8 Best Practices for Remote Learning With Dispersed Teams

8 Best practices for remote learning 

How do you train your people when no one’s (or at least not everyone’s) in the office? Setting up effective learning for remote workers can be a challenge, even for trainers with years of experience leading sessions.

Here are some best practices for planning, designing and running your organization’s distance learning programs, whether you’re orienting new hires, cross-training your existing staff or introducing new procedures and tools.

1. Study your training platform before you teach with it.

Every remote conferencing platform – whether it’s Google Meet, Zoom, WebEx or something else – has its own features (and quirks). It’s a good idea to understand those before you’re leading a live event so you don’t run into technical trouble.

To help you understand the basics, the platform should offer how-to videos. You can also search for reputable walk-through tutorials on YouTube.

If your organization has a team or person with experience delivering continuing education for remote workers, partnering with them can help you prepare your training. You can show them what you have in mind and ask for their advice and feedback. Questions to consider:

  • What technical or production issues do I need to address before the session?
  • Are there any other issues I should prepare for, and how do I handle them?
  • Can you sit in for all or part of my first session in case I need help?

2. Prepare your trainees for success.

As you’re learning your remote learning platform, you can put together a “tips and tricks” document to share before the first session. This will help ensure that all learners have the best chance of focusing on the content rather than struggling with the technology.

For example, your document might cover:

  • How to connect securely with the platform
  • What you can expect to see when you join the session
  • What are the expectations for cameras and microphone usage
  • How to use the platform’s chat tool to ask questions or raise your hand
  • How to use other features, like Zoom’s breakout rooms for small group discussions

In addition to remembering that everyone may have differing comfort levels with technology, there are other technical differences to consider.

For instance, if your staff is scattered geographically, be mindful of time zone differences. No one learns well if they have to get up in the middle of the night or linger for another hour at the end of a long workday for a training session.

If your remote team members are in different parts of the country (or the world), you may need to schedule multiple sessions at different times. When it’s important to have everyone on the same video call, choose the time carefully and keep it as brief as possible.

3. Manage expectations for remote training sessions.

Be prepared for unexpected situations and how to handle them gracefully. A dress rehearsal of your session is always a good idea because it can uncover issues you didn’t anticipate.

You can also let trainees know ahead of time that you empathize with the challenges of working and learning while at home. For example, you might say that you understand if they need to mute and step away for a moment to deal with family members or other unavoidable disruptions.

4. Plan your sessions with a variety of learning styles in mind.

Catering to multiple learning styles makes remote learning more effective for more people. As you plan your sessions, think about adult learning styles and how to offer something for each one.

For example,

  • A quick spoken review of your employee tips document at the start of the session can help
    auditory learners get comfortable.
  • Chat discussions can help employees who are more comfortable writing their questions than asking
    them aloud in front of their peers.
  • Charts and videos can help visual learners grasp the concepts you’re sharing.

What about hands-on learners? You can support them, too, with a little advance preparation.

If your time and budget allow, you can mail your trainees a packet of the materials they would get for an in-person training, so they can follow along.

5. Use videos to take your trainees behind the scenes.

Not every element in your online trainings needs to be live. Pre-recorded videos can be a good way to introduce trainees to people and departments they can’t visit in person.

For instance, you can include a short video of your contact center director walking through the contact center to show what it looks like. Or you can walk through HR or engineering to let those employees introduce themselves.

6. Help your trainees focus.

Try to minimize distractions, especially during large-group training sessions. Ways to do that include:

  • Muting microphones for everyone but the current speaker
  • Showing only the current speaker’s video during key portions of the presentation
  • Encouraging attendees to turn off their camera while they eat lunch, if your session is during their lunch hour
  • Invite trainees to ask questions in chat at the end of the program

7. Encourage employees to participate.

As in a physical classroom, it’s wise to check in with your students as you teach. The following strategies can help you assess how things are going for individuals and the entire group:

  • Ask a participant who’s been quiet what they think about the topic.
  • Invite students to break into smaller groups or digital breakout rooms to discuss a lesson and prepare a brief presentation.

You might also consider employing a digital game-based learning platform like Kahoot! to reinforce learning. When appropriate, add to the fun by including humorous answers and offering prizes. This encourages employees to engage more fully with the content in the spirit of friendly competition.

