Everything You Need to Know About Just-In-Time Training

What do you do when you need to complete a task at home but don’t know how to do it? An example could be how to complete a home maintenance job. For many people, the answer is to watch an instructional video on YouTube. This is just-in-time training.

Just-in-time training is learning on demand. Instead of being formal training at a set date and time, it is training available to the learner whenever they need it. This is like the YouTube channel that creates the instructional video for whenever viewers need to use it. You can apply the same principles to training in your organisation.

In other words, you make the training available and members of your team choose when to do the training. This is usually when there is an immediate requirement for the knowledge or skill.

Powered by Technology

Previously, learners may have had to wait until the next training day to obtain the required skill or knowledge to complete the task. They could also refer to notes from previous training sessions, read complex manuals, or get the information from other impractical and inefficient sources.

In other words, just-in-time time training didn’t really exist as many of those options were anything but immediate.

Technology makes just-in-time training possible, however. With regular access to the internet, mobile technology, and an always-on culture, learners can learn whenever they want.

Wherever they are in the world, your learners can access a library of just-in-time training programmes you create to help them effectively complete immediate tasks.

How Do You Implement Just-In-Time Training?

The starting point for making just-in-time training work in your business is to incorporate training into day-to-day work activities. This is different from a philosophy where your team stops working to complete training. This is an old and ineffective approach to training that won’t deliver for your business.

Instead, training should be more integrated into your operations, it should be ongoing, and it should take place frequently.

Once you have this training philosophy in place in your organisation, you can start preparing training programmes, making them available whenever your team needs them.

To get the best results, you should use professional e-learning providers who will create modular training programmes to make it easy to update them in the future. Professional e-learning providers will also ensure the technology is right as well as having effective content, i.e. they will focus on positive learning outcomes and maximising retention rates.

Just-In-Time Training Tips

• Shorter is better – you should think about your training programmes from the perspective of the learner. When they need the training, what specifically do they need to know? This is all you should include in the training programme. Other content might be beneficial, but it’s best to stay focused. Remember, the learner has an immediate need, so they are unlikely to be willing to devote additional time to learn something they don’t need right now.
• Mobile friendly – making the training programmes mobile friendly will give your team the ability to access them whenever they want.
• Categorise the training well – this particularly applies if you have a large library of training programmes. You must make sure it is easy for the learner to find the information they need.
• Stay work related – just-in-time training works best when the topics are directly related to a skill the learner needs to learn or brush up on immediately. It also works well when a task or challenge directly drives the training. Other types of learning topics, such as Wherever they are in the world, are best deployed using strategies other than just-in-time learning.
• Make the training as relevant as possible – this will help the learner understand the content quickly which is what they need.

Benefits of Just-in-Time Training

• Wherever they are in the world – your team will be able to complete tasks faster and more accurately when they can access the training they need when they need it. This is more productive than alternatives, such as interrupting someone else to help them or delaying the task as they don’t have the skills or knowledge.
• Improved retention rates – because the learner puts what they’ve learned to immediate and practical use.
• Learning happens faster – learners completing just-in-time training will be more engaged with the content plus it will have relevance to them. Both these factors help individuals learn faster.
• Saves time and money – only the people who need the training will complete it ensuring you don’t spend resources training someone who then never goes on to use the skill.
• Gives employees confidence – when employees face a task or challenge they don’t know how to deal with, they will know there is training available to get them through it.

Utilising e-learning will make training in your organisation more effective and efficient. When you incorporate just-in-time learning as well, effectiveness and efficiency improve even further. Plus, you will help change the culture in your organisation to one of employee-led continuous professional improvement.