Successful training and development is a challenge for most businesses. Often, it’s not so much about the budget, but giving employees the time to learn.
This is frequently compounded when assessing the effectiveness of training, and realising that handouts are now languishing in a drawer and there is little recall of what was learnt.
Giving your team the opportunity to learn at a time and pace to suit them, and having the flexibility to choose the subject matter is becoming increasingly popular.
This is all possible through digital or online training. Clearly, this is a marked change from the classroom approach we have all been used to.
If you need to teach your team, how can you make digital training effective?
- Make visual aids interesting and interactive – that “death by powerpoint” is more obvious when taking part in online training. Of course you will need visual aids to support your teaching, but make them engaging, do something with them whilst talking.
- Look at tools to get responses from your employees – try polls, surveys or even quizzes to check knowledge at the end of the session. Some webinar software allows for interactive questions throughout training. It is easy for people to become distracted by email or something else, and switch off completely. And because you can’t see them you can’t react. So you need to ensure they are staying on board.
- Be sure you know how to teach online. You may need to learn these skills yourself before attempting to provide digital training. It is different but can be hugely effective
- Is it the right subject matter? I’m not saying classroom based training doesn’t still have its place, because it absolutely does. Think about the subject and be sure you are choosing the right medium to get your message across. And consider new skills or subject matter that hasn’t been taught yet – maybe there are new things that your whole company needs to learn.
- Is it appropriate? Whilst I am all in favour of offering your team flexibility to choose their development, you need to give them a guiding hand. Help them to identify what skills they need to develop, where there are knowledge gaps, where they can build on their strengths and what training will support that. If they are out of their depth, the training won’t work for them, and the result is you are disappointed and they are frustrated.
- Be prepared. This remains true irrespective of the real world or the digital one. Check your equipment works, your visual aids haven’t suddenly gained a glitch etc. We all have horror stories of running a training session, only for the gremlins to set in just as we start!