Game-based learning can also be a fun way to build upon knowledge – especially if you provide additional narrative and context for select questions. A new employee orientation, for instance, may include a question that touches upon a lesser-known workplace perk.

8. Learn from each session.

The learning doesn’t stop when the training session ends. As a trainer, it’s a good idea to review each training with your team to talk about what worked and what didn’t. If you record the sessions, you may use some segments for “postgame analysis” while others are incorporated directly into future online events.

Finally, consider reaching out to attendees for feedback. Online surveys that offer anonymity are especially useful. Calling a few attendees to get their first-person reactions to the experience may provide clearer, more useful feedback than relying solely upon a generic, multiple-choice survey.

Source: Michelle Kankousky, Insperisty

“In the world of remote work, the key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorites”. 
– Stephen Covey

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

Your Colleagues

In the Your Colleagues section in Catalyst, users can:

  • Learn their colleagues’ strengths, when to pull them into a project, and what stresses them out
  • Compare preferences and tendencies across a range of workplace behaviors using the DiSC model
  • Gain access to tips that help them work better together in a variety of situations

Many Catalyst users review this section before heading into a meeting or kicking off a new project with a coworker.

10 Ways to Feel Happier, According to Science

10 Ways to feel happier according to science

More than a feel-good state of mind, happiness is described as a “fundamental human goal.” It comes with myriad benefits, including improving our health and even helping us live longer. Happier people are also more likely to make decisions quickly and contribute to society by voting and volunteering.  

And while happiness can be a loaded subject, with many contributing factors that often aren’t in our control, science shows that there are plenty of surprisingly straightforward things that can help us feel satisfied.

Of course, happiness is not something that happens overnight; it’s a process that’s consciously cultivated with intention and purpose. But if you’re looking to embark on that journey, consider starting with some of these 10 science-backed tips.

1. Set a Regular Exercise Routine 

Prioritizing movement is a popular tip when it comes to increasing happiness — and with good reason. Exercise is shown to ease anxiety, increase life satisfaction, and boost serotonin levels, which helps combat negative feelings. Even lunchtime walks are shown to “improve enthusiasm, relaxation, and nervousness at work.” Still not convinced? This report about walkable cities found that when someone swaps long commutes for a walk, “their happiness increases as much as if they’d fallen in love.”

2. Prioritize Your Sleep 

We’ve all likely experienced firsthand the intertwining relationship between sleep and happiness. According to Harvard Medical School, “poor or inadequate sleep can cause irritability and stress, while healthy sleep can enhance well-being.” Additionally, a 2018 study found that those who had quality sleep experienced greater life satisfaction.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a minimum of seven hours of sleep for adults and suggests a number of tips to sleep better, such as removing electronic devices from bedrooms and waking up and going to bed at the same time every day (even on weekends).

3. Embrace Family Routines 

Family dinners, regular play outings, and reading time are all common components of family bonding, and studies show these routines have a lasting influence. A 2014 study found that family-centered routines are associated with higher social-emotional health in children, along with an increased sense of belonging and security. Another study showed routines help families build resilience, which is linked to happiness.

Whether you’re a kiddo or an adult, WebMD also notes that establishing regular weekly routines helps reduce stress, boost health, and better prioritize downtime and rest.

4. Build (and Maintain) Friendships 

Friendships are powerful — in fact, some research shows they may be even more important than familial bonds as we get older. The author found that family and friend relationships were linked with better overall health and happiness. However, as people aged, the link only remained “for people who reported strong friendships,” Time reported.

How many friends do we need for maximum happiness levels? According to a CNBC interview with Eric Barker, author of Plays Well With Others, people with five or more close friends feel 60% happier than those without the same number. And individuals who view their manager as a “close friend” are more than twice as likely to enjoy their job.

5. Share Kindness

Kindness can change our brains, literally. The Mayo Clinic explains that kindness boosts our serotonin and dopamine, two neurotransmitters that allow us to feel satisfaction and pleasure. Other research has shown that when people fully engage in acts of kindness, the acts are linked to reducing anxiety and depression.

Eager to reap the rewards of kindness? You’re in luck because one study showed that even performing acts of kindness for just one week created a boost in happiness.

6. Practice Mindfulness Through Meditation 

If you struggle with slowing down, a meditation practice is shown to be a deliberate way of cultivating more mindfulness, which is associated with a sense of purpose in life and higher happiness levels.

