Recent years have seen a boom in digital learning. With the shift towards remote working, the learning and development industry has hyper-focused on how technology can be used to deliver training to distributed workforces around the world. While rolling out eLearning programs offers convenience, it is important to consider how effectively it will deliver the necessary skills. In exchange for convenience, there may be compromises in terms of the quality of the learning experience and the value it provides for both the organization and the learner.

For many organisations, the solution to questionable ROI for effectively delivering skills from digital learning is simple: implementing traditional live, instructor-led training. What does that mean for the learning technology we rely on to make it all happen? Turns out, it will require more than a Learning Management System (LMS).

 

Balancing ease and effectiveness in digital learning

It’s easy to understand why organisations roll out eLearning programs that satisfies their training needs. Besides often being the path to least resistance — there are many benefits. Who wouldn’t want a fun and fast learning experience that can be completed when convenient for their schedule? Digital learning can include mobile learning, gamification, and even cutting-edge tech such as augmented and virtual reality.

However, while eLearning can typically be deployed faster to a large workforce, it’s important to consider the depth of skills development and how well employees can apply them in their daily tasks. Even with learning technology becoming more sophisticated every year, it’s clear that eLearning can’t completely replace the value and gains in knowledge retention of traditional in-person instruction. Why? Some skill sets are still best learned in person, under the supervision of an experienced trainer. For example, for Dell Technologies, live training was the most effective way to equip employees and partners with in-depth product knowledge and skills needed to provide world-leading service.

 

Digital-only can’t truly evaluate certain skills realistically

It’s self-evident that while an online course on leadership principles can provide valuable insights, it isn’t sufficient for assessing whether an employee can effectively lead a team through a complex project.

Learners and organisations can miss out on getting real-time feedback and guidance from experienced trainers in classroom-based learning. Consider this: you’ve deployed an eLearning program to your learners. However, one topic just isn’t clicking. Looking at the assessment data in your LMS, you can see which areas learners aren’t able to fully understand, but you can’t identify the barrier to comprehension.

Compare this with a face-to-face session in a classroom setting, the trainer can provide guidance in real-time with students and explain topics through demonstration to make it easier to understand. Often a good, blended learning approach, incorporating eLearning, with in-person, with vILT — depending on the situation and desired outcome — is the best approach.

 

Revisiting traditional face-to-face learning

In many cases, traditional face-to-face training is still the preferred method, especially when it relates to upskilling and reskilling employees in key jobs. In Fosway’s Digital Learning Realities report, 32% of organisations rated face-to-face training courses as having the ‘most impact’ on the skills gap, as opposed to only 17% who rated digital learning the same.   

While a digital approach to learning has its benefits, abandoning instructor-led training completely means missing out on multiple key benefits – simply being able to provide more training doesn’t mean the quality of learning is where it needs to be. Trainers and facilitators can leverage their wealth of experience to provide qualitative assessments of how learners are progressing, that training metrics may not provide when just looking at the learners’ data.

A good trainer can identify and work through pain points in real-time and adapt or iterate their resources to ensure that their learners can understand the subject. Additionally, a skilled trainer will have a good idea of how each participant is progressing and ensure that individuals aren’t left behind. Essentially, instructor-led training has more capacity to flex and adjust to meet the needs of learners and the goals of business.

It can also be challenging to get high-quality feedback on your learning programs and find out what’s going wrong. Trainers are uniquely positioned to understand what is and isn’t working, whether that’s how the content is delivered, the baseline knowledge in a cohort, or challenges unique to specific learners. This feedback can also be passed on to your L&D team, who can factor this information into the wider training strategy.

 

Delivering face-to-face training at scale with the right technology

The reason LMS and eLearning software have gained popularity is their ability to more easily deploy training to a global workforce. Yet, for more profound skills development and an enhanced learning experience, face-to-face learning is essential. The challenge lies in making live training as engaging as possible by deploying the best instructors and SMEs, and making it more efficient to deliver, whether in-person or in a live virtual classroom.

How can we use technology to help? Many organisations still manage in-person training manually with spreadsheets and email, which is complex and labour-intensive for the entire team. Finding and assigning the most qualified facilitators and subject matter experts for each course based on their skills, language and availability again requires spreadsheets, phone calls and emails – it has just become the status quo.

So, it’s no surprise, when it comes to scheduling and operations for face-to-face training, technology can make the biggest impact. And it’s here where we need to look beyond the LMS, to technology that is focused on the complex needs of delivering live training at scale, a Training Management System (TMS). It often starts with evaluating your organisation’s capabilities for running efficient face-to-face learning at scale.

For large organisations, managing global trainer-led sessions can seem insurmountable, without the right tools. A Training Management System (TMS) like Training Orchestra works alongside an existing LMS to automate and optimise scheduling and operations. Whether these sessions are delivered in person or online, the TMS allows you to manage your resources. This can include trainers, rooms, equipment and scheduling — and ultimately maximise the budget.

 

Not only but also

One multinational technology firm found that when shifting to a hybrid classroom model, its LMS was incapable of managing the training needs of over 83,000 employees. Integrating a TMS like Training Orchestra with their existing LMS allowed the company to go from 25% hybrid training to 80%, allowing their training teams to reduce admin workload. The main takeaway? Learners received the full-value of training that only an instructor-led experience can provide.

Whether you’re already utilising face-to-face and virtual instructor-led training or are looking to implement it as a part of your wider L&D strategy, a TMS + LMS provides the tool set you need to make integrating all your learning programs easier than before.

 

 

Thomas Schofield 

Senior Solutions Expert at Training Orchestra