Engaging global remote learners with tech-driven innovation: Building an L&D center of excellence

How could we reach an increasingly remote population of global employees with engaging, relevant training support? How could we bring the hands-on applied learning proven to drive success in our premise location, out to the virtual audience? How could we blend training delivery modality to provide true collaboration in a mixed class of on-site and remote learners? And, how could we provide that guiding, reassuring coaching to our remote learners; in parity with the comforting and supportive guidance of a trainer teaching on-the-job learners over the shoulder in the flow of work?  

These were just some of the practical questions we tasked ourselves with providing robust, effective answers to when we set out to invest in a Training Center of Excellence at Wayfair. 

At Wayfair, we have built the industry-leading Global Training and Development Center of Excellence in Athens, Georgia. This facility provides innovative tech-driven training enablement design to support our global operating units and features bar-raising learning spaces. In this article, I will share more about our learning and development function.

Podcasts, vlogs and fireside chats

Podcast studios designed for high-quality audio and video capture enable learning experience design microlearning creation, virtual online trainer delivery and streaming podcast learning pointers. Recorded capture of curriculum facilitation with green screen enablement to put system screens live on the backdrop of the virtual instructor brings systems applications to life during online learning.

Additionally, leveraging video-enhanced vlogs allow trainers in the podcasting studio to interview SMEs on-site, or even remotely across the network to garner and broadcast expert insights across the learning audience. Fireside chat setups allow for a space for senior leaders to create authentic communication videos to bring their message genuinely into the office of remote team members across time zones and geographies. 

On-site training rooms for the virtual learner

While traditional on-site training rooms serve the purpose well for classroom instructor-led training, these spaces can be optimized to more effectively engage cohorts of mixed on-premise and remote learners. Modifications and enhancements to the classroom design can include digital whiteboards to drive breakout collaboration with groups in the room and remote, multi-point tracking cameras in both the front and the rear of the room to enhance visibility and cohort connection and tablet setups for trainers with air casting ensure mobile facilitation for a highly engaged blended modality VILT experience.

Additionally, accordion walls equipped with positioning sensors allow the rooms to seamlessly conjoin AV automatically to sync presentation screens and speakers and microphones in the ceiling or decouple rooms for independent AV across multiple rooms when the walls are closed. This reduces trainer preparation time and reliance on IT resources while also putting the control back in the hands of the facilitator in terms of spatial optimization for structuring breakout activities.

An added bonus for senior stakeholders: These spaces become optimally built for hosting global all-hands and town hall meetings to effectively broadcast messaging from dxecutive leadership across a remote organization.

Hands-on learning goes digital with 3D immersion:

At the Training Center of Excellence, we’ve created a realistic mock warehouse space that enables customer service associates to learn through hands-on application (on-premise) or immersive simulation (virtually) to understand the lifecycle of an order as well as the nuances of parcel packaging to better equip their ability to confidently consult solutions for our customers.

Learners on-site get to see, feel and touch product categories that experience high customer contact rates, while remote learners tour the 3D mock warehouse digitally and click into immersive learning videos and activities that zoom into the same product details.

Not only have we seen positive learner satisfaction ratings, but we have additionally seen post-training impact through KPI improvements in targeted metrics resulting from the implementation of this enhanced learning space.

“The Training Center of Excellence serves as a key differentiator for our Customer Service Enablement strategy, driving speed to competency improvements forward 20 percent across our global network of agents,” says Shantanu Das, head of global customer service.

On-the-job training support and VR innovation lab:

Providing real-time coaching and employee guidance on the job is a critical enabler to ramping learners’ post-training performance. Yet in the virtual space, that over-the-shoulder guidance in the flow of work is elusive.

We’ve established a coaching support center, with several “command and control” style spaces which allow us to provide remote support as learners across the globe complete self-paced curricula, and handle their first live customer contacts with the remote support of trainers. This is achieved through a room with a full wall screen and a command center on the production floor, with a cluster bank of a 15-screen wall where employees receive support from a team of trainers and coaches to provide them the visibility to assist these learners with both proactive and reactive support.

How does this evolve to the next iteration? We’ve launched a proof of concept space that enables trainers and coaches to manage multiple instances of learner screens through virtual reality headsets to provide guidance and development. This use case removes the requirements of physical hardware and transcends the limitations of available classrooms, to put the trainer in control of dozens of employee instances through their VR headset and where they can pull into the live interactions of the employee and coach, before pushing aside and moving across the virtual space to other learner screens for the next learning intervention. Augmented reality and VR can expand the next horizon of collaborative learning and coaching in the L&D space!

This Center of Excellence has evolved into a talent magnet and a centralized hub of technology and innovation through which stakeholders and business partners proactively leverage L&D partners to influence their global networks.

“The Training Center of Excellence in Athens has become a critical performance driver for us, enabling multiple business lines to leverage cutting-edge and industry-leading technologies to deliver solutions for today’s hybrid and remote first workforce,” says Sanjeev Singh Sahni, VP of B2B and global sales.

Photos courtesy of Kellie Greer.