Tired of Attending Boring Video Conferencing Training

Have your technicians grown tired of attending boring video training sessions?  Sitting for hours in front of the computer screen not engaging with the training instructors or their fellow training participants? Remote work environments have steadily increased pre COVID and have continued to increase due to the recent pandemic.  As a training format defined by the process of instructing, teaching, or coaching in a virtual environment . Typically, remote training sessions are held via video conferencing software platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams were participants are given a link so that they can access training at a designated time. For the most part, for this style of training participants are encouraged to mute their microphones and questions are typically saved for the end of the training session. Resulting in limited instructor and classroom participant engagement.

According to a recent study conducted by UpWork,  73% of all departments will have remote workers by 2028. However even with the steady increase in remote work employees, 38% of employees have reported that their organization has stopped or limited the number of training sessions since transitioning to a remote work environment. So, what can your organization do to not only implement a successful but engaging remote training process?

To help you navigate the world of remote training, XRMentor™ has put together the Ultimate Guide to Implementing Successful Remote Training.

1. Ask for Feedback

One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is  believing their training does not need to be updated. The reality is that it always does! Especially when pivoting to remote training platforms, it is important to continually ask your employees and trainers for continuous feedback. Keep in mind that feedback doesn’t always need to be received at the end of a training session, receiving feedback from your Learning and Development team prior to training can help set training goals and structure the learning content.

Pro Tip: To help collect valuable feedback from your employees distributing a survey before and after training can provide your organization with insights into how effective the training is.  Combining feedback from your L &D team and employees pre and post training allows your organizations training content to remain relevant, useful and engaging

2. Upgrade Your Software

We have all had to sit in front of our computers staring at the screen as an instructor goes on about a topic. Or worse, your training is compiled of viewing outdated How To Videos, PowerPoints and PDFS that you can have to thumb through on your own time. However, with the recent adoption of Augmented and Virtual Reality for training, enterprises have seen a drastic increase in training knowledge retention and employee productivity in  augmented or virtual reality training environments. Augmented Reality training software solutions like XRMentor™’s, ClassroomAR™ allows instructors to provide first person perspective training directly from their facility to anywhere in the world using the Microsoft HoloLens 2! Image having your technicians sitting at home and they have the ability to view AR training content directly from any device! With 85% of remote workers requested additional online training, enhancing your video conferencing software would help improve your training engagement without increasing cost.

For more information on the difference between augmented and virtual reality check out our blog post here.

3. Take a Break!

Incremental breaks during your training is imperative to having a successful remote training. According to a University of Illinois study, the human brain’s attention span drops after a long period of focusing on a single task, thus resulting in a decrease in our ability to focus.” In order to retain information and have your employees receive the most out of their training they need to be given breaks appropriate to the length of the training.

If your training is scheduled for 60 minutes, the ideal break time should be 5 minutes.. For training sessions longer than an hour, implementing two 10-minute breaks allow for trainees to digest the information in stages without becoming overwhelmed. However, keep in mind to gauge your audience, some employees may not be interested in taking continuous breaks. It’s always important to check in with your employees even virtually to see if they need to step away from training for 5-10 minutes. Whatever your company decides is best, make sure you are giving your employees a well-deserved rest, so they can be there best self for you in return!

4. Stay Connected During Training

Transitioning to a remote training environment can be scary! Especially when the vast majority of your workforce is accustomed to on the job training . As the training expert, it’s important to gradually introduce your technicians to the idea of learning new concepts remotely.  Set up individual meetings with your employees to find out what successes and troubles they are having with the transition to remote training. It is highly important to “invest the time and effort to understand their preferred ways of learning, so that you can tailor your educational efforts accordingly.”

5. Make Your Training Accessible

There is nothing worse than being invited to a video conference session and for whatever reason, you miss the live training session. Now what? Sure, you can probably view the training after the fact, that is if the instructor remembered to record the session. Otherwise, you missed it. Having training that can be easily accessible regardless of device can make the transition to remote training easier on employees.  Software features like ClassroomAR™ allows training instructors the ability to automatically live record their training sessions for post training distribution. This results in continuous access to training sessions that never expire! Now that’s accessible!

Overall, the reality is that remote training and remote work aren’t going anywhere, anytime soon. Therefore, the faster your organization can implement some of the tips that we mentioned, the faster your organization an start to implement effective and engaging remote training of your own.

XRMentor™ is an easy to use maintenance training and repair software solution enhanced with augmented reality. Developed by Design Interactive, XRMentor™ was developed to help reduce training cost while increasing efficiency and technician first time fix rates.