Training employees well is critical to the long term success of any company, but often, it's not given the attention it deserves. This process is not a one time thing, and there definitely isn't a 'one size fits all' approach to success when training and onboarding employees. What there is, however, are various software that will allow you to improve your employee training, subsequently elevating the learning experience and helping employees establish some strong roots within your workplace. While there are various, I've picked out my favorite 3 tools for you to accelerate your journey towards great online employee training.

Why Embrace Online Employee Training?

You'd be going against the curve if you were wanting to stick strictly to traditional workplace training processes and learning programs, that more often than not involved large groups sitting around in a classroom-style set-up. Sometimes it is good to go against the grain, but not when statistical evidence strongly points towards following the crowd, which is the case here. The Research Institute of America proved that online learning programs boast information retention rates of 25% to 60%, with in person retention being far lower, at 8% to 10%.

Not only this, but with the current shift towards remote and asynchronous work, online learning, specifically in a professional context, needs to be leveraged. Luckily, this shift has been met with technological advancements allowing for more flexible, accessible, and scalable learning solutions that let employees learn at their own pace and maximize their potential from rookie, all the way up to manager.

Tool 1: Bubbles

Bubbles is an asynchronous communication tool, with one of their focuses being on, in their own words - "keeping onboarding personal & delightful without having to find overlapping availability in everyone’s calendar". Not strictly a learning platform, Bubbles has many use cases, including optimizing meetings with an AI Notetaker and providing a platform for managers to guide and nurture their employees, ensuring processes and projects keep iterating and improving.

However, these use cases make Bubbles the ideal tool for online employee training. To understand why, we just need to look into the pitfalls of the classroom-style set-up of traditional employee training, that was mentioned earlier. People learn at different paces, and not only this, some employees (the best ones), will want to be more thorough than others, so why would we not allow them to do so when employee training? By opting for a fully asynchronous approach to employee training programs, you allow this self-paced learning.

Not only is asynchronous employee training more cost effective, it is more scalable and consistent, and according to a study by The Open University, 90% of students (largely translatable to new hires), who undergo self-paced learning end up becoming highly confident in task and time management. What company wouldn't want their new hires to become fully autonomous productivity machines?

Features

• Record Screen, Video, and Audio (perfect for training walkthroughs)
• Set Respond-by Times or Mark as FYI
• Unlimited Recordings
• Unlimited Recording Length
• Invite Unlimited Teammates to Comment - perfect for repurposing recorded training videos and being time efficient
• Rich Commenting - allows employees to pinpoint areas of uncertainty and ask questions
• Unlimited Communication Channels
• AI Notetaker - perfect to keeping focus on the meeting itself when you want to teach employees a new skill live
• Video Transcripts and Downloads - keep learning at your own pace
• Useful Integration with Popular Project Management Tools

Pricing

Bubbles is the only tool on this list with a free option, and therefore represents a great starting point for a team just starting out with their online employee training.

Key Takeaways

I have found that Bubbles is great for organization, slick communication, and efficiency. Constant iteration and AI-powered features from the Bubbles team mean that employee training stays modern and in terms of a training platform, Bubbles ticks all the boxes.

You have both options available to you as the trainer here - either use their Notetaker to record training meetings, with the new employee being able to continue their online training after in their Notetaker bubble, where they will have an AI assistant available to help recall and explain. Otherwise, take things async for more thoughtful and considered feedback and advice.

Tool 2: Cypher Learning

Cypher claim that their learning platform will "help you to be ready for whatever comes your way", but how, exactly?

Cypher empowers employees to take their knowledge gain long-term, with continuous improvement and learning culture being encouraged by their range of tools. We have covered learning and feedback culture before on this blog, and we know how they can help a business to remain agile and adaptable to new technology and ways to work together, so kudos to Cypher for having this mantra.

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Cypher aims to cultivate critical skill sets with personalized learning, which is great. However, reviews have shown that for the price, there is room for improvements around accessibility to information, as well as improvements to the speed at which administrative tasks are completed. Overall, this is a good online employee training platform, but with these two aspects being so central and critical to success when employee training, we should consider with caution.

