Author: Jie Ying

Digital Marketer at ArcLab.

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What is Mobile Training? The Benefits & Best Practices of Training in the flow of work

ArcLab Mobile Training

Across the world, 84% of the world’s population owns a smartphone. Mobile phones represent an important part of our modern life, we communicate, access the internet for information, check e-mails, and perform many other important roles with our phones.

For the Deskless workforce, mobile-phone accessibility is also a game-changer. With Mobile Training, they can easily access opportunities to learn and upskill continuously in the flow of their work. As workers’ productivity increases, organisations stand to reap great benefits on the bottom line.

What is Mobile Training

Mobile training refers to training content that is delivered directly to a learner’s mobile device. No printed SOPs checkboxes to tick, hard-copy binders filled with a hundred pages of onboarding to go through, or squeeze in a conference room with hundreds of people for a 3-hour training conference.

Training modules offered through Mobile Training are bite-sized, interactive, and most importantly trackable, so you can measure what matters to further your organisation’s goals.

Benefits of Mobile Training

According to internal research conducted by ArcLab, we see customers such as 4Fingers achieving up to 27 hours of training time savings, per staff per month. Another company – Fei Siong Group, has since achieved 50% time savings and close to 50% increase in productivity, and a 23% decrease in trainers’ manual workload.

This is an achievable goal largely due to our platform features that allow large quantities of information to be condensed into engaging bite-sized NanoLearning materials that make learning quick & fun. The time savings from Mobile Training are beneficial to the bottom line from a business perspective. When staff is well-trained, their productivity increases. All this goes to help employers build a Productive Workforce.

Another benefit of Mobile Training is that it can take place Anytime, Anywhere in Any Language. Our Deskless employees do not have to take precious time away from their job in order to complete their training. Staff are free to complete the training modules at a time and place that best suit their workflow.

3 Best Practices of Mobile Training

Here are some ways to optimise your workforce Mobile training strategy to foster engagement & increase productivity among your deskless workers.

Make it Interactive

Our attention span now averages 8 seconds (for comparison – the attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds). Making learning on the job interactive is not a suggestion, but imperative to engage staff and keep them motivated to learn more and do more.

Ways to make learning on the job fun and interactive are to include pop quizzes throughout the module and to incorporate video into your content.

Make Mobile Training in the Flow of Work

This means having small bursts of information that your employees can complete, and digest easily in 2-3 minutes, and get straight back to work.

Learning and upskilling become a core part of their existing workflow. When Mobile Training becomes an enjoyable experience for your workers, it encourages repeated usage. 

A way to achieve this is to ensure that your training is accessible Anywhere, Any Time, and better yet in Any language tailored to their specific needs. When workers are able to train remotely in their preferred languages, it can help not only increase completion rates, but also provide more value to your business.

ArcLab SmartTranslate

With a click of a button, you can translate an entire module to another language preferred by your workforce.

Measure using Learner Analytics

Measuring performance data ensures that we get the most out of our Mobile Training program. The data can also help guide future mobile training strategy so that it remains effective and impactful for your workforce.

Some key metrics to consider with Mobile Training are the Completion Rates, Training Duration & Performance Scores. These are components that would be effective & relevant in any training program, even more so when it comes to our Deskless workforce who are largely on the go.

That’s why it is essential to create your training module on a platform that allows your HR managers and L&D teams to access relevant data points when needed. ArcLab allows you to access Folder Analytics Dashboard which presents a comprehensive snapshot of all your Learner’s progress & performance.

Looking to incorporate Mobile Training in your Workforce Strategy? Speak with us and let us help you get started!

Or simply start creating your first module!

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The Ultimate Guide to ArcLab

Ultimate Guide to ArcLab

In this comprehensive guide, you will master every Nanolearning toolset available on the ArcLab platform to easily create, distribute and track training for your Deskless workforce – Anytime, Anywhere, in Any Language. No coding needed, no app to download.

Keep on reading to understand more on Mobile Training & Nanolearning on ArcLab, or jump ahead to the section that interests you most.

Table of Contents

Introduction to ArcLab

What is ArcLab?

ArcLab is a web-based Mobile Learning & Training platform, we empower companies that use our solution to deliver training and digital SOPs to their deskless workforce with the click of a button, saving them valuable time and cost.

Businesses using ArcLab achieve 50% time savings and productivity increase. Businesses are able to gain more from each worker, and grow their bottom line.

For more information on our platform, check out our Knowledge Base.

Why use ArcLab?

ArcLab is the top Nano Learning platform to empower the deskless workforce in various industries including F&B, Retail, Construction, Non-Profits, Logistics and many more. We provide extensive support through content templates, design customisability, and learner analytics to build your productive workforce.

