The Benefits of Live Training Vs. On-Demand Online Training Programs

In today’s tech-focused world, companies and individuals are attracted to solutions that help them achieve goals with minimal resistance. The appeal of online training programs starts with the fact that they are there for the taking and on-call when the user wants to access them; more flexible in their ad-hoc presentation than a?live training program. While this is true, there is a significant cost and erosion of the goals involved; one that can lead to many businesses wasting time and resources on subpar programs that do not produce results. It turns out that live, facilitator-led training for the most important and impactful of professional development initiatives, is truly the only option in the company’s interests.?

Live training does not subvert web-based technologies. It can be executed in an office or on the web. It is best defined as a facilitator conducting training as a scheduled live event in front of a class of one or many, resulting in the interaction by the facilitator with participants on a concentrated basis, in person. These live training programs have found ways to be flexible with remote employees. The increasingly prevalent on-demand, self-paced model, which rose in popularity largely during the COVID-19 pandemic, continues to fall short in results despite its touted accessibility. What we have seen is that, while this can be a good approach in some areas, it is not on equal footing with the experience that a small class of individuals will experience with the benefit of a live facilitator.??

Training should be treated by organizations as a holistic exercise, investing time and energy in the people they think will help them get the best return for their business. Sadly, training is often a more reactive exercise than a proactive one. Choosing to invest in?professional development?as part of standard succession planning can position a company for success while also avoiding hurdles along the way. Training can proactively address skill gaps before they have a business impact, and companies can eliminate drags on organizational performance by investing in training for their teams.??

However, for most companies, providing proactive management or skills training to individuals is simply not done. Instead, businesses treat elevation to management like the elevation to parenthood. We don’t go through formal parenting training; instead, we have parented ourselves and draw from those experiences, for better or for worse. The path to management is not that different for most people. Individuals are selected for management and given fancy titles due to tenure and maturity, not training or the demonstration of honed?leadership skills.?Leadership fails to invest time or resources to help new managers be successful. Instead, they count on the idea that the individual’s experience of having been managed will translate into being a good manager.?

This is a clearly flawed model. Instead of expecting people to morph into managers who are good communicators, good project managers, or good team players just by being a recipient of management in the past, companies need to formalize the path to leadership. A complete journey includes an active assessment of the student(s) to be trained, followed by a program that caters to their strengths and weaknesses, all of which is near impossible when “one-size-fits-all” on-demand, online training is the answer. Training takes the opposite approach, understanding people may not be suited right out of the gate for a management role and that, with additional guidance, they can be groomed not only for a particular position but also for success. This does not leave to chance the idea that someone will figure things out by being part of an experience. Instead, training sits individuals down with a formatted curriculum delivered by a subject matter expert, translating into an impactful experience that can alter behavior in a specific direction.??

High-quality training?is also sticky, and this is another area where online programs miss the mark. Sticky training, or programs that stay with the learner and become content incorporated into their work approach, is critical for the training outcomes to be effective in the long term. After live training sessions, which are delivered in direct consideration of the skills and experience the student possesses vs. what they need, leaders can compare a before-and-after snapshot of an individual and truly see a difference in how they are operating or behaving. The successful training is evidenced by differences in the way that person handles the topic or issue they received training for.??

To this end, training should be impactful, and achieving impactful training goes well beyond passively watching a pre-recorded program on a screen, such as most online-only programs offer. Facilitators need to take the time to understand the people they are training, the company they work for, and what their culture is like. Live facilitators can leverage a variety of different resources to customize the material, considering everything from resumes to discussing paths and goals one-on-one with the employee, to using profiling tools. By learning about the team, a trainer can pour all the information into the style and the approach taken with the curriculum. This is another area where online training falls short: it cannot take into account variables like culture, personality or experiences. Online training, again, is a one size fits all approach. This means there will be huge gaps in the material when addressing specific corporate and individual needs.??

Leaders wonder how they can find a time when all employees can get together for a live session or how to get them to stay focused on the content in a live session that is taking them away from other responsibilities. Instead, online training lets participants take in content when they want, and they can choose to do the modules in bite-sized pieces or self-paced. A good strategy on the surface, yet not with the desired result. Further, leaders need to take the extra step to explore ways to have their cake and eat it too by breaking what used to be day + long training sessions into smaller 75-90-minute segments, addressing their concerns about attention while gaining impact. At the end of the day, online training does not achieve the same level of measurable behavior change seen as part of live training, and leaders soon realize they won’t receive a return on their investment. This comes back to the need for customized approaches that only live training can provide.??

Training is best fulfilled in a discussion format, rather than as a lecture, with smaller groups of people, something that live training is best suited for. This creates an interactive environment between participants and the facilitator. Breakout groups incorporate conversation as part of the training, while facilitators can monitor discussions and encourage people to share with the larger group. This encourages debate and cross-communication, helping to reinforce overall learning objectives. It also allows room for the unique company DNA to enter into the discussion and shape the topic. This approach has also demonstrated a far more impactful behavior-changing experience when compared to online training because high levels of engagement simply do not happen when participants are passively clicking a mouse or watching a screen. Instead, attendees in a live training are able to lock in the knowledge they receive through repetition and usage.??

Live training is largely about interaction. But when done right, it also takes into account the modern challenges that businesses and leaders face today. Individuals tend to have shorter attention spans than in the past, largely due to our technology culture. However, live training can be done in a customized, concise fashion that facilitates interaction while also being modular in nature. While it can be difficult to get a team of leaders to sit in a room for a full day, live sessions can be conducted in smaller intervals, spread out and supplemented with related exercises and materials sent in advance and as a follow-up to the session. This allows the participants to practice the skills learned, only further reinforcing those principles taught during the training.??

During the COVID-19 pandemic, companies were forced to pivot to an all-online model for many of their business activities, training included. Post-pandemic, these companies continue to contend with hybrid work environments. That does not mean live training is not viable. Instead, sessions can be held in matching hybrid models, where video conferencing tools are leveraged to create conversations and breakout groups, mirroring the work done in the physical space. Live trainings can also be segmented, presenting content and encouraging interaction during 45-to-75-minute time slots, rather than the full-day sessions of the past. This proves to be much more impactful on participant outcomes than passive online training models that lack live facilitators and peer engagement.?

There is already evidence that online trainings have fallen short as we evolve into a post-pandemic environment. Companies that opted for on-demand, online-only trainings out of necessity are now finding the people they have put in place, who should be prepared for managerial positions or who should be performing to a higher level based on their capabilities, are underperforming across the board despite having sat through an online training session. Leaders are discovering their teams are not as prepared as they hoped, and this is directly tied to the lack of efficacy with online training. As a result, these companies are turning to live training programs with a modern approach that can have the impact they need on the people they have invested in.?

Originally posted by OperationsInc here.