Online vs. In-Person Training & Workshops

K’necht Delivers: Parenting & Social Media

I’ve been teaching people of all ages for over 30 years one subject or another. My early days as a technology instructor started by running software classes (Lotus, WordPrefect, desktop publishing) in the late 80s. Since then I’ve taught everything from web development, to SEO, web analytics and Social Media Marketing. My training background evolved to where I’m now an on-line instructor for the and head up the.
With this experience I’ve had countless opportunities to teach and run workshops both online and in-person. When deciding if on-line workshops class are better for you or organization versus in-person training there are a few things to consider before making your decision.

Step 1: Which Types of Corporate Training are Right for Your Organization

When it comes training or workshops there are basically two types: public classroom and private. Each comes with its own pros and cons.

Public Classroom Training

Public classroom training/workshops generally offer the lowest cost. You simply register, pay your money, and show up. You don’t need to worry about reserving space for hosting the training course or acquiring the necessary equipment (PCs, projectors desks, etc.), it’s provided by the training company.
For corporations on tight budgets this might seem like the best deal. However, if you decided to attend a public training/workshop in person, there might travel costs associated with it. Don’t forget to include travel, accommodation and meal costs when factoring your purchasing decision. Also consider how many people from your organization are registering for the course or workshop. If you are sending 3-5 people the odds are you might have been able to pay for a private version of course for the same money.
If you’re thinking that you’ll only send 1 person and they’ll come back and educate the team, think again! The odds are the person you sent isn’t a qualified instructor. Their ability to complete a 100% knowledge transfer is highly unlikely and they can easily forget something critical. Plus you’re paying them twice (first to attend and then to teach).

Private Training/Workshops

Private training sessions and workshops are generally ideal for groups of 3 or more people. Typically a public one day workshop costs between $900 – $2,000 to attend depending on the subject plus travel time and costs (total cost for 3 people $6,000 – $9,000). Alternatively, the cost to bring in-house an instructor to run the class on your premises is $3,000 – $10,000 per day including travel. This represents a considerable savings especially if you have a group of 8-10 people who require training.
Another bonus of private training is many training organizations offer either minor or full customization of their material. This means that they can personalize the agenda to meet the exact needs of your organization furthering increasing the ROI of this training.

Step 2: Deciding Between In-Person vs. Remote Training

Once you’ve determine whether a public or private course is right for you, the next decision is to attend remotely or in-person.

Benefits of In-Person Training

As an instructor I prefer in-person training. From the instructor’s point of view, it allows me to read the body language of the students and adjust my teaching style on the fly to ensure that they are fully engaged. When conducting workshops, I get to ease drop on conversations in group assignment and provide unsolicited guidance. The mere physical presence of an instructor in the room also minimizes attendee’s desire/need to tune out and focus on their smart-phone. From participant perspective, employers are less likely to pull you out of an in-person training session. If they do, the odds are it’s something extremely important. If this is a public course, you also get the chance to mingle and meet others with a similar interest/need which allows for networking and building of business relationships which isn’t easily done when attending remote training.

Benefits of On-line Training

K’necht delivers: Remote Lecture

The reality of today’s workplace is time often doesn’t allow for employees to take an entire day off plus upwards of a day for travel to attend training classes. This is where on-line training comes in handy.
With on-line training you can have the benefit of a live instructor but neither party has to travel. This does directly translate into dollar savings (no travel costs) and frequently these lectures are broken into smaller segments running less than 2 hours and often 1 hour or less. As an on-line instructor I’ve notice any time an on-line lecture goes beyond 45 minutes I start losing my students’ attention.
The negative side to on-line training must be carefully balanced against its lower cost. These include:

• Students muting their connection and working on other tasks (not giving the class their full attention)
•  Frequent interruptions from others in the organization
• A longer overall duration for the material (a 7 hour course can be covered in 1 day on-site but may take 7-10 days of smaller 1 hour lectures)
• Less focused students as it’s hard to concentrate just on slides on a screen or a talking head

Which Training Option is best?

The reality is there is no clear winner. For someone seeking training or an organization looking to get their staff trained, you need to balance the cost savings of remote training versus attending a training course in person. It’s perhaps why many organization prefer to bring in a trainer for their staff. This lowers travel costs (only 1 person traveling) plus multiple people can be trained all at the same time and the material can be customized for the organization. Here at DAM, we offer a wide variety of private training course and workshops both remotely and on premise each of which can be customized to our clients exact needs.

 

This entry was posted on May 13, 2013 at 9:20 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Alan K'necht Training by Jim Hedger No Comments Yet