Who uses ArcLab?

ArcLab serves Training Providers, Human Resource, Learning Design & Operations team. Our used cases vary from Digital Onboarding for New Hires, to training in the flow of work and analytics from on-the-job performance support.

Get free onboarding templates here!

Getting started on your ArcLab journey with this 3 mins video:

For more tips on how to use ArcLab to create the best training for your workforce, check out our Academy.

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How to promote Employee Happiness

Promoting employee happiness at the workplace has increasingly become a business imperative. Why? Happy employees raise work productivity, they go on to create happy, satisfied customers. When your staff are happy, your business thrives. On the flip slide, unhappy employees are more likely to take sick days at work & are at a greater risk of burnout. 

Why is a happy workforce good for business?

A happy workforce is a productive workforce. In a happiness study by Social Market Foundation, where participants were given “happiness shocks” (it is a lot less electrifying than it sounds – the shocks provided were watching comedy videos, getting snacks & drinks), these subjects were “approximately 12% more productive than the control group” who received nothing.

Happy employees provide better customer service. When your staffs are happy, they naturally show better body language at work. Customers appreciate interacting with cheerful staff and are more likely to make a purchase. Satisfied employees are extremely beneficial for the growth of your business by providing excellent customer service that keeps customers returning.

Happiness at work is infectious; it can spread & affect the entire mood & energy of the team. When you cultivate a positive work environment to promote employee happiness, your staff are more engaged at work, which strengthens camaraderie among your team.

3 ways to build a positive work environment

Positive work culture boost teamwork & communication, which promotes greater engagement, happiness at work. A positive work environment facilitates opportunities for colleagues to learn & help one another to achieve better results.

Here are some tips on how you can build a positive work environment in the company:

Start with ‘thank you’

 A ‘thank you’ costs nothing, but it provides important recognition for a job well done. Take time to notice & highlight tasks performed by people at any level in the organisation to give periodic shutouts to them. It does not take a lot of effort, yet this small gesture of appreciation at the workplace can keep staff motivated to continue to work towards delivering better results. When employees are respected for their work, this builds compassion as well as kindness within the team. 

Aside from thanking your team for a job well done, consider your customers & how you can show your appreciation for their trust & support in your company. Supportive & loyal customers are what push the company forward, served well by your staff, who are appreciated & respected by their supervisors & managers. 

Communicate with honesty & transparency

Top employers are able to create a work environment where all members can freely articulate their thoughts & achievements. Employees know that they are in a safe environment to share & that their concerns are taken into consideration in the company. Frequent transparent & honest communications on company happenings & updates, celebration of individual milestones & achievements, overall company direction all help a company cultivate a positive work experience & promote employee happiness. This is especially important if your organisation is spread over multiple locations – that’s where digital platforms help your organisation communicate effectively. 

Check out ArcLab’s free template for mobile-ready newsletters, delivered straight to your staff phones, digitally.

Create career pathways & the right training for your staff

Helping your staff grow & develop is another important aspect of promoting employee happiness in a positive work environment. By establishing clear career pathways in the company, employees are fully aware of the different development opportunities to grow, expand & pursue career goals in an encouraging & supportive environment.

How do staff achieve that? With training of course!

Training is never for training’s sake: when the right training is implemented & provided for your workforce, your employees can work to achieve better business outcomes. The role of managers or the Learning & Development team is to ensure that they are able to consolidate performance analytics so that they can map skill gaps & zero in on them accordingly. The effectiveness of such a training program can be surveyed through employee feedback. Meaningful data can be extracted to help guide future training and development materials.

Check out how you can collect & analyse survey feedback here.

Build a happy, productive workforce with ArcLab

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What’s new in ArcLab – Everything announced in User Clinic

ArcLab is building the world’s simplest training platform for organisations to upskill your deskless workforces.

We are growing our community of forward-thinking practitioners, and gathered folks who are new to ArcLab or have used our mobile training software together to connect, learn and share all the benefits that Nano Learning has brought to them. Thank you for being part of the Mobile Training & Nano Learning community!

The core objective of the User Clinic (ArcLab’s first in 2022!) was to share how our tools can help Learning & Development & HR managers succeed in upskilling and increasing the productivity of their deskless workforce with 50% savings in training time.

In our first User Clinic, we announced a couple of new features to help you create better, more organised, and trackable Training modules with ArcLab. For those of you who couldn’t make it, here’s everything we debuted. Or you can watch the full recordings below!

