Skills and tasks are important for recent hires to learn, but there are sometimes larger patterns that they must adopt to become successful employees. For instance, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) produced a landmark study that found a positive correlation between the establishment of a company narrative and workers who were successfully trained using technology such as eLearning development.
A narrative doesn't necessarily require a story explaining how a company came to be. It is essentially a set of job behaviors or rituals a worker enacts every day. The idea behind the development of a workplace narrative is to internalize crucial behaviors so employees adopt them without giving the process a second thought. Consider the following aspects of narrative construction and sharing developed by the AERA.
Understanding employer expectations
One of the most important motivating forces in the workplace is, to put it bluntly, whatever the boss thinks. Some industries are driven by production and numbers. In other offices, the process is far more important than the end result. Either way, personnel actions should be framed as ultimately resting with a manager or employer. The use of custom software application development is excellent for achieving this goal because tests and questionnaires used to gauge trainee comprehension can be specialized with this understanding in mind.
Using available resources
The narrative describing how an employee acts in the workplace is often dependent upon the workplace. In the case of work-related activities, this involves the resources that are available to workers every day. Use eLearning development to make it clear what materials and tools are around that can help with work and which ones are necessary and which are not.
The need for continued learning
When a company stresses that a large part of its identity is wrapped up in education, successful workers will take this to heart and find ways to teach themselves and others new things. However, communicating that personality needs to be done early so employees don't develop habits counter to the narrative the organization wants to establish. Use custom software development to make this clear from the outset of any training process by emphasizing that the current program is simply the first of many future steps.
Contact Christy Beiermann at cbeiermann@csesoftware.com or 1.309.263.7595 and ask for an eLearning demo today!
