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These days almost everything is available on-demand, from news and streaming media to groceries and meal delivery.
Training is following this trend, and for good reason.
Just-in-time training is a modern approach many companies have embraced to improve employees’ knowledge and skills, while reducing costs, decreasing training time, and boosting accessibility.
This blog discusses the basics of just-in-time training, along with its benefits and some best practices to leverage it successfully in your organization.
What Is Just-In-Time Training?
Traditionally, training and onboarding packs everything into a single session or module that’s intended to be completed in one sitting.
Just-in-time, also known as on-demand training, turns this paradigm on its head, breaking materials down into on-demand, bite-sized segments. Rather than sitting through a frontloaded course, people only receive hyper-specific training when they need it.
This type of training comes in several different flavors, including:
- Knowledge bases or reference guides
- Virtual tutorials
- Hands-on walkthroughs
- Visuals such as diagrams or infographics
- Dynamic guidance from an AI assistant
The Core Principles of Just-In-Time Education
On-demand learning sets itself apart from other training methods in various ways.
Because participants can access training materials at any time and from anywhere, just-in-time training is usually self-paced. On-demand training is also personalized, as people can pick and choose the modules with which they interact. Some businesses may even take this a step further and employ artificial intelligence for adaptive learning.
On-demand training relies heavily on microlearning, breaking down training content into units that take only a few minutes each to complete. Stored in the cloud, just-in-time resources are also searchable, allowing trainees to look up whatever knowledge they need quickly and easily.
The Benefits of Just-in-Time Training
The most significant advantage of on-demand education is the flexibility it offers.
People can access training on their own schedules, no matter where they are. They can also skip any content they already understand, streamlining training while boosting engagement.
Compared to other forms of virtual training, just-in-time training is also easier to maintain. Instead of having to examine and revise an entire course every time they want to make a change, your instructors can just release and update individual units. This has the knock-on effect of reducing training overhead, as it takes less time both to manage and deliver your content.
When Should You Use Just-in-Time Training?
Not everything can be delivered via on-demand microlearning. Foundational knowledge and anything related to workplace safety and compliance should still be delivered traditionally.
You can make guidelines available via an on-demand knowledge-base, but that shouldn’t be your primary training resource.
For example:
- Just-in-time sales training might enable salespeople to quickly look up product features, responses to common sales objections, and answers to frequently-asked customer questions.
- A healthcare provider could use just-in-time training to help personnel refresh their knowledge on medical device features.
- Employees at a manufacturing facility may need on-demand access to compliance and safety information.
- A customer success team may use on-demand training to introduce new features or upsell opportunities to users.
How to Prepare Your Workplace for On-Demand Training
Before you start employing just-in-time training, there are two questions you need to answer. What information do people want at their fingertips? What information might people not realize they need?
Answering the first question is easy enough. Talk to the people who’ll be using your training. Conduct surveys to identify where they struggle and what they feel would help.
The second is a bit trickier. Start by assessing employee performance and retention to see if you can identify any knowledge gaps that on-demand training can address. A skill validation program may also provide insight on what your training should target.
When designing your training content, focus each unit on a specific piece of information, topic, or feature. Since learners will likely access your training on a smartphone or tablet, you’ll also want to optimize your training for mobile devices, with a responsive layout and minimal text. Lastly, to improve searchability and accessibility, group your training units by category.
Your categories could include product features, sales objections, frequently-asked questions, customer profiles, branding, and sales enablement tools.
Next Steps: Build Your On-Demand Training Toolkit
So those are the basics of on-demand training and how you can prepare your workplace for it. Now it’s time to consider your training software.
It’s worth reviewing this list of The Top On-Demand Training Tools. Then, if you want to read more about microlearning, check out Bite-Sized Learning vs. Microlearning: What’s the Difference?
And when you’re ready to put it all together — CloudShare has everything you need to deliver engaging, hands-on virtual training.
FAQs
What is the difference between traditional and just-in-time training?
Traditional training packs everything into single, frontloaded sessions, while just-in-time training delivers bite-sized, on-demand segments that employees access only when needed. Just-in-time training is self-paced, personalized, and focuses on microlearning principles that make information more accessible and relevant to immediate needs.
What types of content work best for just-in-time training?
Just-in-time training works best for knowledge bases, virtual tutorials, hands-on walkthroughs, visual aids like diagrams, and AI-assisted guidance. It’s ideal for specific product features, sales objections, FAQs, and feature updates, but less suitable for foundational knowledge, workplace safety, and compliance training that require comprehensive coverage.
How do you implement just-in-time training effectively?
Effective implementation starts with identifying what information people need at their fingertips through employee surveys and performance assessments. Focus each training unit on a specific topic, optimize content for mobile devices with minimal text, and group training by logical categories to improve searchability and accessibility.
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