How to create training materials for your business with Adobe Express.
So, how do you get started? When you create your training materials, you’ll need to make sure you tailor them to your business, industry and employees. Keep in mind that they should be revisited regularly to make sure they’re accurate and up to date.
While you can save a lot of time and money with mass enrolment, that doesn’t mean that’s the whole problem ‘solved’. Materials should be constantly tweaked and reworked to ensure they accurately reflect current understandings.
1. Choose the focus for your training materials.
To choose the focus of your training materials, you may want to consider:
- Existing processes. Are there any key business processes that you need to ensure employees understand? Perhaps there have been some recent changes that need to be relayed?
- Knowledge gaps. Have you, your team leaders or managers identified any employee knowledge gaps that need resolving? Which ones are a high priority for your business at the moment?
- Feedback. One of the best ways to find inspiration when creating training materials is through employee feedback. Ask them directly what they want to see in their resources and go from there.
2. Make the most of Adobe Express templates.
Once you have your focus and initial content, it’s time to build out the bones of your resources. And you don’t have to start from scratch.
You can begin by exploring different content templates on Adobe Express. Some great examples of training material templates you can use include:
- Presentations. Perfect to help you create interactive training materials that address employees directly and add a little bit of personality into your approach to staff education.
- Employee handbooks. Employee handbooks can be used as in-depth informational guides on essential company processes. They can easily be shared electronically across your whole business.
- Posters. Course posters can help advertise upcoming training courses – like workshops and webinars – or helpfully summarise key information.
- Slideshows. These can be created to be used as part of other training materials like workshops, but they can also be saved, shared and used as long-term, referrable resources.
- Infographics. Great when you need to helpfully summarise key takeaways or data-heavy sections. They can also help encourage knowledge retention.
3. Add your company branding to the materials.
Creating training materials can take a lot of work, so you need to put your mark on them. You can use Adobe Express to create a unique Brand toolkit that you can implement across assets. Then, use the One-Click, Apply Brand tool to add your brand fonts, colours and logos to all your materials.
4. Invite other colleagues to collaborate.
Creating effective training resources relies on utilising multiple perspectives to ensure you’re hitting the mark. Not only can this help you spot any gaps and issues, but it also helps you consider different angles and opinions on what should be shared, and how. It’s important to lean on the expertise across your business, encouraging insight from others who have experience in different areas in the company.
Adobe Express allows for seamless cross-team collaboration across different materials and platforms. Share, receive and action feedback from different team members, and create something everyone can be incredibly proud of.
5. Think about accessibility.
While we’ve listed this as the final step, accessibility and inclusion should be something that’s considered from the start. Your training resources need to be accessible and inclusive of all employees. Everyone should have access to the same level of training and quality of resources, and it’s your responsibility to ensure this.
Some easy ways to do this are:
- Avoiding hard-to-read colours and fonts. Colour accessibility is important. For example, some people find it difficult to read white text on a black background, and you should never use light text on a light background. You should also use clear, consistent brand fonts.
- Adding photo alt text, video captions and voiceovers. Video captions can make it easier for those with hearing difficulties to understand the content of a training module. But you may also want to include voiceovers on any videos or online modules to cater to those with visual impairments.
- Offering materials in different formats. This can provide better accessibility for those with visual, audio and motor impairments. Plus, everyone learns and processes information differently, so it’s always a good idea to provide options.
Learn more about designing accessible content in our useful guide.