Psychology Today explains, “Monitoring your ongoing experience may make you feel happier by helping you slow down to appreciate things or to notice more of the happy things that are going on around you. You may begin to pay more attention to the trees and flowers, enjoy the feel of the sun on your skin, or bask in the warmth of your partner’s or child’s loving gaze.”

7. Know and Use Your Strengths 

Instead of focusing on weaknesses (we’ve all got them), celebrate your strengths. By identifying your strengths and leveraging them, you can increase your self-awareness, improve your relationship with yourself, and boost your happiness, per Psychology Today.

While strengths can certainly include skills you’d put on a resume (language skills, specialties, etc.), they can also be your unique qualities, like love of learning, kindness, curiosity, and hope, to name a few.

8. Express Gratitude 

Harvard Health puts it simply: “giving thanks can make you happier.” In the 2021 article, a study is cited that showed people who wrote a gratitude list were happier than those who wrote about daily irritations. Similarly, a group of participants who wrote a letter of gratitude to someone for their kindness showed immediate boosts in happiness, “with benefits lasting for a month.”

If you want to express more gratitude, consider writing a thank you note, keeping a gratitude journal, or starting a gratitude meditation practice.

9. Smile!

Sometimes the key to a brighter day is simpler than you may think: turning the corners of your mouth up and showing a smile. Science shows that you can actually trick your brain into feeling better by smiling. How? When we smile, dopamine and serotonin are released in the brain, which in turn can boost your mood. However, if the idea of forcing a smile isn’t your thing, consider putting on a TV show that makes you laugh, call someone who puts you in a good mood, or think about a joyful memory.

10. Set Achievable Goals for Yourself

Did you know that simply the act of setting goals can increase your happiness levels? It’s true, according to a study by the University of Basel in Switzerland that showed psychological well-being can improve when you have goals that seem attainable to you regardless of the outcome. Power of Positivity recommends starting out with smaller goals and building from there, as little steps can make big goals less intimidating and more actionable.

Source: Marika Price Spitulski

“We do not only need to work happy, we need to work at being happy.” 
– Shawn Achor

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

Get Advice is available on your Catalyst profile:

  • From your Catalyst homepage, click on the Get Advice tile.
  • Select your topic: Connecting, Collaborating, Getting Buy-In, or Managing Tension.
  • Search for the colleague you want to understand better.
  • Review the personalized insights and tips.
  • Take action—and achieve your goals! Visit Catalyst today to explore this feature!


Below are some options the Get Advice feature includes:

Mastering Productive Team Conflict

Mastering productive team conflict

All great, lasting relationships will encounter conflict. While conflict often carries a negative connotation, especially in the workplace, it can lead to growth when handled productively. Far from being a sign of team dysfunction, healthy conflict within teams can be a catalyst for innovation leading to stronger relationships.

To foster productive conflict within a team, trust must be established. When there is trust, conflict becomes nothing but the pursuit of truth, an attempt to find the best possible answer. By productive conflict, we mean debate that’s focused on concepts and ideas but avoids mean-spirited, personal attacks.

1. Encouraging Constructive Conflict

When we acknowledge that conflict can be a force for good, we open ourselves up to new ideas and perspectives. By speaking up for our beliefs, considering the thoughts of others, and confronting issues, we can push ourselves to reach new heights of success. Developing the habits mentioned here will further help contribute to productive debates within teams.

What Productive Conflict Looks Like on a Team:

  • Voicing opinions
  • Seeking out teammates opinions
  • Confronting important issues
  • Exploring everyones ideas

However, having productive conflict on a team can be challenging due to fears and concerns that may hold us back. It’s crucial to be aware of these fears so we can start to overcome them. For example, some team members may be afraid that conflict could damage their relationships with their colleagues, so they may avoid challenging the status quo altogether. Recognizing and addressing these common fears is essential for getting to the best ideas possible.

Fears That Can Hold a Team Back:

  • Damaging relationships
  • Appearing overly critical
  • Anticipating negative feedback
  • Disrupting the status quo

2. Taking Action to Build Productive Conflict

Productive conflict doesn’t just happen overnight. It requires active listening, respect for differing viewpoints, and a shared commitment to common goals. Team leaders play a pivotal role in cultivating an environment where team members feel empowered to express their opinions. By promoting open communication leaders can help their teams harness the power of conflict for better decision-making. Certain habits significantly aid in establishing productive conflict practices. For example, glossing over differences can lead to future problems. When all opinions aren’t expressed, teams may lack full commitment and buy-in to decisions.

