Virtual Instructor-Led Training Best Practices
Bradford R. GlaserMost organizations are now spread across different time zones, regions, and even countries. With virtual training becoming the default due to these restrictions, often, delivering a “good” virtual presentation just doesn’t cut it.
You need to be able to cut through the Zoom fatigue, distractions, tech glitches, and more. To really engage your team and allow them to retain information, your delivery and content need to be great.
Start improving your sessions by implementing these best practices for virtual instructor-led training. Soon, you’ll start to drive real results that will have a lasting impact on your employees.
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Table of Contents
- Choose and Set Up the Right Technology
- Customize Your Content for Relevance and Attention
- Design Powerful Engagement and Interactivity
- Nail the Delivery
- Don’t Read Off the Slides
- Share Real-World Scenarios & Experiences
- Adjust Your Tone
- Test Participant Attention
- Get the Timing Right
- Run it by a Colleague
- Overcome Common Virtual Challenges
- Track Your Results
- Get Started with HRDQ Today
Choose and Set Up the Right Technology
The effectiveness of your virtual instructor-led training is heavily influenced by the platform you use, and there are many options out there: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, or LMS-integrated tools.
To pick the best option for you, take into considerations what platforms your organization is currently using, and think about things like group size, features needed, and security. Is the current tech good enough?
When it comes to features you might need, think about things like polls, breakout rooms, whiteboard, chat, raised-hand, recording, and captions. All of these features can be thoughtfully integrated into your virtual training and used to increase participant engagement and learning retention.
Customize Your Content for Relevance and Attention
Your content is the core of your virtual training session. If it’s not relevant or compelling to your audience, they won't connect with it, so they're less likely to retain the information.
That’s why creating custom content that’s pertinent to the team is key to making a virtual training program that works. Here are three easy ways to improve your content through customization:
- Create team goals and objectives. By creating team goals that align with the company and including them in your presentation, you can show participants your expectations and exactly how you plan to help them succeed. Let them know why this training matters.
- Include interactive elements and visuals. This is one of the best ways to hold people’s attention. Transform bodies of text into short bullet points, images, GIFs, and games that test your participants’ knowledge of the content.
- Brand your materials. Branding makes your content feel less generic and more personable, which shows that the company is invested in employee growth.
If you are designing your own virtual training program, explore the HRDQ Reproducible Training Library. This soft skills library includes more than 300 hours of training programs, fully customizable to meet your team’s needs.
Design Powerful Engagement and Interactivity
Nowadays, attention spans are shrinking. The average adult attention span on a single screen is roughly 40 to 47 seconds – shocking, I know. To really keep your learners' attention, engage them in the content – right from the start.
Open your training with virtual icebreakers or pair-share breakout rooms. In your training, move beyond basic questions and use polls, quizzes, breakout rooms, collaborative whiteboards, chat prompts, or gamified elements every eight to ten minutes.
Nail the Delivery
After curating relevant, meaningful content, you can then focus on delivering a fantastic presentation that captivates your audience. Here are some of the best practices for nailing the delivery of your virtual training program:
Don’t Read Off the Slides
This is the presenting rule number one. Everybody tuning into the training session can read the slides for themselves. Instead, they need you to explain the information and why it matters, which leads to our next point.
Share Real-World Scenarios & Experiences
People remember what’s most striking to them. If you can relate facts to real scenarios, or even better, your personal experiences in the company, people will be much more inclined to listen. Feel free to make it casual, drop in a joke here and there, and let your personality shine through.
Adjust Your Tone
It’s important to plan your performance, but you don’t want it to sound scripted and monotone. Make sure your tone is energetic and that you enunciate your words. Tone is usually an indicator of a person’s enthusiasm, so if you can show you’re enthused about the content, your employees will be too.
Test Participant Attention
Don’t let your trainees sit idly by. You can test to make sure they’re paying attention in a few different ways – ask them questions, set times for group discussions, direct them to complete pre-planned activities, and pause to see if they have questions of their own.
Get the Timing Right
Once you know the presentation like the back of your hand, it becomes easy to rush through the content. However, remember you’re teaching the content, not just telling it. Take it slow so participants can absorb the information.
As you work to nail the timing, put yourself in your trainee’s shoes – is your presentation so long that people may simply disengage? Giving a great presentation comes down to getting the timing exactly right, so consider doing a few test runs to make sure it’s the right length.
Run it by a Colleague
It’s always a good idea to get a second opinion on your virtual training program. Before implementing your training, deliver your presentation to a trusted colleague. Ask if they have any suggestions, if there is any other information that should be included, and what they think of the time length and your performance. After taking their feedback into consideration, you should be ready for your employees!
Overcome Common Virtual Challenges
Training virtually comes with a lot of complexities – and a lot of potential distractions for your learners.
When scheduling your training, be mindful of the different time zones your learners may be in and rotate the start times so one time zone isn't getting better treatment. Also offer recorded versions for absentees, so no one has to miss out.
If you're spread across different areas and don't get to see each other in person, building connection is key, and the benefits will translate to learning. Use breakout rooms for small-group bonding, and be sure to switch up the groups so everyone has a chance to get to know each other.
At the start of your training, encourage learners to make the training full screen so they can easily see the slides and activities. Ask them to mute notifications, and go over your camera policy, whether they should be camera on or camera off – though camera on leads to higher engagement.
Track Your Results
To determine how effective your training is, you need to track your results. Here’s how to measure the success of your training session:
- Attain a team baseline. Ask your employees to take an that will determine the exact areas they need to improve.
- Let your team put their training to use. After your training is complete, give your employees a few days to implement what they’ve learned.
- Ask your team to retake the assessment once they’ve had time to practice their new skills. If their score improves, it shows your session was successful. If it does not, consider a follow-up training session focused on the weaknesses identified by the results.
At HRDQ, we offer a library of online assessments that are designed to test your team’s soft skills. Not only are they easy to distribute, but you can easily track employee progress, receive instant test results, enjoy organized consolidation of data, and provide customized reports to your participants.
Get Started with HRDQ Today
There's a lot that goes into creating an effective virtual instructor-led training. If you follow these best practices, you're on your way to creating an effective, memorable training session!
At HRDQ, we eliminate the stress that comes with training by offering downloadable, customizable training you can purchase and use all in the same day. Our Reproducible Training Library features over 90 soft-skills training courses for in person or virtual use.
We can also do the training for you! Select an HRDQ Consulting course, and one of our expert trainers will deliver the training for you. We'll also work with you to craft an organization-specific training that meets your goals. Check it out, and get started today!