SmartTranslate

ArcLab takes away the problem associated with having to train a diverse group of learners with different language needs and proficiencies. ArcLab’s SmartTranslate helps you translate your original training content into any language with a single click. Your learners can now access the same module and select which language to consume their training in – increasing the inclusivity and accessibility of your training programmes.

Your learners’ data are also consolidated in one place within the same module, even if the modules have been translated to multiple languages. This allows much easier tracking and analysis – as you monitor your staffs’ training and career progression.

How to SmartTranslate?

On your ArcLab editor, head over to the translation icon at the top bar (next to the module title), select the language that you wish to translate your content into. Within seconds, your translated content will be ready to launch and before that, you can make some minor refinements to ensure semantically and grammatically sound language. We don’t impose a limit on the number of translations for each module – so fire away!

ArcLab SmartTranslate

Folder Analytics

Training is never for the sake of training, but for organisations like yours to identify and plug any knowledge or skills gap to achieve better business outcomes.

Training data and analytics becomes an inseparable component. Which is why the ArcLab team constantly strives to improve our analytics features to provide more insight to L&D / HR managers and administrators.

With the newly updated Folder Analytics, you can now consolidate & track your Learners’ progress and performance across all your modules within a single folder. You no longer need to manually consolidate data across individual modules or use advanced Excel formulas to obtain key compliance & performance metrics.

Time saved can be spent towards more value-added strategic thinking and planning of training programmes to improve the skills and productivity of your workforce, whether you’re an organisation in F&B or construction or VWO or any other industry sector!

How to use Folder Analytics?

Our folder feature operates much like the file-sharing feature on Google Drive – where sharing 1 folder will enable the recipient to access every document & file within. On your folder analytics dashboard, you can have an overview of key metrics such as completion rates of assigned modules, average training duration, and average scores across all assessments and quiz components within your folder. With folder analytics, compliance and performance tracking no longer needs to be a time-consuming process. The updated Folder Analytics is here to make key data and metrics quickly accessible and operational for you.

New Learner Management System

In our new system, we’ve centralised learner management into one single location – akin to a central organisation Staff Contact List.

You no longer need manual updates of individual modules’ Learners. Additionally, Learners can now be categorised into different groups based on regions, outlets, worksites, departments & even their job roles or functions. While you are at it, you can filter invitations based on your learners’ invitation or completion status. Lastly, we launched the most requested feature – which is to customise the invitation message to your learners. You can inject your creativity in crafting encouraging messages for your learners. No more sounding like a faceless chatbot, but a real person behind your training module!

How to use the new Learner Management System?

This soft-launch is now live 🥳 , and we are rolling this out to ArcLab users on an opt-in basis.

To move over to the new ArcLab Learner Management System (all the conveniences described above), please write into growth@arclab.io for our development team to assist in importing your contacts to this new platform. We provide a free 1-to-1 personalised session to help ease the migration.

Build a productive workforce

All these updates and announcements – SmartTranslate, Folder Analytics & New Learner Management System – build towards our long-term mission: to make training and upskilling easier for your deskless workforce. ArcLab will keep working hard to help you create better tools, to connect, train, upskill, share information with your employees more readily. We are thrilled to finally share what we’ve been working on with you and hope it helps you achieve more together with your workforce.

A big thank you to everyone who shared their time with us during our User Clinic session. We hope to host you again at our future User Clinics. Follow our social pages or Subscribe to our blog to find out when. Stay tuned!

Start your mobile training today

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ArcLab in GSV Elite 200

ArcLab launched officially in late-2019 with a simple mission to Upskill the World’s Deskless Workforce through Building the World’s Simplest Training System.

“ArcLab’s vision is to Upskill the World’s 2.7 billion Deskless Workforce through building the World’s Simplest Training System,” said James Chia, CEO of ArcLab.

In 2020, the world as we knew it changed. COVID-19 lockdowns accelerated digital training & upskilling for many frontline workers. We saw a huge spike in inbound and started to welcome many more organisations to use ArcLab’s Learning & Development (L&D) platform to easily create, deliver and track Nano Learning.

With ArcLab, companies are able to deliver targeted bite-sized training modules and digital SOPs – to employees anytime, anywhere, in any language, through mobile.

 

Organisations are able to easily SmartTranslate their training materials with a click of a button

In the past 2 years, we received favorable feedback from our customers on how our platform has helped improve work performance and business outcomes. (Read about how Fei Siong Group & 4Fingers are able to raise productivity of their workforce with ArcLab).

This is only just the beginning. ArcLab remains at Day 1, we’re customer-obsessed and keep working to better deliver modern training, digital SOP & communication SaaS Platform for your workforce.

