Top 5 Challenges of Remote Work for Training and Development and How to Overcome Them
Fully remote work is on the rise, according to Robert Half, increasing from 10% in Q1 2023 to 15% in Q4 2024.
Published: June 20, 2025 | by Brightmine
Despite companies increasingly calling employees back to the office, flexible and hybrid working remains popular. This requires organizations to adapt their practices to accommodate remote workers.
Training and development (T&D) is one area impacted by this trend.
The pandemic forced T&D leaders to adjust their practices almost overnight. They delivered onboarding, reskilling, and compliance-related training remotely to dispersed employees across the country. Despite this some challenges remain. Here we look at the top five challenges T&D leaders face and offer some insights and best practices on how to address the challenges of remote training programs.
1. Ensuring training is compliant in the jurisdiction where the employee works.
Before remote work became common, employers only had to worry about compliance issues in their physical locations. Multi-national companies, of course, were well-versed in meeting a wide range of compliance requirements. But smaller companies simply focused on a single geographic area.
Now, employers with remote workers must make sure they meet the training needs of the places where employees work from home or other locations. This includes accounting for state and local training requirements.
For instance, sexual harassment, diversity and anti-discrimination, workplace safety, data privacy and security training requirements all vary significantly across states and localities.
Staying up-to-date on local and state changes helps ensure compliance, but it can be a challenging task. Fortunately, Brightmine can help-the HR & Compliance Center provides updates, guides, and resources. These help companies stay compliant with changing requirements.
2. Developing skills that are not typically taught in an online setting
Even prior to the pandemic, many companies were offering a combination of synchronous and asynchronous training for employees.
Not all online training is practical or considered effective. For instance, driving, working with machinery, and some forms of soft skills training. Companies had to quickly change their methods during the pandemic. They needed to offer training online for many topics and skills. It wasn’t easy, but it had to be done. That remains true today for employees working off-site and in remote locations. One particular area of importance for remote workers is training in the development of collaboration skills. A study of more than 60,000 Microsoft workers during the pandemic found that remote work caused disruptions in collaboration. It also created challenges for communication, which often happened at different times.
Fortunately new methods have emerged to improve training delivery and effectiveness of online learning, including:
- virtual and augmented reality
- using simulations to train for complex skills
- remote role playing to help develop soft skills
- implementing collaborative learning activities.
Gathering feedback from employees and monitoring the impact of training efforts can help surface best practices and areas of opportunity for improvement.
3. Creating a quality virtual learning experience
The virtual learning experience should ensure that those working remotely are engaged and motivated and the program delivers positive learning experiences. That can be challenging, but the quality of online training programs has improved immensely over the last few years.
Creating a quality virtual learning experience requires the right training delivery and technology. Traditional in-person training sessions don’t translate fully to a virtual environment. This is especially the case for hands-on skills that may require physical demonstration or practice. Technical issues like hardware limitations, lack of familiarity with digital learning platforms, and unreliable internet connections, can also represent challenges for both trainers and trainees.
Investing in good production quality, like proper lighting and a stable internet connection, will enhance the learning experience.
Modern technology like Zoom now allows for one-on-one connections and group meetings. It offers breakout rooms and chances for demonstrations and skills practice.
Getting regular feedback from employees and watching how training works can show us what works best and where we can improve.
4. Tracking active participation and learning outcomes
Tracking active participation in remote learning can be hard, even after the debate about cameras being on or off. Even with cameras on, when more people attend, it’s almost impossible to know who is paying attention.
Measuring learning outcomes has always been hard for T&D leaders. These challenges continue in a remote setting.
But they can both be overcome.
For example, you can encourage active participation in online sessions by dividing employees into breakout rooms. Then, have them share what they discussed. Facilitators can call on employees during live sessions. Case studies, simulations, and problem-solving scenarios can challenge employees and keep them engaged.
Establishing clear participation expectations at the start of and training sessions is an important starting point. Setting clear goals ensures employees understand the expectations on them and how their participation will be evaluated.
You can assess learning outcomes in several ways.
These include self-assessment, reflection, and pre- and post-training tests. On-the-job assignments can also help evaluate how well employees have learned the information. Managers and supervisors should help monitor and assess how employees engage in training. They should also check how workers use new skills in their jobs.
5. Keeping employees engaged and connected
Variation is the key to engagement in online learning environments. A “talking head” approach simply doesn’t work. Transferring training to a remote/online environment isn’t a simple matter of recording and sharing live training sessions.
Today’s online training uses different methods. These may include personal instruction, quizzes, exercises, small group work, videos, and gamification.
Also, personalizing learning to meet each employee’s interests, needs, and skills can help prevent boredom and disengagement. Today’s generative AI (GenAI) tools are proving to be very effective in creating personalized learning experiences.
Using spaced practice activities and assignments can help keep learned information fresh. This approach can also improve how well you apply what you’ve learned.
Finally, asking employees for their thoughts on the training content and learning experience can be helpful. Find out what worked well and what didn’t. Also, ask how future online training can be improved. This feedback can boost commitment and make training more effective.
Flexible work options are important for today’s employees. However, they also create challenges for organizations and their training staff. They must ensure that both required and optional training needs are met. It is also important to achieve good learning outcomes. Finding ways to deliver online learning in ways that are compliant, engaging, and effective can help companies balance both the regulatory and practical needs for training that gets results.
The challenges of remote work for training and development can be overcome. Brightmine can help.
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About the author
Brightmine
With more than 10,000 customers, Brightmine is a leading global provider of people data, analytics and insight – empowering HR leaders to deliver brighter business outcomes.
For more than two decades, Brightmine, formerly XpertHR, has continued to help HR leaders confidently navigate the evolving world of work through our unique combination of critical workforce data, AI-enabled technology, and trusted HR expertise.
Brightmine is a division of LexisNexis Data Services within RELX®, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools. RELX serves customers in 180+ countries with 35,000+ employees. Ticker: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RELX.
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