5 Drawbacks of Traditional Training Programs

Every day, large corporations are responsible for onboarding new employees and upskilling their current staff. This often takes place through various standardized training programs. Yet creating and implementing these programs can be challenging. Considerable declines in employee retention can add additional pressure to the situation, and let’s not forget the number of seasoned employees who take their historical knowledge with them when they retire. As a result, Learning & Development (L&D) teams are left to manage a burgeoning workload.

While traditional employee training methods have a great deal of value, they’re often outdated —causing a good deal of unnecessary stress and frustration. Here are five drawbacks of traditional training programs to consider:

Drawback 1: Spreading L&D and SMEs Too Thin

Most companies rely on subject matter experts to either guide or develop training programs. They might even be requested to teach the material and processes to new hires. 

On the surface, this might not sound like such a problem, but it can quickly get out of hand when you factor in:  

1. The number of new employees you train each year 
2. The time it takes to pull SMEs from their daily tasks 
3. SMEs contribute more of their time outside of their primary job focus

Consider this example. A consulting group we work with was tasked with executing a “train the trainers” program for a major manufacturing organization. They started with over 50 SMEs that would become the primary trainer workforce.

By the end of the program, only 8 were certified.  

Over the eight -week program, the 42 SMEs had to be pulled out of the program to take care of primary issues that were occurring. Unfortunately, they couldn’t be reintegrated back into the program because they had missed out on too much. Situations like this happen all the time and, due to SMEs continually being pulled in various directions, companies end up losing both valuable training time and money in the process.

Drawback 2: Lack of Vital Hands-On Experience for New Employees

For people to truly learn a new skill, they must be able to perform a task on their own, more than once, to gain mastery of a new skill set or process. But finding time for trainees to gain real-life experience while practicing new skills is limited in traditional training programs. Consequently, the inexperience of trainees can lead to safety risks, such as injury or even death. 

Another limitation is finding time to schedule training for new hires. Because hands-on experience is crucial for learning, new employees often have to wait idly for enough new hires to be placed for corporate to justify hosting a full training class. After all, it’s expensive to pull SMEs away from their day jobs to train new employees on equipment and procedures correctly.  

The alternative to waiting – using video instructions and 120 slide PowerPoint presentations also poses problems as these mediums do not meet the expectations of providing trainees with a hands-on learning experience they need to succeed in their new job.  

More traditional training methods can be complemented by doing the hands-on practice and testing in Virtual Reality (VR) to increase learner’s retention by putting into practice what they just learned in a timely manner.

Drawback 3: Inability to Adjust for Training Variances

As an enterprise organization, you likely have multiple locations across the globe. And while your processes might be standard, different location setups and other technical factors can throw variables into how things are done in your place of business.  

The reality is that traditional training measures, such as using a PowerPoint or a quiz to feed information to new employees, often fails to teach subtle differences across different environments that are not all standardized. You need a training system that allows for variances – technology that can be customized to train employees according to the unique set up of each location you own.  

For example, one of our clients currently has a preventive maintenance team that covers many sites across the region. The procedures are very similar at each site, but there are unique aspects to each location that must be practiced.  

Performing the wrong LOTO (lockout, tag out) task for that specific site and piece of equipment could result in a serious event that could cost the company much money in damages, or worse, put employees at risk of injury or death.  

Of course, it’s not always practical to send all new personnel to every site as part of their training. But, thanks to VR, new hires in this company can learn how to do their job across multiple pieces of machinery that are in various locations around the Southeast, ultimately reducing the chances of training errors occurring. 

Drawback 4: Difficulty in Managing Training Schedules

Lining up time in which your trainee and the equipment your new employee needs to be trained on poses serious logistical scheduling challenges. Here are a couple of examples

1. If you need to train an employee on how to use a piece of machinery, you might only be able to do so when the machinery is down for maintenance, which only happens once a month. This limits the timeframe in which you have to provide training, especially if you are a 24-hour operation. Even worse, having to rely on training employees during maintenance windows eats into the time allotted for machinery to be serviced. 
2. When training a bus operator to complete a bus route. To train a bus operator, you need to have a bus on hand during training hours. Taking a bus out of the regular system to train employees would cause delays and lead to angry commuters. New trainees are often expected to report to training late in the evening or early in the morning before the bus routes begin. Not only is this unpleasant for both the employer and employee, but it limits the window of opportunity you have to train various people at one time.  

Without the assistance of VR training, it can take weeks (if not longer) to get someone approved and badged and adequately trained to begin their new role. Since it's virtual you don't have to worry about finding the right time or equipment to train people.

Drawback 5: Increased Risk of Accidents and Injuries

As mentioned earlier, not having the opportunity to practice new skills in a controlled, risk-free environment increases the risk of a new employee making mistakes while starting on the job. 

In fact, people need to be able to make mistakes to ensure that catastrophic accidents don’t happen when they are suddenly placed in real-life situations. 

We work closely with an airline that continues to provide evidence that VR training is essential in helping reduce accidents and injuries.  

Here’s one reason why. 

There are many moments working on the busy tarmac at an airport, which creates the perfect storm where life-threatening safety hazards can occur. Because of the VR training experiences we have created, ramp operators can practice their new job in a safe way that enables them to become aware of the constant movement and dangers happening all around them. Since the VR training feels like a game to the employees, it encourages friendly competition and fun while real learning is occurring.  

New hires and seasoned employees can enjoy the training process while retaining information and perfecting their job skills – a win-win for both the employee and the airline.  

In fact, people need to be able to make mistakes to ensure that catastrophic accidents don’t happen when they are suddenly placed in real-life situations. 

The Solution: Solving Traditional Training Drawbacks with Experiential Learning Via Virtual Reality Integration  

VR has long surpassed its stigma of being used as a gaming platform. It has now become a vital part of corporate training programs for many Fortune 500 companies, including Amazon, UPS, and Delta Air Lines. VR has proven to be advantageous because experiential learning is learning by doing. By integrating VR into your existing traditional training programs, trainees are given the ability to step into the workplace and start practicing their actual work - all in a safe and controlled environment.