Non-technical skills are generally referred to those soft- skills that are generic in nature like interpersonal, communication, team work, time management, problem solving or creative skills. Organizations are increasingly giving importance to non-technical skills of their employees at the workplace for optimizing human performance for organizational well-being and growth. Hence, non-technical training programs have found a prominent place in the HR training programs of organizations in recent years.

Non-technical training involves training in aspects which are intangible be it leadership development skills, team-building, problem-solving or management techniques. The training program is facilitative in nature and focuses on outcomes that are definable using behavioral objectives. It is more learner-centric and needs the trainee to imbibe the skills being shared. Developing non-technical programs has its share of challenges which can be listed as follows:

• The scope of topics in Non-technical training programs is quite vast and narrowing it to the given context and making it relevant to the participant is a daunting task.
• It is difficult to convince and gain acceptance by a participant for the need for the non-technical training program be it time management, leadership skills, team building etc and participants cannot appreciate its long term benefits.
• The program has to be designed in such a manner that it is interactive with role plays, activities, simulated conversations or graphics so as to ensure that the participants’ interest levels are not lowered.

Since non-technical training involves behavior skills that need to be worked on over a period of time and depends on the individual, it cannot be measured in tangible way. As a result, it gets difficult to quantify the extent to which the skills have been imparted thereby judge the success of a program.

To ensure the success of the non-technical training program, a trainer or designer has to ensure that the course is tailor-made keeping in mind the needs of the participants. Though the subject is generic in nature in order to ensure active participation, the program has to be designed in such a way that the participants find it beneficial in the context of their specific work-place environment.

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In today’s global environment, both technical and non-technical skills are equally important and employers need to focus on designing programs for both technical and non-technical training. While planning for technical and non-technical training programs, the common challenge is to design a contextualized program that proves to be relevant, interesting and engaging to the trainee – that which makes a difference to him/ her and which directly impacts his/ her performance for the better. In this blog, we will look at what technical training involves and what are a few challenges with this type of training.

Technical training generally involves acquiring skills or knowledge that focuses on being able to do something at a certain level of proficiency – typically use an equipment or software programs. The training can be offered to technically competent people or non-technical people. The design of the program will have to be tailor-made depending on the technical competence of the audience. Some examples of a technical training could be learning to use a software program like MS office or learning to operate a complicated piece of manufacturing equipment. It could also include imparting product knowledge to the sales and marketing team of an organization. Technical training comes with its own set of challenges. Some of them are as follows:

• The involvement of subject matter experts is high in technical training. Their inputs are required on a regular basis for the IDs to design the training program. Complex technical information has be to presented in a short and concise format limited by time.
• Though designing technical training program for a product training or software training program involves limited content – that which is directly related to the product, this content needs to be presented in a simple way so that one is able to work hands-on with the product. Therefore, the person designing the training program should not only be skilled in comprehending technical content but also in communicating it to the prospective trainees.
• The challenge increases if the target audience includes non-technical people as well. The content, in that case, has to be written keeping in mind the comprehension capacity of the non-technical people.

Despite the challenges of designing technical training, the good news is that it is relatively easy to measure the success of a technical training program as the skills covered show up clearly through improved performance.

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The world is changing real fast, complex information is all over the place and software technologies are developing at warp speed. All businesses are successfully implementing the use of software applications for their work to the fullest extent possible. They are willing to shell out a significant amount of money to implement software solutions, and an equal amount simultaneously on the required software training for their employees. To achieve this, companies are increasingly using eLearning.

Among various trainings, software training through eLearning is one of the most challenging jobs as everything has to be as realistic as possible. The end users of the software/ application should understand concepts by using the developed interface. To meet these challenges, many simulations (through tools) are extensively used. Simulations enable end users to perform an action in a virtual environment, which simulates the live environment. The use of these simulations makes it very easy to understand the actual applications and build the required end-user competency.

There are specific authoring tools for developing simulations for software training such as Articulate, Captivate, Camtasia, Viewlet and many more. Each of these tools has a specific purpose and serves a specific need.

A few tips to keep in mind for the development of simulations:

• It is important to keep the interactivity for the user as real as possible.
• Each step in the process should follow the watch-try-do approach.
• A rich graphic interface has to be used for the user to be engaged.
• High-end applications require detailed steps on how to open, modify and close the files (formats).
• The simulation should give the learner the opportunity to experiment and observe the corresponding result.
• The course should include demonstrations that are close to real scenarios.
• Simulations should be repeatable so that user can replay any step.
• Embedding simulations in role-plays is a strategy that can be used for scenario-based simulations.
• High-skilled professionals are required for developing simulations as the effort and money that goes for it are valuable.
• Practice sessions should be in-built into the course for the learner to gain confidence on using the application.

The ability to develop simulations is an advanced feature of eLearning development tools. Simulations must be presented in such a way that they can be integrated and interacted with at the level of each course module. The objectives of simulations are to help end-users avoid serious mistakes while handling the applications and thereby avoiding losses for the business. Apart from this, they provide a great learning experience and hence they are gaining increasing demand.

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Developing a highly interactive course is a mammoth operation. If you’re looking to create highly interactive eLearning course using graphics and animation, then Flash is highly recommended. Most of the online product training, sales training and software training require courses with high interactivity for effective learning experience.

Similar kind of output can be achieved using Articulate Engage. Unlike other authoring tools like Lectora and Captivate, Articulate Engage gives you an option to create interactivities, which will help in creating effective learning experience.

Subject Matter Experts (SME) or Instructional Designers (ID) can use these templates to create storyboards and complete the course in short time, making it cost effective.

Some of the popular instructional approaches that can be used are given below along with the Articulate screen shots.

Clickable Circular Diagram: Shows various elements of a process.

FAQs: Useful as a quick reference for sales training kit.

Glossary Template: Highly visual glossary page for explaining the concept or a term easily.

Guided Imagery: Useful for product training and explaining the parts of a product.

Labeled Graphics: Useful to explain software screens or labeling parts of a product. When the user clicks on the rollover icon (hotspot), the explanation for same is displayed.

Media Tour: Useful for animations and embedding videos.

Process: It explains the process/procedure in a step wise format. Recommended for production or manufacturing processes.

Pyramid: Shows various steps or hierarchy levels in a process.

Timelines: Shows history or process of any activity vis-à-vis time.

Click on Tabs: To provide additional information on a given set of topics.

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