Geschreven door Marijn de Geus | April 12, 2017
When organizations come to us to see if we can help them develop their employees' soft skills through online training, we sometimes advise them to wait. It's not always best to start training online. Motivated by increased effect and cost reduction, many organizations make the switch from conventional classroom training. The first, however, does not always take place. If you recognize any of the four points below in your organization, it might be best not to implement training online just yet.
1. Communication is strategically irrrelevant
If the top of the organization thinks communication skills are not that important, it will be hard to improve them in the rest of the organization. When HR is the only one pushing online training, it won’t do a lot. An important aspect of training online is that it should be possible in the work place itself. It will be rendered useless when the managers concerned don’t think it’s important, and therefore don’t facilitate training in the work place.
Moreover, many of the other points in this list are a consequence of this.
2. A significant number of unmotivated trainees
Of course, unmotivated trainees are not desirable in any type of training. But the strength of individual exercise in online training will mean that motivated trainees can improve quicker than unmotivated trainees. In addition, enthusiastic pioneers will stimulate the rest and there is a huge added value in peer feedback among trainees. Unmotivated trainees will give up training online at the first issue, like uncooperative wifi. Finally, communication skills are a part of someone’s identity, an unmotivated trainee will not be open to applying the desired techniques.
3. Training is not mandatory
It may sound childish: making training online mandatory. But, we all know that e-learning often comes with meager participation. Everyone is present on a course day, but this is very different online. The flexibility and ‘newness’ of training online are, next to an advantage, also a disadvantage: it’s easy to let it slide, for example, and it might be scary to record yourself. When training online is voluntary, a large number of trainees will definitely drop out. While after a mandatory program, everyone will be happy that they have pushed through anyway.
4. There is a lack of verifiable training goals
Insight in the skill levels of your employees is a unique aspect of online training. To achieve it, there has to be (self) assessment. This requires objective norms, like ‘employees should be able to give each other feedback using the 4E method.’ Those who are on the required level already, can skip training and the rest will prove to have improved by a test afterwards. If you don’t know what it will achieve, why would you start training online?
Fortunately, there are many more reasons to do start training online, like these no brainers and these for multinationals! Is your organization ready for e-training? Take the quiz below!