How do you run online employee training?

What gets in the way of online training

Materials end up in different places. The recording link goes out in a direct message, the slides by email. A new hire who joins six months later won't find any of it.

The trainer answers the same question many times. After a session, questions come in as direct messages. Only the person who asked sees the answer, and the next employee asks the same thing.

People forget about the session. The invitation came a week ago, and on the day of the session people dig through their email for the call link. Part of the group joins late or not at all.

Nobody knows who has finished the course. The trainer can't tell how many people watched the recording and did the assignment without asking each of them.

How to set up an online course

• Create a separate channel for the course. In a channel, only editors can post, such as the trainer and the course organizer. Everyone else adds reactions and comments in threads, so announcements and materials don't get lost among discussions. Give the channel a prefix so courses don't mix with work chats: "[Training] Sales for new hires."
• Pin the course syllabus. Write the session topics, dates and where to find recordings in one message, and pin it. An employee who joins the course later starts with that message.
• Run each session as a call in the course channel. After the call, a message about it stays in the feed, and the recording lands in the thread under that message. A thread is a discussion branch under a specific message. Make the thread under the call the home of the session: the trainer posts the assignment there, and participants ask questions and hand in their work.
• Ask questions in the session thread. The trainer answers once, and every course member sees the answer, including those who take the course later from the recordings.
• Hand in assignments there too. The trainer sees who has already submitted and doesn't have to dig for files in direct messages. Feedback on one employee's mistakes goes to them in a direct message.
• Agree on deadlines. In the assignment, say by what day it's due and when the trainer will reply. Then participants won't ask whether their work has been checked.
• Mark a finished session with a reaction. Watched the recording and handed in the assignment? Add ✅ to the call message. The reaction count tells the trainer how many people have finished the session.

How to set this up in Pachca

Course members by group tag. A group tag is a label in an employee's profile that Pachca uses to add them to chats. An admin assigns a tag to the course members, for example "Interns_October," and adds that tag to the channel. Every employee with the tag ends up in the channel. When a new employee gets the same tag, they're added to the channel automatically.

Optional courses in public channels. If a course isn't mandatory, make the channel public. Any employee can find it in Browse and join on their own.

Recording the session. To start a call, click the video camera icon at the top of the channel. To record the session, click Record video call in the call's bottom panel. By default any participant can record, and a call moderator can limit recording to moderators.

Session notes in the thread. In chats and channels, transcription turns on by default when a call starts. After the call, a full transcript and an AI summary, a short recap written by Pachca, land in the thread under the call message. To get notes shaped like a session recap, click the arrow next to the video call button at the top of the channel → Set up AI summary, and enter your own prompt, for example "Write session notes: key points and the homework." Transcription is in public beta and is being rolled out to workspaces gradually. For more, see the use case "How do you record a meeting and get the minutes automatically?"

A reminder before the session. Write "Session in an hour, the call will be in this channel" and schedule it. If sessions happen every week, pick a weekly repeat, and in the custom repeat settings set the date to stop sending it.

An expert from another department in the thread. If a colleague outside the course can answer a question better, bring them into the thread with an @mention. Threads in Pachca are cross-chat threads: the colleague sees the thread and the message it started from, even if they aren't in the channel.

Course materials through search. To find the slides, click the magnifying glass at the top of the channel and filter by attachments.

An outside trainer as a guest. If the course is run by a trainer from outside the company, invite them to the course channel with the Guest role. They'll only have access to that chat and won't see the employee list. Guest roles are available on the Company and Corporation plans.

Confirming that an employee has read a policy. If you need a record of who read a document after the course, post it with an "I've read it" button. To set this up, see the use case "How do you get employees to sign off on documents?" For online schools with outside students, there's the use case "How should online school mentors communicate with students?"

Where to start

Start with one course, for example for new hires. Create a channel, pin the syllabus in it and run the first session as a call in that channel. After the session, look at which questions reached the trainer in direct messages and ask people to post them in the thread.