H ow to Move Your Training Program Online
How to Move Your Training Program Online
A Global Shift in Training Best Practices
In today’s global business environment, organizations must continually seek ways to improve productivity, respond nimbly to changes and optimize their budgets. Trainers in particular need to reach more customers and employees more quickly – and in more places. And they risk missing opportunities or losing a competitive edge if they don’t keep up. Easy‐to‐use technologies now make moving some or all of your training programs online quick and effective, increasing both the reach and frequency of key training messages. Without adding headcount, trainers can reach broader audiences using techniques similar to their offline training efforts – and add some new ones unique to the online environment.
Reach More Trainees with the Same Resources
In a survey conducted for Citrix Online by 1080 Group, survey respondents were asked to rank a long list of potential benefits of using Webinars (web seminars) for online training. The top three benefits of Webinars they chose were: • • • Reaching more trainees with the same headcount Presenting ourselves as thought leaders in our industry Being more effective with our budget
The message is clear: it is important to be perceived as utilizing new training technology, but it is even more important to use Webinars to help get more accomplished with every training dollar.
H ow to Move Your Training Program Online
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Best Practices: Planning, Promoting, Presenting, Recording
Determine the Appropriate Content Obviously if your instruction includes learners engaging a physical task, that activity can’t occur online. But what about the foundational knowledge transfer that precedes the exercise? How about the assessment afterwards to determine the retention of key concepts? Webinars are appropriate for any type of content that can be shared, shown, or demonstrated from a computer desktop. A growing trend among trainers is determining what portions of content can be delivered online and moving at least some of that activity online to increase their reach and the frequency of connecting with learners. Hone the Webinar’s Focus Using Registration Because of the lengthy lead time between registration and the event, a common practice with in‐person seminars is to query seminar registrants about their greatest needs and wants. The goal is to better understand the audience in advance so the seminar content can be tailored for optimum effectiveness. With online training Webinars there is usually less lead time necessary since registrants don’t need to plan as far in advance to attend an online training session. In addition to benefitting from a shortened delivery cycle, online trainers also benefit from on‐demand registration analysis – giving them the same opportunity to serve learners’ needs with precision. Tag‐team with Other Luminaries and Subject Matter Experts Most learning environments would be enhanced by the appearance of additional presenters who would be relevant to the topic. Comments by an industry analyst, a great story from a customer or a motivational welcome from the national vice president are often deemed implausible due to time, distance and expense. With Webinars trainers can easily enhance the value of their training sessions by inviting other presenters to join remotely. Just like learners can attend the training session from their computer desktop, luminaries or subject‐matter experts of all kinds can easily be engaged to improve your online training sessions. Deliver Interactive Openers Great openers take many forms, such as shocking statements, revealing statistics or powerful what‐you‐ will‐learn benefit statements. Sometimes they are simply a quick exercise that gets an audience engaged by saying something such as, “Raise your hand if you traveled more than two hours to get here today.” Likewise, online trainers can easily present a poll, prompt a virtual “hand up,” or ask learners to type in a response to a question, instantly engaging them in a memorable and measurable way. Figure 1 ‐ Virtual "Hand Up"
H ow to Move Your Training Program Online
Keep an Eye on Attentiveness Not all audiences respond the same way to any given subject or trainer. Experienced trainers observe the attentiveness of their learners, though this gets more difficult with larger audiences. Moving your training online does not have to mean that you lose this connection with your audience. Webinar dashboards put trainers and panelists in touch with learner attentiveness at a glance, enabling them to keep an eye on – and respond to – changing audience needs.
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Figure 2 ‐ Webinar Dashboard
Use Dialogue to Increase Engagement The bad news is that “death by slide show” is a bad practice that some presenters will inflict on audiences regardless of the venue – online or offline. The good news is that easy‐to‐use presenter controls enable trainers to move training initiatives online without checking their good sense at the door. Webinars are uniquely valuable for online training because they provide that ability to engage learners with true, instructor‐led dialogue, but without the constraints of distance and travel. And engaged learners means higher retention and influence of your key training messages. Leverage Recordings for Increased Reach Producing a usable artifact of an in‐person event has long been an expensive and time‐consuming proposition, often requiring production crews to operate cameras, do post‐production editing and finally duplicate and distribute. The activity is often classified as “would be valuable,” but gets cut because it doesn’t make business sense. Recording a Webinar, however, only requires the trainer to push a button. All audio and visual Figure 3 ‐ Start Recording Button elements are captured, including screen demonstrations, and the recording file is easily published to a Web site for learners who may have missed the live Webinar. Further, your content will be available on demand for anyone, anywhere, extending your reach almost immediately.
Best Practice: Instead of simply instructing an audience that they can submit questions using the questions/answer tool, demonstrate it with an ice‐breaking opener such as, “Type in what city you are participating from today?” As answers come in, show the audience you are “listening” by your own response such as, “Julia, from Sydney ‐ Welcome!”
H ow to Move Your Training Program Online
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Next Steps
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Companies considering an online training solution should significantly weigh the following factors in their decision: Is it easy to use? Learners, trainers and administrators are all negatively time‐impacted if the technology gets in the way of effectively managing and delivering great training programs. • Will it flexibly meet different learning and meeting needs? Trainers moving training online quickly find new opportunities to serve different audiences. A smart tool will accommodate small and large audiences alike. Is it quick to deploy? Good opportunities often fail due to “analysis paralysis.” Consider how quickly you can get started, try out your most obvious opportunities to move training online and then prove the value.
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Bottom Line
Moving your training online shouldn’t be an all‐or‐nothing proposition. Webinars fill a unique place in how to reach customers and employees quickly and effectively. The opportunity to increase the reach of your key training messages is large. The cost is small. And the future belongs to those who move forward one step at a time.
About 1080 Group
1080 Group provides performance improvement solutions for companies using web seminars (AKA webinars, webcasts). Our team of experts demonstrates a collective experience that includes hundreds of clients, thousands of web seminars, and more than a million web seminar attendees. Through this expertise, 1080 Group created the industry’s first independent curriculum. We teach marketers and trainers how to design, promote, and produce innovative web seminar programs that position them as thought leaders.
About Citrix Online
Citrix Online, a division of Citrix Systems, Inc., is a leading provider of easy‐to‐use, on‐demand applications for Web conferencing and collaboration Its award‐winning services include GoToMeeting Corporate, a complete collaboration solution that satisfies all Web conferencing needs ranging from large Webinars to small online meetings. With GoToMeeting Corporate, organizations of any size can use GoToWebinar for do‐it‐yourself Web events and GoToMeeting for smaller, more interactive online meetings. GoToMeeting Corporate allows users to easily present, demonstrate and provide training online to anyone, anywhere in the world. GoToMeeting Corporate can make businesses of any size more productive by reducing travel time and costs and enhancing communication, ultimately leading to faster decision making and more efficient workers. To learn more about GoToMeeting Corporate, please visit www.gotomeeting.com/corp.