Almost 90% of organizations rely on frontline workers - but many are still struggling to effectively onboard and train their deskless workforce.
Frontline workers are employees who need to be physically present at a business or customer location to do their job. They often perform essential job functions and work in environments that can be physically challenging, as well as interacting directly with customers and the general public.
All these factors can make training a problem.
In fact, more than half of leaders agree frontline workers are harder to train than professional or managerial workers. They’re harder to reach and harder to engage - so traditional training tools are not enough.
This is where Microsoft Teams comes in.
Read on to find out 6 advantages of integrating employee training in Microsoft Teams for your frontline workforce.
Can Microsoft Teams be used for employee training?
Best known as a communication and collaboration platform, Microsoft Teams might not be the first thing you think of when looking at training tools for your frontline workforce.
But while the platform wasn’t originally created to cater to training, organizations can now leverage 3rd party integrations in AppSource - Microsoft’s App Store - to tailor Microsoft Teams to your needs, including onboarding, training, and upskilling your workforce.
New product integrations on the platform mean it’s quick and easy to embed employee onboarding and training directly in Microsoft Teams, so your frontline employees can learn directly in the tools they already use.
68% of companies have already invested in mobile phones and tablets to support frontline workers - and Microsoft has seen 400% growth in the use of their technology on the frontline since 2020.
If you’re already using Microsoft Teams to communicate with your frontline, it’s time to start using it for training too.
Top benefits of using Microsoft Teams for training
Here are the top benefits of using Microsoft Teams for training your frontline workforce - for them and for you.
For employees
1. Improved onboarding experience
When it comes to retaining your frontline workforce, your onboarding process is make or break. New hires decide in the first six months of employment whether or not they want to stay with your organization.
By embedding onboarding directly within Microsoft Teams, you can create a seamless onboarding experience for new employees. Automate repetitive tasks to free up time for hiring managers and HR teams and welcome new hires to your organization with personalized preboarding and onboarding flows that are tailor-made for their specific roles.
Equip your frontline workers with the knowledge they need to succeed from day one - and reduce time-to-productivity by up to 60%.
Read next: Top 5 Microsoft Teams Apps For New Employee Onboarding
2. Higher training engagement
If you can equip frontline employees with digital tools for training and empower them to take an active role in their development, you will see the difference across your organization.
By integrating employee training in Microsoft Teams, you can encourage frontline employees to learn where they are, in the tools they already use.
The average employee context switches more than 1,100 times a day - reduce digital friction by removing barriers to learning and give workers access to training in the platforms they’re already familiar with to boost training engagement.
The results speak for themselves - 72% of organizations report an increase in employee productivity after introducing technology solutions tailored to frontline employees. 69% also increased employee engagement and satisfaction and 67% say they’ve improved the quality of their products and services in the process.
3. Better workplace safety and compliance
For frontline employees, effective and comprehensive onboarding is essential to ensure that every worker is safe and compliant with the legal requirements for their role - and to make sure they feel confident in the workplace.
But for many organizations, safety and compliance training is patchy at best:
-
23% of companies admitted they don’t offer any compliance training for their employees.
-
Four out of ten organizations think their compliance training programs are simple or reactive.
-
30% of organizations don’t evaluate the effectiveness of their compliance training programs after rollout.
As it stands, significant numbers of frontline workers aren’t equipped to operate safely and efficiently in their current roles and don’t reach the minimum legal requirements for their industry.
By integrating employee safety and compliance training in Microsoft Teams, you can ensure that your frontline workforce have easy access to the information they need to be safer every day. They return to essential training whenever they need it - and admins can send automatic reminders when new requirements are rolled out.
4. Boost performance
With an effective and engaging employee training program, you can improve motivation and performance across your organization - giving frontline employees more job satisfaction in the process.
Take frontline managers as an example - 81% of frontline supervisors say they’re not satisfied with their own performance and 60% of frontline leaders report wanting more training than they’re currently getting.
But imagine if frontline managers and workers had the opportunity to learn on the job, in the daily flow of work? Microsoft Teams gives your employees the chance to learn when and how they want and gain the necessary skills they need to excel in their roles.
The results speak for themselves - frontline manager productivity increased by 16% after implementing Microsoft solutions and 116 hours were saved annually by frontline workers, boosting productivity company-wide.
For organizations
5. Greater efficiency
61% of organizations state lack of time is the biggest challenge when it comes to training their workforce.
By bringing all the tools you need for effective employee training into one platform and automating repetitive tasks, you can free up much-needed time for your training and development team and make the whole process more efficient.
Integrating employee training into Microsoft Teams means it's as easy for you to build training programs as it is for employees to access them. Microlearning courses can be produced in 300% less time than traditional training courses - and with eduMe, you can create courses directly in Teams and assign them to specific groups, monitoring engagement and completion rates with in-built analytics on the platform.
6. Democratize content creation
User-friendly training integrations in Microsoft Teams - particularly those with unlimited admin seats - turn anyone on your team into a content creator.
Accelerate content creation for employees by combining powerful tools with a simple drag-and-drop interface to enable training programs to be built easily, by anyone, in hours. Empower your team to update and manage content as and when it’s needed - no coding or technical knowledge required.
Microsoft Teams integrations democratize training creation across your team by making it simple for anyone to create courses and make data-driven decisions using analytics directly within the platform. MS Teams also ensures communication across platforms is straightforward thanks to direct messaging and integrations. It’s extra streamlined and extra fast.
7. Maximize return on your existing investment
By integrating employee training in Microsoft Teams, you also avoid investing in new tools and platforms - instead, you’re simply streamlining, refining, and getting more out of the subscriptions you already have. Maximize the benefits you get from your existing platform by embedded employee onboarding and training directly within MS Teams to get higher returns on your investment.
Research from Forrester Consulting found that organizations experienced 345% ROI over three years using Microsoft Teams for frontline workers - and a net present value (NPV) of $14.9 million.
8. Easier stakeholder buy-in
While you can see the value of spending money on software for employee training, it can be a hard sell within your organization. Getting buy-in from multiple stakeholders to invest in new software can be a long internal process, requiring extensive negotiations, resources and time.
Now consider Microsoft Teams integrations - you’ve already got buy-in from your organization, you just have to convince them to add a little extra. It’s far easier to convince stakeholders to expand your program with an ‘add on’, rather than starting from scratch with a new platform. That means less time on pitching and more time on improving training performance company-wide.
Start using Microsoft Teams for training today
If you’re not using Microsoft Teams for training your frontline workforce, you’re missing out. A whole host of Microsoft Teams integrations make onboarding and training simple - helping to boost employee engagement, performance, and safety and compliance.
At the same time, you can maximize your return on investment, simplify stakeholder buy-in and free up time and resources for your training and development team.
Use the eduMe Microsoft Teams integration to deliver passwordless access to relevant onboarding and training within the platform you already use - create lessons and courses in minutes with ultra-engaging microlearning tools in MS Teams and send them directly to the people who need it, including individuals, whole teams and new hires.
To see how it works - book a demo.
