Explore the impact of virtual training through three real success stories
The modern era of education calls for businesses and education designers to pay the amount of attention they need to pay for the rise of technology. Learners live busy lives and are often drawn in multiple directions, but virtual training can engage them and enrich their knowledge base wherever they are. In this article, we explore the impact of virtual training through two established business real-world success stories. Later, we will propose four tips that will help you replicate their success for your audience.
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Two case studies to prove the positive effects of virtual training
Let’s take a look at how the following three businesses have been able to increase the number of learners engaged with the help of virtual training, particularly Adobe Connect.
1. Open University
Open University (OU) has been a leading figure in higher education and distance learning for over 50 years, dedicated to making learning accessible to adults in the UK and beyond. After years of offering comprehensive distance learning opportunities, OU had to replace its legacy conferencing tools with a more robust platform designed for live online events.
After a long evaluation process, OU trusted Adobe to schedule and host over 60,000 live online events each year, connecting over 200,000 learners. Using the sophisticated features of the platform, they set up thousands of virtual “classrooms” in advance, give them freedom to design lectures for sessions with the pod, and incorporate chat boxes to increase learner engagement.
As a result, they increased the number of online events hosted by 150%, increasing the number of daily users from 4300 in 2018 to 30,500 in 2022.
2. Midflorida
Midflorida Credit Union is committed to providing personalized financial solutions and banking services to its members. Until recently, all new employees who interacted with customers had to undergo in-person training at the company’s main branch, often having to stay home for a week. Distance ultimately became an issue, discouraging candidates from accepting job offers.
To address this challenge, Midflorida launched a virtual training program designed to attract participants, attract more candidates and maintain a culture of direct communication. Adobe Connect ensures compatibility with existing systems and creates virtual learning content that is interactive and engaging for online learners. They simplified the training flow with layout templates and provided accessibility options through pre-configured pods. The ability to reuse virtual rooms has proven to be particularly useful, reducing the time and effort required to prepare for training sessions.
Ultimately, the impact of virtual training was evident for Midflorida. Because they were able to improve retention of top candidates by increasing learner engagement and reducing face-to-face training days by 80%.
Four Virtual Training Tips to Improve Learner Engagement
Examining these success stories not only provides concrete evidence about the impact of virtual training, but also highlights some important insights that need to be considered if you are considering adopting this training strategy. Let’s see what they are.
1. Include interactive content
As we saw in the case studies above, creating a virtual training program using interactive elements is essential for learner engagement. These factors allow for the transition from passive to active learning, attracting a larger audience and maintaining their attention. Features such as live sessions, videos, simulations, games, quizzes and more can greatly improve your learning experience and provide engaging content to participants who look forward to access.
2. Enhance your training sessions with activities
Maintaining the attention of learners is something that can be a challenge for instructors and private tutors. In particular, there are long fixed periods of time during live sessions such as webinars and sync classes. To address this challenge, you need to rethink the number and types of activities that will be included in your training session. For example, an hourly webinar consisting only of slides can lead to several yawns as the instructor explains them. On the contrary, sessions that include voting, group discussions, quizzes and feedback sections will be much more interactive and impactful.
3. Promote peer-to-peer learning
Virtual training should not prevent online learners from interacting and cooperating with each other. As we have seen before, virtual learning platforms focus not only on making courses engaging, but also on creating opportunities for ideas exchange and teamwork. To this goal, they provide tools such as chat boxes, discussion boards, and breakout rooms to promote group projects and discussions. Incorporating these elements into virtual training strategies can enhance learner engagement by promoting peer-to-peer learning and creating a sense of community and mutual support.
4. Make the most of your analysis
When adopting new training strategies, it is essential to stay on top of new data and metrics. Proving the impact of virtual training is much easier as the platforms that support it has robust analytics capabilities. All you need to do is pay close attention to this information so that you can make the necessary adjustments to improve learner engagement. For example, if learners attendance increases, you can confirm that training program activities are effective. If opposition arises, this is your clue to changing courses until engagement and participation numbers improve again.
Conclusion
Many companies around the world are exploring virtual training, and the results are almost positive. Learners appear to be more enthusiastic and motivated throughout the training process. Knowledge retention and implementation are more successful, and most importantly, the collaboration and interaction elements of on-site training sessions are intact. The case studies investigated in this article are just a few of the many examples showing the real-world impact of education in general, and virtual training for employee development in particular. Follow the tips we share to increase your chances of replicating their success and make the most of the virtual training resources and technology that are abundantly available in the market.
Use the latest technology to implement tested strategies and to overcome engagement obstacles in L&D programs, downloading to address today’s virtual training learner engagement gaps.
You can also check out the Adobe Connect webinar “Can you hear me?” It’s not a learning strategy that reveals why traditional video tools don’t cut it for training and what to use instead.
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