10 tips to upskill your manufacturing workforce

Enrol your employees into the training they need automatically based on their job role, experience, equipment they will be using. Ideally the second an employee starts they are onboarded into your training program and are automatically enrolled into their required training. But it doesn't have to stop there. Once they have completed the basics, they can be automatically enrolled into the next tier of training, whether more advanced training related to their jobs, or leadership training.

Keep your learners top-to-speed on the training they need by notifying them of upcoming training or training they have been enrolled into. Notifications should be sent to their email or phone, whichever they are more likely to read. Prepare a communication strategy to help drive your employees to both complete their assigned training, and promoting elective training.

Thinking Cap supports many notifications sent by either email or text.

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Training doesn't have to be boring. Attracting and retaining employees is easier when gamification is incorporated into your training programs. Whether awarding badges upon completing training tasks, granting certificates upon completing a learning path, or creating competitive boards between your manufacturing plants on the number of learning points, there are many strategies that work.

Thinking Cap is co-presenting a webinar on Gamification with Brandon Hall:
Playing to Win: Adopting Gamification to Achieve Your Learning Goals
10/11/22 - Join us for a discussion on the benefits of gamification, the role it can play in learning, and strategies for implementation within your LMS.

Register for the Webinar

There's always an employee who has tips and tricks on how to use specific equipment, so take advantage of this knowledge and have them host a webinar. Better yet, record this webinar and re-use it to share with new employees or employees that couldn't attend.

Thinking Cap supports instructor-led activities.

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Safety is important. Sometimes, you can develop courses on how to use a piece of equipment, but before they can use it, you want to double check they understand how to use it safely. For this, we recommend having them demonstrate their new sill to their supervisor. This can be tracked in the LMS, with notes from the supervisor on how they did and advice going forward.

Thinking Cap supports demonstration options in our attestation-type activities.

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Speak their language whenever and wherever possible. This includes in your courses and in the LMS. Make sure your LMS can support all languages you need and where possible translate your training content.

Thinking Cap supports many localization features as part of our highly customizable learner experiences.

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So much knowledge and skills are transferred on the job. Capture as much of the tips they share through the LMS to benefit employees in different locations or shifts. Track the employees people find to be the most useful as they could be resources you can tap for other training projects.

Thinking Cap supports many communication and collaboration features.

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Different locations may have different policies and equipment. Don't lock all of your employees into the same training and waste their time taking courses that are irrelevant to them. Employees can be segmented using different enrollment rules, or by grouping them into separate domains. This will also give you a chance to build a community within each group and provide them with resources specific to their needs.

Provide access to training anytime. Make sure your employees going into a new position have access to training so if they need to use a new machine or follow a new procedure, they have access to training real-time.

Certify your employees as they complete learning paths for core skills. This will help identify employees ready for promotion and encourages learners to complete both their required training, but also enroll into elective training.

Thinking Cap supports many certification features.

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