Course Spotlight: How Digital Skills-Based Training Boosts Employee and Employer Performance

As industries constantly adapt to new technologies and research, today’s professionals need to commit to lifelong learning to keep up. By brushing up regularly on their skills, employees can benefit from better career opportunities and learning power, while their employers sharpen their own competitive edge.

Recent digital advances in skills-based training are improving convenience and outcomes for both employees and their organizations. In our ongoing series on digital learning for different course types, we explore how a platform like BenchPrep delivers a personalized, effective training experience for the modern worker.

Why is skills-based training critical for workers?

With digital transformation impacting jobs across the spectrum, many professionals are finding that their roles look very different than they did just a few years ago. Skills-based training enables workers to keep their skills fresh, improve their career prospects, and deliver more value to their organizations.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, 87% of workers believe that skills-based training is necessary throughout their career to keep up with changes in the workplace. The survey also found that the fastest-growth job categories are ones that require highly developed social, analytics, or technical skills. Through skills-based training, workers can learn the latest techniques and strategies to perform effectively on the job.

How do professionals typically receive skills-based training?

Employees can take these courses, which typically don’t require an exam, through a number of formats:

• Training companies with content libraries, such as Pluralsight and Lynda
• Specialized training companies, such as Richardson’s consultative selling program and ACT’s WorkKeys career readiness program
• Their own company’s learning and education department, which may have a learning management system in place to handle employee learning

Many skills-based training companies focus on a particular area of expertise, carving out a training niche that appeals to workers across a variety of industries. Training can take the form of in-person or online classes, webinars or conferences, with scenario-based education often preparing workers for real-world situations. Traditional training methods can be difficult for workers to fit into busy schedules, however, and don’t offer real-time feedback or personalized support to motivate learners toward achieving their end goal.

How can digital learning improve the skills-based training experience?

Through its unique learner success platform, BenchPrep creates a personalized, digital experience to help workers finesse their skills. For example, our platform has enabled Richardson to deliver scenario-based training to learners anytime it's convenient for them to practice, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their entire sales training process.

BenchPrep provides a number of tools to help trainees succeed and achieve their goals:

• Strengths and weaknesses, as well as confidence levels, highlight a learner’s proficiency in certain subjects. This helps instructors, companies, and learners understand where to focus their attention, so they can create a more targeted and efficient study plan. 
• Study plans organize all course material into a simple step-by-step curriculum. As they complete the course, students can view predictive scoring, when applicable, and other performance metrics to help them make the most of their study time. Learners can also select the adaptive study plan, which uses each individual’s strengths and weaknesses to create a personalized plan to achieve skills.
• Curriculums allow instructors or institution supervisors to create custom study plans for their students, using as many tasks from the structured study plan as they like. This enables organizations to tailor learning to worker needs, as well as company goals.

• On-demand access puts learning at students’ fingertips, with training available from any device.

• Gamification keeps learners engaged and motivated to finish their course with leaderboards, badges, knowledge points, and a Game Center.

Learn how BenchPrep can help enhance professionals’ skills, drive success for your learning programs, and improve long-term engagement.