Top Ways to Develop Productive Conflict:

  • Solicit the views of more reserved teammates
  • Keep the focus on ideas
  • Resist the urge to sweep things under the rug
  • Collect emotions before responding

By engaging in productive conflict and tapping into a variety of perspectives and opinions, team members can confidently commit to a decision knowing that they have benefited from everyone’s ideas. Remember, productive conflict isn’t about personal attacks or animosity. It’s about robustly discussing concepts and ideas, pushing boundaries, and ultimately creating stronger teams. When productive conflict is treated as a crucial aspect of team culture, it drives the group towards achieving greater success and fulfillment in their endeavors. So, let’s encourage healthy debates and harness their power!

Source: Five Behaviors

“Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity”  
– Warren Bennis

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

Everything DiSC Productive Conflict

Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict increases learners’ self-awareness around conflict behaviors, helping them effectively respond to uncomfortable and unavoidable challenges of workplace conflict. 

Rather than focusing on a step-by-step process for conflict resolution, this learning experience combines the personalized insights of DiSC® with the proven science of cognitive behavioral theory to help participants recognize and transform their destructive habits into more productive responses.

Productive Conflict Video

5 Steps To Develop More Discipline

5 steps to DEVELOP more discipline

You might be surprised to learn that it’s simply focusing on a result you really want. In this sense, the key to discipline is goal setting.

Whether you’re naturally a disciplined person or not, goal setting is a skill you can develop using these five steps:

Step 1: Determine Your Goal

The key is in knowing what you really want. If you are going to succeed in whatever’s important to you, you first need to know where you’re going. You must be specific, and you need to be able to see it. Write it down, and, while you are at it, add a “by when” date.

Here’s an example: I will lose 10 pounds by December 31. 

Step 2: List Your Reasons

This is often the missing piece in both goal setting and discipline. You have to ask, Why is this goal important? What is at stake in my achieving it? You can list both the positive reasons and the negative.

Examples:

  • I want more energy.
  • I want to lower my cholesterol.
  • I don’t want to put myself at risk for heart disease.
  • I want to look more trim, especially on video.

Step 3: Identify Likely Obstacles

As soon as you start swimming against the current, you will start feeling resistance. It’s as if the universe is testing you to see how serious you are about succeeding. That’s why you have to anticipate these obstacles and build strategies to overcome them.

Examples:

  • Obstacle: Mindlessly eating what I always eat for lunch.
    Strategy: Plan my lunch before I leave the house—where and what I will eat.
  • Obstacle: Inability to work out on the road.
    Strategy: Make sure the hotel has a workout room before I book it. Also, pack my workout clothes and shoes.
  • Obstacle: Eating more calories than I intend.
    Strategy: Record everything I eat. What gets measured improves.

Researchers call these strategies implementation intentions. And they work.

Step 4: Develop New Behaviors

This is where you should focus. What are the positive, new behaviors you want to develop to replace the old, negative behaviors? It’s not enough to decide not to eat junk food, for example. You’re going to want to snack on something. So what are you going to do about it?

Examples:

  • Drink 2.5 liters of water a day to stay hydrated.
  • Eat healthy snacks, like raw almonds, celery, carrots, and so on.

Step 5: Stay Focused

Read your goals daily, review your reasons why, anticipate obstacles, and work on your new behaviors. If you get off track, don’t beat yourself up. Sometimes it’s three steps forward and two steps back. The trick is to shake it off and re-lock on your goal.

You might also consider changing your strategy to get there. 

Examples:

  • If I injure my ankle and can’t run, I could switch to swimming.
  • If I can’t get traction on my own, I’ll research and hire a personal trainer.

Discipline is not really about willpower so much as focusing on what you really want. If you get clear on that, it suddenly becomes much easier.

Source: Michael Hyatt, Full Focus

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment”. 
– Jim Rohn

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

Agile EQ Edition

Everything DiSC Agile EQ doesn’t just measure a person’s EQ. It provides a foundation for improving EQ by focusing on observable behaviors that are measured by DiSC.
Agile EQ helps learners understand their emotional responses by using both the language of DiSC and a new concept called Mindsets. The Agile EQ Mindset map helps learners recognize what behaviors are associated with the different mindsets(below).

