eLearning or Live Training?

Live Training
Live training allows, and encourages, real-time interaction and team bonding. This can be a great training option for complex or customized material.

When material is complicated and it is critical attendees fully understand concepts, you want to go with live training. This is the last time you want attendees to doze off watching an online presentation or lose Internet access during instruction about an important new policy or procedure.

Real-time interaction and hands-on activities give employees a better chance of cementing lessons. In a live environment, employees can discuss, collaborate, solve problems, and ask questions. This enhances knowledge development.

Live training can be customized to include company case studies, up-to-date market information, and specific challenges faced by the team. An instructor highly skilled in the subject matter with a proven track record of engaging attendees can connect with each employee on a personal level, and incorporate activities, tools, and exercises that allow attendees to see improvement, which increases the probability that the new skills will be put into practice after the training.

In addition, a skilled instructor can see how attentive attendees are, judge how well they understand concepts, and adapt to fit specific needs. This is especially beneficial when there are employees who are having specific problems, or who didn’t want to attend the training in the first place. In the first example, a good instructor can either address the issue with the entire class or speak to the attendee during a break and offer individual help.

In the second example, the attendees likely aren’t trying to cause trouble. They may see the training as an inconvenient task that takes them away from important work. This is more likely to occur with employees who work on commission and may not want to involve themselves with anything that limits their time to earn income. In this instance, you want a skilled instructor who can gain employees’ trust and communicate, from the get-go, how the training will benefit them, and then quickly follow-through with engaging information and activities that do just that.

eLearning
There is a time and place for eLearning. This includes:

• Onboarding new hires – eLearning can deliver basic information quickly;
• Compliance-based courses like emergency responses and anti-harassment training – these courses include exercises, quizzes, and summaries to help employees retain information;
• Software and technical courses – these work well as online courses, especially when they encourage individuals to learn at their own pace and provide easy references.

Both training methods have their advantages, but we believe that for a lasting impact, face-to-face options offer the best ROI. With a hands-on and personalized approach, attendees learn, process, and remember new skills long after the training ends. At RedRock Leadership, we offer a range of live training, both in-person and via the web. We provide sales training, leadership development, management training, and customer service training that are proven to create permanent change. Contact us today to grow your company by growing your people.