“We are honoured to be part of the GSV Elite 200 and are grateful to GSV Ventures for recognising our work. We keep working hard to build and scale ArcLab to simplify workforce training, making it accessible and inclusive to the needs of the Deskless Workforce – regardless of age or language” said James Chia, CEO of ArcLab.

We are delighted to be selected to The GSV Elite 200, one of only 10 Southeast Asian firms in this group of innovative edtech startups.

We’re grateful to GSV Ventures for the validation that we’re solving a big problem, and doing it in a very scalable way. We are excited & ready to showcase ArcLab to the world at the GSV Cup during the ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego.

Keep up with our journey at the GSV Cup.

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How to Onboard & Orientate your Deskless Workforce? – A Fast & Easy Way

onboard with arclab

Summary: Employee onboarding is an important process for employers to welcome and orientate new hires and to set them up for success. In this article, we share a fast and easy way for businesses to successfully integrate your new workers.

Happy 2022! It is a new year with new business goals and most probably new hires which you need to onboard properly.

Some time ago, we published a blog post on 5 tips for remote onboarding, outlining many ways that employers can welcome your new workers and keep them engaged. Our post today centres it back to the Deskless workforce that ArcLab can help your business onboard & upskill – fast and easy.

Strategise onboarding with a digital plan

At ArcLab, we understand the challenges faced by employers as you orientate and welcome new staff into your company. And one of the biggest challenges we’ve heard from our customers is that:

“We need fast and easy training to get our workers up to speed, so they can hit the ground running. We really don’t have four hours to sit down and deliver training materials.”

Gathering groups of new hires physically into a training room and taking 4-5 hours away from work is simply not feasible in this day and age (especially in a pandemic era). Remote onboarding is the future of work. Employers must have a digital plan. Companies with many deskless & frontline workers want software that helps these workers become more productive and makes their work experience more pleasant. Read our success story with Fei Siong Group.

The goals for digital onboarding and induction programmes are simple: Publish and Communicate.

A great way to achieve this goal in a fast and easy way can be found in our free template here.

If you would like to build your own free module for your workers, make sure you have answers to the following questions:

  • What is the overview of the entire process of onboarding
  • How long will the onboarding process take?
  • Who can they reach out to for questions or technical difficulties?
  • What are the goals from this onboarding process
  • How would you measure their onboarding success?

With the answers you have, you can start designing your own effective module tailored specially for your company and employees’ need. The average time we have seen a module being built from scratch? Less than 15 minutes. Try it for yourself.

Personalise training materials to your employee's preferred language

Increasingly, companies are finding ways to create an inclusive work environment that empowers all employees to reach their fullest potential. This is especially important with today’s diverse workforce.

Having the right training content can be further enhanced when it is delivered in a language that your workers are most comfortable communicating in.

While English is the predominant working language in many countries, language barriers still exist as a problem between workers and managers. Having your training materials translated to your employee’s preferred native language can help your workers better understand your SOPs, work expectations, company direction, and business goals, which can translate into the greater productive output from your workforce.

A fast and easy way to translate your training materials is through technology.

At ArcLab, we deploy AI-assisted translation that allows users to create multiple languages of one module with a simple click of a button.

The total time spent to translate a particular training module into your employee’s preferred language? Less than a minute.

Here’s a quick demo:

smart translation demo

Try it and let us know how it goes, we would love to hear if it helps in your organization. If you have any feedback on the improvement – we are all ears, email us at growth@arclab.io

Use Analytics to track workers’ progress

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure” – Peter Drucker.

A clearly defined quantitative objective can prevent businesses from flying blindly and being in a constant state of guessing. And… if you’ve guessed it – time is wasted when we do not have immediate data to work on.

Without clear metrics for successful onboarding, we cannot quantify a learner’s progress and improve to the companies desired outcome. Meaningful data inputs throughout the learner’s onboarding can give employers insights into the knowledge and skills gaps that employers can quickly rectify. Adapting effective usage of analytics to track workers’ progress can save time and money for a company.

In our free-to-download e-book we’ve shared, we found that companies like 4Fingers achieve up to 27 hours of time savings per staff per month!

learners analytics

An effective way for managers to replicate this success is to have a digital onboarding that has an integrated analytics feature. That way managers do not have to painstakingly go through each and every learner’s assessment but can have an overall bird’s eye view of the results.

Assessing your employee’s onboarding process is one of the most important steps to ensure the success of your business. You can start orientating any new hires by building (or using any free templates we have) with ArcLab, disseminating training materials, and accessing assessment analytics. With the insights from these data, you can further implement strategies to better improve your business’s workflow.

