By: Edwin Ebreo
Online facilitator-led training has been the convenient replacement for face-to-face training when the covid pandemic broke. While many L&D Managers jumped into the bandwagon with both feet, others were more cautious but eased into it immediately. It’s fairly easy to see why. Online training is convenient. After courses are redesigned for a virtual classroom, all the learners need are computers or phones, internet access, and a headset. It’s convenient. You don’t need to travel to a physical venue. You don’t need to suffer through traffic, The learning session can start on time! Nice, right?
Sadly though, Online training brings as many problems as solutions. Managers send their staff to online training without adjusting work expectations thereby forcing them to multitask during the sessions. Poor internet connection causes participants to miss out on the full benefits of the training because their connections drop now and then. The lack of ideal design force some online learners to use mobile phones which makes it difficult to participate in the learning activities especially when the facilitator uses more than the online meeting application to engage learners. Lastly, the old pains of sending participants to training events without them fully appreciating the need for it has an even worse effect on the online learning platform. As a result of all these, online facilitator-led training became a wasteful ritual for many people that they have to comply with that not truly benefit from.
Is online facilitator-led training hopeless and truly useless? I don’t think so. But, there are some non-negotiables that L&D Champions need to manage well if the online learning interventions are to succeed. Here they are:
1. Design online training to be highly interactive. Online learners often take their online courses in the most unideal locations like their workstations where they are often interrupted by co-workers and where work is well within reach. When learners get bored, it is easy to just turn off the camera and multitask not realizing that they are failing at it.
2. Ensure that both facilitator and learners have a reliable device for learning. This is pretty obvious. If you are enrolled in an online program but can’t understand the topic because the internet is lagging or dropping, you will unlikely learn. The funny thing is if you keep at it despite the poor connection, you’ll receive your training certificate without learning much. It’s terrible. Also, please note that if everyone attending the online training is at the worksite, you might as well bring the facilitator there. If there are too many people using the same internet connection, you might end up compromising your connection strength and will cause the online session quality to suffer.
It is not just the internet connection that needs to be addressed. Learners need to have the right kind of device. Phones provide limited access. If the program is designed to use various platforms like Kahoot, jam board, Padlet, Mentimeter, and the like, learners will not be able to able to participate at the level that other learners with desk or laptop computers have. It is also important that they are equipped and trained to use these learning tools.
3. Prohibit employees from doing work while in an online class. This is what happens when the learners attend face-to-face training, right? They don’t do anything else but attend the class. It’s hard enough to concentrate when you are not in a classroom, don’t add the pressure of supervisors hounding their staff while attending training. So, no follow-up on deadlines, no, calls, and no request for meetings while the participants are in an online learning event. If you can’t afford to do this, have them take self-paced courses instead.
4. Require cameras to be on all the time. I know, bandwidth issues! That’s why I brought up the issue of internet reliability first. Having the camera on, allows the facilitator to engage with the participants at almost the same level as in classroom training. It allows both parties to connect visually and improve the chances of committing to the learning process. Without this, the facilitator has no visual monitor of learners’ reactions, therefore, they have no way of knowing how the learners are reacting to the message.
5. Design the online learning activities to include asynchronous learning assignments. This is best done by dechunking the learning activities so that each session runs for only between two to four hours. If possible, it will also help to space the session schedules so that learners have the opportunity to apply the lesson before the next session. Let me also say that 8-hour sessions are efficient but ineffective. They are exhausting and can cause information overload. For this to work, L&D Champions need to design a strategy or a system for evaluating the learners’ performance during and after the training, to gauge the application of learning. This will help make learners accountable for their participation in the training and the application of learning.
Facilitator-led online learning is a tremendous opportunity to solve the old problems brought about by inflexible classroom training. To make it work, however, L&D Champions needs to do more than just set up the learning event. It requires the right mindset among all L&D stakeholders to make it work. Without these 5 points, you might as well endure the traditional classroom training.