Always Putting Out Fires at Work?

Often people end the day feeling that they have not completed their tasks satisfactorily because they have spent much of the time “putting out fires.” This is just one of mode of leadership that can cause inefficiency and chaos in a company. Sound familiar?

When fires are continually being put out, it is because there is no planning and no clear definition of the company’s goals and objectives. This means that everything often has to be improvised and that generates chaos. It also means employees are unable to focus on what is really important for the company. When it is the leader who acts as a firefighter, this can create even bigger problems for the team as a whole. Therefore, It is essential to solve this dangerous mode and put into place a clear definition of roles, responsibilities and priorities. It is an exercise of rigor and self-discipline.

How can you stop fostering a culture of firefighting?

  • Make time to map out a plan based on annual goals and objectives and allocate the company budget accordingly.
  • Communicate the plan to the team to ensure each team member is clear on where the company is going, thereby reducing the number of “fires” and generating motivation and a sense of belonging to the group.
  • Clearly define the responsibilities of each position and the associated performance measures.
  • Create simple protocols for all phases of the value chain so that each employee knows their main obligations, resulting in a significantly reduced need to act in a firefighter mode.
  • Make quarterly plans to set smart goals for each job in the short term so that each person reconfirms their priorities on a regular basis.
  • Educate people on proper time management, teaching them to place on their agendas the tasks that really add value to their roles and therefore to the company. This can help employees form positive habits, effectively use their time, avoid unproductive tasks and, above all, move past the interruptions and duplications that these fires generate.

By following the recommendations above, tasks will cease to be as urgent because they have previously been defined, planned and assigned. As a result, the emergencies that are symptomatic of firefighter mode are reduced, generating greater productivity and minimizing stress.

Source: Jose Luis Gonzalez Rodriguez via Forbes

5 Questions to Determine if a Meeting is Essential

Your days are full, and it can be hard to get everything on your list done. You were finally making progress on a task when your focus is disrupted yet again with a meeting reminder. You don’t know how you’ll finish what you need to do today, and it’s probably going to be yet another waste of time. Is this just the way things are, or is there a better way?

According to The HR Digest, professionals lose an average of 31 hours a month on meetings–which adds up to approximately four workdays, or a total of two months per year. That’s a lot of disruption, particularly if those meetings aren’t actually yielding much. The problem isn’t just an overabundance of meetings; it’s that so many of them turn out to be bad meetings. But you don’t have to settle for bad meetings that disrupt your work and kill productivity. Great meetings are possible with a little bit of forethought. Let’s look at one of the first steps in that direction: determining the necessity and nature of a meeting.

Here are five filtering questions you can use to coordinate essential meetings:

  1. Is this meeting necessary? There’s a well-known piece of literary advice for writers: “kill your darlings.” That is, don’t get too attached to the storyline, especially if it doesn’t serve the bigger picture. The same is true for meetings. It’s too easy to get caught up in a series of meetings that don’t matter. Keep the high-leverage ones that support important goals. Eliminate the rest, and your team will thank you.
  2. Are you sure you’re necessary? Too often, we blindly accept the never-ending barrage of meeting invites. It’s natural to think our presence in a meeting is always necessary, especially if we were invited. But that’s not always true. Guard your schedule, and only say yes when you truly need to be there.
  3. Who else should be involved? If you’re organizing a meeting, think through who absolutely needs to attend. Remember, smaller groups can align more quickly to drive a decision. Relevant information can be shared with the masses later through an email or project-management update.
  4. What type of meeting do you want? Consider ahead of time the type of meeting that will help you accomplish your goals. Establishing this early on will keep the purpose clear and the conversation from meandering, so your time will be productive.
  5. What’s the right format? Historically, in-person meetings have been the norm across businesses. But nowadays, we’re all meeting virtually in some capacity, and in-person meetings are no longer the default. It takes intentional thought to determine what’s best for your team, and what format will work best for what you’re trying to achieve. If that’s in-person, great. Otherwise, your preferred video-conferencing app works great too.

Take control of your meeting habits. Routinely ask yourself, Is this meeting necessary? If not, be decisive and eliminate the meetings that don’t matter or that inhibit your productivity. Make the best use of your team’s time and resources by focusing on the high-leverage stuff, and you’ll start seeing less frustration and better results.

Source: Michael Hyatt & Co. Blog