Online trainings are a great way to upskill employees, and increase their competencies and productivity. They enable a learning environment and allow for better employee retention. In order for trainings to be effective, employees must grasp the knowledge learned, and retain it for real-life situations.
We have put together a list of 5 tips to help make your online training successful.
1. Define and outline your goals
This is an important task to start with, as it ensures your training is headed towards what you want to achieve. Before you begin the training, list down the organizational goals you want to achieve through this session or program. Then, specify under each goal what are the concepts that are necessary to understand. Create your overall outline by researching your concepts, and adding the content under each.
2. Keep it simple & engaging
Keep your content simple and easy to understand, and don’t assume that everyone already knows all the terms you’re going to use: simplify complex concepts, define difficult words, showcase examples… Include interactive elements such as games, breakout sessions, and exercises, because engagement allows people to understand the material better.
3. Practice before you start
Make sure you’re confident with the topic you’re training your employees or coworkers for. Research possible questions they might ask beforehand, and practice in front of a mirror or with a colleague before you present. Your confidence will give you more credibility, and eventually help retain the audience’s attention. Make sure you are also very comfortable using the online platform or tools at your disposal, to make sure you can manage if something goes wrong technically.
4. Storytell the knowledge in a structured and organized manner
While facts, numbers, methods, and processes, can definitely help in learning a new skill, a story is what will ensure your content is well received and creates a lasting impression. In order for the story to be effective, make sure it’s sequenced and well structured. Add elements to your story that evoke different emotions and senses. Don’t be shy to get personal. We once conducted a Global leadership training on the topic of Resilience, and Marilyn, who was facilitating this session, spoke about the meaning of this word from the viewpoint of being Lebanese, and having to cope and adapt to the deteriorating situation in her homeland. This personal story struck a chord with many of the attendees.
5. Do follow-up trainings to ensure the knowledge is learned
Depending on what the training is about, a follow-up session, call, quiz, content sharing or internal communication ensures the knowledge has been retained. A method that works is to ask trainees to email you the key points they learned a few days after the session. This will help them retain the content that they learned.
We hope our tips will help you deliver memorable internal training! For more information on how to deliver a successful online training, check out our article about the best tools for online trainings.