Implementing a workplace wellness program can help identify those at risk and connect them to treatment. By putting support systems in place to help people reduce and manage stress and addressing mental health issues in the workplace, employers can reduce health care costs for their businesses and employees.

Poor mental health and stress can negatively affect employees in many ways such as:

• Job performance and productivity.
• Engagement with work.
• Communication with coworkers.
• Physical capability and daily functioning.

Take the course Mental Health Awareness, by OpenSesame course publisher Litmos Heroes,  to learn valuable guidelines for providing support to individuals with mental illness. It discusses best practices for early detection, reporting concerns, adapting care, and developing the right attitude.

OpenSesame helps companies like yours develop the world’s most developed and admired workforces. For more information on how we can help you save time, money, and curate the right courses for your training program, contact us today at info@opensesame.com. 

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What are the implications of remote first work for both companies and their employees? 

For companies:

1. Communication is key.  An employee can’t walk over to their colleague or manager and ask a question. A manager can’t verbally assign a task to an employee. Seize the opportunity and invest in instant messaging software for your employees such as Slack. 
2. Time management reigns supreme. With more remote workers, you’ll notice how many meetings could have been emails and how many emails should have been meetings. 
3. Work anywhere, anytime. A remote, even if only partial, workforce presents an unique opportunity for organizations to recruit the best talent. You won’t be limited to the talent pool in your city. Hiring remote employees allows hiring managers to find talent anywhere in the country, or even the world. 
4. Training has forever changed. With the coronavirus pandemic, you’ll probably run into the situation where a new hire starts, but most of the company is working from home due to social distancing. What is your new hire supposed to do? Maybe this is the time of the year when your company rolls out an organization-wide training, but not everyone is available to train or be trained. Now what? Most companies are already shifting towards online training or elearning to accomplish training anywhere anytime, but if you haven’t, this is the perfect time to start. 

For employees who are new to working from home:

1. Take a break. Every hour or so, be sure to step away from the computer for 5-10 minutes. Make a cup of coffee, pet the dog, check your mail and stretch your legs. You’ll discover that grandma was right, going on a walk is good for you. 
2. Don’t be embarrassed by background activity. Of course, make the necessary adjustments to your work environment to limit distractions, but if news anchors’ children can run in the background on live television, your customer will forgive you if your kids do the same during a conference call.  
3. Remember to clock out, even if you’re not an hourly employee. There is going to be a point, usually in week two of working from home, that you’ll lose track of time. Morning, noon, and evening becomes one. Choose a time in the day that you’ll turn off the computer and put your phone, at least email and instant-messaging, in do not disturb mode. It can be easy to lose track of time and work longer hours than usual, causing faster burn out. 

OpenSesame’s mission is to help companies develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. As the world grapples with the impact of coronavirus, we believe elearning can provide a critical and efficient path to rapidly educate employees about preventing the spread of coronavirus as well as how to work and manage remotely. 

We’ve curated a list of courses for organizations to help employees excel working from home and also staying safe during these uneasy times. These courses are made available as a public service, free of charge through 15 May 2020. Please use them to help your employees, customers, partners, and families reduce their exposure and spread of the virus. Immediate education and containment are key to saving lives.

Sign up for these free courses at go.opensesame.com/free-offer.

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“At OpenSesame, we strive to fully support our customers, and any company, in protecting their employees as well as ensuring productivity of their workforce,” said Don Spear, CEO. “With the impact of COVID-19 growing exponentially every day, travel bans widening and instructor-led training no longer an option, elearning presents the best option for organizations to train and safeguard their workforces.”

Through 15 May 2020, any organization can gain access to these free courses on coronavirus preparedness and remote working best practices to deploy to its workforce.

For more information and free access to the courses, visit go.opensesame.com/free-offer.

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame helps develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. With the most comprehensive catalog of elearning courses from the world’s top publishers, we are here to help you every step of the way, from finding courses, mapping them to your core competencies, syncing them with your LMS to increasing utilization and improving your L&D programs. Not only will you have the flexibility of multiple purchasing options from OpenSesame, you’ll find it simple to use and administer your elearning courses. To learn more, visit www.opensesame.com.