Watch: How to build effective onboarding for your Deskless workforce with ArcLab

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How employers can support their Lower Wage Workers

arclab webinar summary
[Summary: Within the next two years, Singapore companies hiring Lower-Wage Workers will see the extension of progressive wages to better uplift and support this group of workers. Companies hiring foreigners will also have to pay their local employees a Local Qualifying Salary (LQS) of S$1,400. How would the higher wage bill affect businesses? We speak with our industry leaders to find out how companies can better prepare and support the upcoming higher wage bill and remain profitable. We discussed topics on providing mobile training for blue-collar workers, job redesign, and automation of workflow.]

Many of our Deskless Workers are also Lower-Wage Workers. To uplift our Lower-Wage Workers requires a concerted effort from the government, employers, unions, service buyers, and fellow citizens. 

At Singapore’s 2021 National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced three key measures to support our Lower-Wage Workers.

Businesses would have to fund a part of the higher wages, as they are unlikely to be able to pass on the full magnitude of the wage increases to buyers. So how can businesses sustainably fund the wage increases?

To address this question, ArcLab hosted a webinar speaking to industry leaders from Singapore Productivity Centre, Institute for Human Resource Professionals, F&B companies Fei Siong Group & Kiosks Collective, and HRTech platform StaffAny.

Here are the 3 ways Employers can support their Lower Wage Workers –

1. Find ways to redesign jobs and automate work processes

The purpose of job redesign is to tailor employee job scope to a business’s current needs. During times of change, job redesign can help to ensure business needs are filled by competent workers. When employees tasks and abilities are aligned, this can increase their job satisfaction and workplace experience. 

Danny Khoo, Director of Operations at Kiosks Collective (operator of food favourites like Pezzo, Crave Nasi Lemak, Ya Lor Braised Duck etc.) shared how they make job tasks “bite-sized” so they can easily train workers to do them. Pieced together, the various job tasks translate into a job well done. This increases productivity and reduces costs, a win-win for the business and the worker.

Digital transformation does NOT have to be expensive, and there are many technology solutions that companies can adapt to upskill their deskless workforce.

2. Measure so you can manage

Peter Drucker, one of the most widely known management consultant, is often quoted saying that "You can't manage what you can't measure."

Work process should also include an assessment of performance. An assessment of employee performance can help workers self-monitor their performance and adjust when needed. There are many ways to measure performance, and employers should research to find the best one to suit their companies objectives and need.

Janson Seah, co-founder of StaffAny, a business solution that provides automatic scheduling software for companies hiring hourly workers shared that assessing sales / labour performance helps companies to more holistically increase overall productivity and profitability.

Companies can make use of analytics to guide future efforts in increasing productivity in the workforce.

3. Training underpins any new system or tech

Business changes require a competent workforce to support. By providing ongoing workforce training that is scheduled consistently, workers can continuously increase their skills and reach a better understanding of their job scope.

Adrian Tan, Future of Work Strategist at IHRP, advised that training should be prioritised and ‘scheduled’, so that it is not put off whenever work gets busy. In fact, training can be conducted in bite-sizes, digitally delivered in the “flow of work”.

Indeed, employee training when done right can improve workforce productivity and performance. Mervin Lee, VP of Fei Siong Group (owner of casual dining eateries like Encik Tan, Malaysia Boleh!, EAT. etc.) also shared that companies should also consider factors such as employee education background, languages and experience when designing their training programs.

Fei Siong Group used ArcLab’s mobile-learning platform for employee onboarding and training, via modules sent directly to their worker’s mobile phones. They continually helping over 1,000 of their workers stay upskilled on topics such as customer service, safety, and quality standards, with training customised to suit staffs’ language preferences. This has helped Fei Siong Group improve training while cutting 90% in training time compared with traditional methods. Staff are also updated with messages from their founder, Mr Tan Kim Siong, a practice that garnered positive responses from their many on-site workers who would not otherwise have the chance to hear from their founder first-hand.

Employee training that resonates with staff can provide a wide host of benefits, from boosting employee performance and productivity, reducing turnover, and improving company culture. This leads to better business performance and better business profitability.

The time to upskill and train your workers is now.

arclab webinar summary

Thank you to our speakers (clockwise from top to bottom), Michael Tan, James Chia, Mervin Lee, Janson Seah, Chu Jie Ying, Danny Khoo, Adrian Tan, and Sim Siling.

Looking for workforce productivity solutions? Check out ArcLab on how you can up-skill your team effectively in a cost-friendly manner.

Get in touch today at growth@arclab.io

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