Features

• Content Creation
• Automated Skills Mapping
• Support for 50+ Languages
• Skills-based Learning
• Dynamically Personalized Courses

Pricing

Cypher's pricing starts at $549 per month (100 users), and therefore represents a middle ground between Bubbles and our next tool. Cypher offer a 14-day free trial for testing out the platform.

Key Takeaways

For me, Cypher is a good, but not great option when it comes to online employee training. Accessibility and speed is something critical to the learning process, as any manager will want to be able to guarantee that their new hire is consistently unblocked and microlearning. It is a great learning management system for personalization and scalability, but the pitfalls leave me wondering whether our first tool, at a much more cost effective price, may be the better choice here.

Tool 3: Absorb LMS

Absorb is a cloud-based learning solution that uses AI features to "make learning simple, keeping knowledge flowing and available on-demand." The design of Absorb revolves around creating courses that will both boost but keep your team of learners engaged in the long run. This is clearly not a mistake, as they claim to strive for meeting the needs and standards or every learner.

Absorb allows training at scale, but on this note it must also be stressed that Absorb is not the easiest online employee training platform to use. This does not mean that the tool is not great for employee training, and in fact, reviews have proven it can be utilized well at blue-chip companies. However, for smaller teams and learners who want a more seamless integration, the sometimes overwhelming dashboard may push you in the opposite direction.

Features

• Generative AI
• 24/7/365 In-House Support - Great, and useful for larger teams with higher budgets
• Custom Branded Learner Interface
• Sleek and Fully Functional Mobile App
• SCORM Compliance
• Reporting & Analytics
• Useful Integration with Popular Meeting Software

Pricing

Absorb is significantly pricier than our first option, Bubbles. As I say, this can appeal to larger companies with higher budgets and increased need for extensive features and support, but for most, it may be a step too far financially. Small businesses will be priced at $800 a month for an Absorb licensing fee with a 12-month $16 fee for every active user on the subscription. Keep in mind there is a setup fee of $3200 too.

Absorb also has a free 21-day trial to test out the platform.

Key Takeaways

Again, not the easiest to use, but still one of the best in terms of quality and features. The target market is clearly restricted by the price, but for those companies needing a dedicated platform to scale up their training efforts, it could be a good option.

Benefits of Online Employee Training: Why Bother?

1. Cost-Effectiveness: Cost has been at the forefront as we have examined each of these tools. What they do achieve, without exception, is the eradication of costs associated with traditional employee training. With no costs for travel, venue hire, printed materials, et cetera, the obvious, sensible choice for any workplace is to opt for online training. 
2. Flexibility and Accessibility: A critical aspect that I focussed my critique upon heavily. If we are not flexible with our employee training programs, how can we expect the best outcomes company-wide. People are different, and learn differently, so the best way to approach employee training is to allow access to materials in a sensible way, largely controlled by the new employee's learning speed. These tools allow this, and in particular, I believe that Bubbles is great for merging social learning practices with self-timed learning where new employees are left to their own devices.
3. Scalability: These digital platforms let you scale your training up significantly without the matchingly significant cost. Adding seats is cheap and easy, and the employees taking up these new seats will not lose out at all when it comes to detail in the course creation. Not only do these tools allow scalability, but they keep it consistent.
4. Tracking and Analytics: These platforms allow HR teams to track progress when training employees. It is a hard, long process when done correctly, so it is essential to stay on top of outcomes and developments, to either encourage similar behavior, or offer feedback. Creating a feedback loop becomes easy on a platform like Bubbles, as the async communication continues in the same location, keeping iterations organized.

Our Final Verdict

Among the three outstanding platforms, each with its unique strengths and drastic differences, you'll find a solution to suit nearly any requirement in online employee training. However, when making our final decision for the winner here, we prioritized several critical factors: ease of use, accessibility, personalization, time efficiency, detailed training capabilities, and cost, so just a few things... Taking these into account, our top choice is Bubbles. We have found that Bubbles allows you to carry out the key elements of online training but does so at a much lower cost, or even free.