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Here are 5 ways chatbots can change the way you market and sell your product: 

1. Interactive experience

From the moment a customer enters your website, impressions are being made; ensuring their first impression is a good one is the difficult part. Chatbots create a user-friendly, personable experience with your customer.  Adding creative phrases, twists, images, gifs and personality to your chatbot can prevent immediate clickaways and promote more customer interaction with your company. This creates a unique one-to-one experience for the customer.

Take time to customize your bot by giving it personality or “flair”. This chatbot should reflect your brand and atmosphere accordingly. 

2. Data collection

Chatbots gather data from the conversations about customer and prospect’s needs and preferences and store it for later. Storing data allows the chatbot to recall past conversations and provide additional value. When a customer returns to a company site, he or she is remembered and can be assisted accordingly. Additionally, this stored information can be used to send more specific messaging and content to those returning visitors.

3. Personalized experience

Chatbots can be programmed for each individual customer. Take Dominos Pizza for example. Ordering a pizza via their chatbot in Facebook Messenger has never been easier. Not only can customers customize their pizza order through the chatbot – the chatbot can remember their order for next time! This strategy can be carried over into other industries as well. Being able to customize your product offering to each customer through a series of questions or short responses makes for a better user experience. 

Similarly, a chatbot can act as a personalized expert or sales rep, offering options that take into consideration the customer’s preferences and stated needs. 

For example, Sephora, a makeup company, has a chatbot that acts as a personal concierge for customers by recommending product shades and giving make-up tips. 

4. Sales funnel flow

Use a chatbot to assist customers in their searching process, educate them on products, and drive the sale. Bringing up discounts or promotional codes in the chat can be used to incentivize hesitant customers.

5. Troubleshooting

Chatbots help customers find the products they’re looking for, troubleshoot any product errors, and assist in website and product search. By providing convenient and helpful customer support, you can automatically affect the customer experience and chance of product purchase. If you treat a chatbot with similar priority as you would a customer-support agent or store greeter, your customers will notice and your sales will reflect your efforts. 

Choosing the right chatbot:

Be sure to invest the time and money necessary for an effective chatbot. According to Clear Voice, it is crucial to invest in your chatbot upfront to ensure it operates smoothly and serves the company’s specific needs.

Always have a human agent ready to take over if necessary. Sometimes customers can be skeptical of chatbots or prefer to chat with a live human. Other times, a chatter’s concern, question, or comment is more than a chatbot can handle. This is why it’s always essential to have a human agent ready as well. And while it is not guaranteed 24-hour service, it can alleviate many issues.

Are you ready to build your own chatbot? View our course Interactive Chatbots with TensorFlow!

About the author: Lexi Hunkler, a summer marketing intern at OpenSesame, is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte studying Creative Marketing and Innovation. When not at work, you can find her on a road trip adventure, painting, or petting the nearest dog.

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What tools come to mind when you think of business productivity applications? The majority of the population will come up with two: Google Suite and Microsoft Office 365. If you had to guess which one is utilized more, most would pick Office 365. That is in fact correct, however that doesn’t mean Google isn’t gaining ground.

Google Suite offers many business productivity tools such as Docs, Slides, Sheets, Drive, Gmail and more. About four years ago, Google underwent a major development overhaul with an aim to improve their enterprise tools. This initiative was successful, bringing in around 4 million new enterprise users over the course of the next two years. Since it launched in 2006, G Suite’s main user base consisted primarily of schools and start-ups due to its lower prices and the ability to collaborate on a document in real time. With a strong grasp on this demographic, expansion into enterprise applications was the next logical step for Google.

Conversion

In a 2018 survey of 135,000 organizations worldwide, conducted by Bitglass Inc., they found that 25% of the organizations used G Suite and 56% used Office 365. That may seem like a big gap, but Google is steadily growing their market share. Among companies listed on the S&P 1500 index, 7% switched from Office to G Suite in the last two years. This includes large organizations such as Verizon, Nielsen Holding PLC, Colgate-Palmolive and Salesforce.

