How to train remote development team and boost its success

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, many companies were forced to transfer employees to remote work. Not everyone was ready for such changes. Managing and training remote teams caused enormous difficulties for managers. HR can significantly help with coaching managers to help out with these difficulties. But most organizations still have the same questions. How to organize employees to work remotely? What tools and platforms to use for training remote teams? How to manage employees and prevent mistakes?

In order not to lose the effectiveness of your teams and quickly transfer them to remote work, you must pay special attention to their training.

Remote development team training

According to Strategyanalytics research, the Global Mobile Workforce is set to increase to 1.87 billion people in 2022, accounting for 42.5% of the Global Workforce. But due to the coronavirus situation, many companies have already switched to ‘Work from home’ conditions. Therefore, it is time to learn how to work effectively with your employees and train them at a distance.  

The development team is one of the key links in the product life chain. The existence of a product is impossible without a strong development team. According to Evans Data Corporation, there were 26,4 million software developers in the world in 2019, a number that in 2023 is expected to grow to 27,7 million and 28.7 million in 2024. These numbers are impressive! Every day you use tools, apps, products that all these people create. 

57% of the IT Industry in the USA is now remote. In connection with the world’s latest situation, this percentage is growing rapidly, and a significant number of development teams face a number of problems during switching to remote work: 

• The lack of communication. Working in the office, developers can easily draw up a work plan, understand each other, solve problems related to their tasks, etc.  When switching to remote work, most employees get lost in their responsibilities and misunderstandings arise.
• The lack of planning. By switching to remote work, developers can start working erratically, without sticking to a specific plan. Subsequently, the final result will be achieved much later than you expect.
• The lack of motivation. In fact, this problem also applies to office workers.  Subsequently, efficiency drops and failures appear in the overall work process.
• The lack of peer-to-peer collaborative learning. Each team member has a different level of knowledge and skills. Due to the lack of this kind of learning, some developers lag behind the overall workflow, and the whole team’s efficiency drops.

How to prevent the occurrence of such problems through a properly organized training system?

The problems mentioned above can be easily avoided using modern LMS platforms. But first, you must find a tool that will help you with all the educational staff. At this stage, AcademyOcean LMS 2.0 comes to the rescue.   

AcademyOcean is a modern tool, with the help of which you can create training portals with courses, quizzes, webinars, etc. Using this tool, you can easily create an automated and personalized training process for your teams. 

To motivate and inspire your employees, you can fill your courses with presentations and videos with case studies, success stories, and personal appeals. Depending on the developer job type (Frontend, Backend, etc.), you can create separate courses on some of the best online course platforms and fill them with content tailored specially for him/her. Such an approach will help your developers expand their knowledge and improve their skills.

To solve the communication problem between developers during remote work, you can organize one-on-one meetings with them or educational webinars for large groups of learners. Moreover, AcademyOcean allows synchronizing your training portal with the tools you are already using. 

Don’t forget about the newcomers. Over time, new developers will appear in your teams and they will need to get up to speed as soon as possible and start performing their tasks. In this case, training is vital.

Types of training courses for remote development teams 

‘Work from home’ basic course

This course should be filled with all information about how to organize working processes while staying at home. Fill it with all the essential points and steps that your developers need to take to switch to remote work successfully.

Tell them about the best practices of planning and communicating between remote developers. Show them videos or organize an online webinar to tell them about the most effective ways of switching to remote work.    

Also, you may create quizzes and certify your remote employees.

Course for newcomers

This course should be introductory and tell about your company and new employees’ duties. Fill it with all information about your company’s rules and goals. You can make use of employee training plan templates to serve as a blueprint for each new course to ensure that you cover all your bases.

Try to prepare your newcomers to work in one team and check their knowledge at the end of the course.

Inspiration course

It is essential to support your employees in today’s times and let them know that they are cared about. If you are switching to remote work just now, this course is vital for your business. You can fill it with some success stories or your personal one, add motivational videos, and tell employees about your mission and vision.

Skills upgrade course

Over time, new trends, features, and approaches to development appear in the IT industry’s world. It is essential that your remote developers can monitor such changes and put them into practice. This course will help you update your employees’ knowledge and check how ready they are for new achievements.

Courses for compliance training

Knowing laws or regulations applicable to employees’ job functions or industries is mandatory. These laws are in place to ensure workplace safety and employee dignity. Courses on sexual harassment training, cybersecurity training, and Diversity and inclusion are just a few to mention.

Wrap up

Switching to remote work is a challenge, but this process will be painless for your company and employees with the right preparation. The world does not stand still, a lot of things will change and you need to adjust to these changes in time. Think ahead about training your teams and you will avoid many downs and get-ups in return.