Virtual Training Beats In-Person Training

The company I work for does all of its major training online with videos. They don't work. There are so many employees that have been here years and still don't even know the basics, all because no one wants to take a day to teach them. Virtual training is just plain lazy and is a terrible idea.

Virtual training is fine for information transfer for all the reasons Donna stated above, technical training, HR, etc.. When you want real business impact and behavioral change nothing beats Instructor-led in-person training as Peter's statistics support. At the end of the day, if you asked C-level executives, everything being equal, which approach will drive business impact for their organizations, they would choose instructor-led, in-person training every time.

Making a blanket statement that one learning modality is better than the other is silly. The decision to use in-person or on-line learning in any situation depends on a multiplicity of factors, including: the learning objective, the subject matter, the learner, the budget, geography, timeframe, etc. With that said, on-line learning will clearly predominate in the future, for all the reasons given above and more.

I whole heartedly concur with Ostrow's analysis. Research has indeed supported his assertion that the most effective organizations more often engage live instructor-led training with e-learning cast as a powerful reinforcement tool, vs. the primary delivery method. Other key training considerations include the type of training and its objectives. E-learning may be an effective tool for knowledge transfer, but if authentic skill development is the objective, trainer-led programs are a far superior solution. One must also consider the type of training. In the case of sales, leadership, or customer service development, interpersonal and communication skills are fundamental to performance. Clearly, in person training is paramount to the development of interpersonal skills.

Well, Peter wins this one hands down. While all of Donna's points are accurate, none of them indicate that online is better than in-person training.

Adults learn by doing, by practicing, by putting concepts to work. None of that can be done in front of a computer. It needs to be done in a room with a trained facilitator, with others who are learning, too, and with the interpersonal interaction between them all.

While it may be more convenient to sit in front of a computer, it doesn't take the place of a real hands-on workshop-oriented classroom training session.

Bob
www.bettersellsolutions.com

As companies who try this will find, virtual training as a substitute for good human interaction will fail. Virtual training as an aid to good human interaction will succeed.

The former is often done as a cost savings measure and at that point we need to remember the words of the great W Edwards Deming. "If you target quality with a project then over time quality goes up and cost go down--do the latter and the reverse happens." Most virtual training would fail this test.

For now, I have to side with Peter. For all the reasons that have been stated. I work for a company that does training, in the manner which Peter describes, in person trainer-led, and eLearning reinforcement. In the future, with various improvements and universal access to "telepresence" systems which might be able to mimic a classroom, with instructor/participant, and participant/participant interaction, perhaps then the power of in-person training might wane, but not now.

I agree with Peter. Instructor-led training is very effective in learning situations where interpersonal relations or the students' attitude are graded. When I develop technology training I typically recommend a blended learning environment: Use eLearning to provide a knowledge framework, use simulators to develop skills, and use instructors to demonstrate/evaluate attitude.

The question is not online vs instructor led. The delivery method should reflect the nature of the S&K gap we are trying to close. For example, if the outputs of training can be evaluated easily, then online might work. If we need to evaluate all the behavior that produces the output (such as sales), then instructor led is appropriate.

Hey there to "me"!

You are thye first comment and mentioned your company did all of your training online with videos. Can you tell me what kind of reinforcement training is given after the sessions? (if any) Does your manager role play with you? Does your manager "coach" you on new skills to sell what you were trained on?
Thank you very much!
Jim Hughes

Classrooms are obsolete.

This debate might have missed a key principle - the quality of the training, whether virtual or instructor-led, will have a big impact on the value/usefulness of the training.

I will take a well-done virtual training over a poorly delivered live session any time.

Think about webinars you have attended recently. Most were average or worse, started late, technical problems, and just bad presentation skills. Then there are those that are well thought out, rehearsed, and built from the ground-up for a virtual presentation that rocked the house. These are the ones that I can't wait to get access to the recorded version for additional reference and replay.

Virtual is and can be a successful training vehicle if the presenter knows the tools, has value in the content, and rehearses the session until it is perfect.

Just my perspective from attending or leading more than 300 webinars/virtual training sessions in the past year.

This article is far too brief to come anywhere near answering this question. First off, the Pro side is more correct in terms of technological and systemic changes. But as others have mentioned, the quality of the training is the X factor, and that's before you consider the time involved in updating that training to reflect the best current picture (which is an ever moving target).

The Con side fails in its argument by choosing perhaps the one business unit where face-to-face communication is most vital: sales. Of course, Mr. Ostrow's experience backs up his opinion strongly; it's sales, not customer support, IT, or another department. The change may not be felt in sales as an industry, as greatly as it will be in other business units because of how each unit is affected by technology in the practical sense. This is a sort of well-sweetening for one side, which doesn't help anyone cut to the core of the issue proposed.

The answer to the above question is that both online and in-person will be needed -- in whatever suitable percentage is required -- until one or more technologies exist that are easy enough for the practicing expert to blend to record nearly every aspect of their top-performing work, and have it accurately translated and be trackable for others, so they can learn and emulate that behavior as accurately as possible. Such technology(ies) don't yet exist, and it will still be some time before they do.