So what is motivating companies to switch to G Suite? A major factor is the pricing. At $25 per monthly user, G Suite is $10 cheaper per head than Microsoft Office’s top list price. Other reasons that sweeten the deal include:

• • Cloud-based storage
  • Real-time work collaboration
  • Wider array of in-suite applications such as Hangout, Google’s communication app, Photos and Forms. Comparable apps are not offered as a part of Office 365
  • Mobile apps for Docs, Drive, Sheets and Slides

It’s worth noting that a natural part of G Suites’ growth has been its large presence in the academic space. Young adults just entering the workforce grew up using Gmail and Docs for school, creating continuous gradual conversion over time.

Is it for you?

Want to learn more about specific differences between G Suite and Office 365? Feel free to check out this article for a more in-depth comparison. Regardless of which one you use, we have the right training course for you and your team. Check out our OpenSesame training courses for employees from our curated catalog of G Suite training courses or our curated catalog of Office 365 courses.

About the author: Parker Abena, a summer marketing intern at OpenSesame, is a senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He looks forward to moving out to PNW after school.

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Establishing a good user experience means your course is much more likely to yield positive student experiences and excellent business results for your clients. So how do you go about creating the best possible user experience for your eLearning course?

1. Design For All Devices

Once upon a time, we all worked on desktop computers. Not anymore. Your clients will want to access your course anytime, anywhere. This means making your course website and software responsive to all devices, allowing clients to catch up with tutorials and course tasks via their smartphones and tablets as well as their computers.

2. Get the Right Support

The development of user experience is a field in itself and it may well be that you don’t have experience of it. If this is the case, never fear. There are a host of user experience professionals out there. Hire a freelancer or appoint a permanent member of staff by posting an ad on a job board.

3. Don’t Underestimate the Visuals

Formatting your course is of the utmost importance to user experience. You should create uncluttered pages with plenty of white space. Text should be succinct and divided by snappy titles. Images and video can also go a long way to improving the user experience. The brain processes image and video thousands of times faster than text. Including these visuals throughout your course will add variety and also allow students to assimilate material more quickly.

4. Be Clear in Your Course Description

A big part of user experience is making sure a product or service meets expectations. Therefore, it’s important to establish the right expectations with your clients. Work on your course description so it is clear and accurate and clients understand what they can expect to gain from it.

5. Provide Course Preparation Support

Getting to grips with new software can take time for the less technologically savvy. Help your clients to hit the ground running by providing course preparation support. Students on any eLearning course should be familiar with any software they need to use, know how to contact their tutors and be able to locate resources before the course begins. You could conduct this support through online tutorials, question and answer sessions or a simple course preparation document.

6. Encourage Peer Interaction

Working on an eLearning course, students can miss out on the benefits of peer communication.  Interaction with fellow-learners can provide support and an opportunity to share ideas and perspectives. Open up these possibilities to your eLearning clients by building a forum into your software. Alternatively, set up a Facebook group for the exchange of thoughts and resources.

Put time into developing your course user experience to create the best learning platform for your clients. And remember, happy and successful students are more likely to recommend your course to others, driving revenue and increasing brand authority.

Martha is a passionate blogger who enjoys writing about employee training, marketing and anything that helps small businesses grow.

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The Solution? eLearning.

How does an organization solve this issue? Invest in eLearning technology to enable sales representatives with outstanding business skills.

With eLearning courses, employees are empowered with the necessary skills to perform successful sales endeavors. In fact, eLearning has resulted in companies experiencing an 18% increase employee engagement. An engaged workforce makes for a more productive and overall happier staff, which makes employees more interested in the growth and success of the company. With nearly 25% of people reporting they left their job due to lack of training, online learning can boost job satisfaction and engagement which in return improves the overall health of your organization.

Also, when implementing  eLearning courses, the sales representatives are able to complete the courses at their own pace, which is a less time-consuming option than in-person group training. Organizations that invest in eLearning are able to cut training costs by 50% and cut training time by 60%.

Getting Started

Online learning companies can help fill skill gaps in sales training. OpenSesame provides over 6,000 business skills courses that go over all the details, steps, and processes included in landing a c-level sale. From courses on phone skills and techniques on how to organize the perfect presentation, to implementing successful research and analysis. Or, check our sales course recommendations on the OpenSesame blog, so your employees can gain the skills they’ll need to land those deals that ensure your company’s future growth.

A Bluevolt study of cross-industry distributors reports that 81% of respondents said they witnessed a substantial increase in sales with online training. The time to invest in elearning is now.

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