't have to switch to fully digital further education overnight. Blended learning, i.e., the combination of in-person and online learning is the perfect entry point for e-learning newcomers. On our info page, you can learn more: "Blended Learning in Practice."

Reading tip: How the mix of in-person and online learning is possible during the Corona period has been summarized for you in the blog last week: How to succeed in blended learning despite social distancing.

Additionally, download the free guide "Blended Learning in Companies," with many expert tips from practice on how to establish blended learning in your company.

How are you using the current time? Have you already implemented one of these ideas? Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences with us in the comments!