Answering QuestionsGetting your employees the right information at the right times is crucial to running a successful business. There are situations where structured training makes sense, but there also are times when something quick and easy works, too.

Carol’s latest post on the Nextiva blog, “4 Ways to Teach Your Employees Just in Time,” shares tips on what tactics can work well in what situations. Carol begins:

“Have you ever spent good money on classroom training for a specific word processing or spreadsheet program only to realize that you forgot more than you remember when you start to use it on your own?  A colleague and former software trainer explained that it’s better to know what features are available and learn to use them when you actually need them.

This basic principle applies to just-in-time learning (also known as just-in-time training), which can extend well beyond commercial software products.  The concept behind just-in-time learning is that workers learn things best when they receive instruction when they are actually doing their work, rather than in a remote classroom.

Just-in-time learning can be effective in a wide array of jobs, including factory work, procedural desk jobs and even emergency situations (if you’ve ever seen the BBC series “Fawlty Towers” fire drill episode, you know what I’m talking about).

Here are four low-to-high touch ways to put information in front of employees when they need it:

1. The sticky note approach

This option is definitely at the low-end of the expense scale, yet it can be enough to address certain errors that commonly occur at certain points in your operations…

You can read the rest of the post here.