Part Two in Series on How to Create and Maintain a Top-Notch, Work-from-Home Team. Click here for Part One.
There is a scene in the 1986 movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” in which an Economics teacher lectures a classroom of students. He asks questions and then immediately answers himself as kids fall asleep, drool on desks, and stare blankly into the space. While this is obviously an over-the-top representation of traditional teaching methods, a lack of student involvement is a common problem for many of today’s online training programs. Fortunately, a new, science-based approach to online adult learning has emerged that engages participants like never before.
Known as a “learner-centered” approach, it combines adult learning theories with distance-based technologies to give adults control over how they acquire, process and apply information. The results have helped companies save millions of dollars in training through greater information retention, lower attrition, reduced overall training time and, ultimately, better performing employees.
A Brief History of Training
Years ago, the standard method for training employees involved lectures and books. Everyone was taught the same way, at the same time, with the same materials. This one-dimensional training method evolved from the industrial revolution where jobs were dissected into individual pieces and skills were taught in isolation. Formal training departments made little effort to provide a holistic perspective, instead using more of a “get them in, and get them out” mentality.
With the advent of the Internet and personal computers, companies saw a way to reduce costs through online training. Existing materials were digitized and placed on an Intranet, and lectures were given using PowerPoint slides via web conferencing. But, as many organizations have come to discover, simply placing static information online doesn’t make it better. In fact, this approach offers even less human interaction than the physical classroom and makes it harder for isolated students to learn.
Learning is Unique
The reason many training programs deliver mediocre results is because people learn differently and they learn from each other. When instructors offer only one method of learning, such as slide-based lectures, some students might thrive, but most will struggle. Additionally, learning is social. Loosely guided peer-to-peer interactions are an important part of effective learning. When companies do not provide an opportunity for students to learn from and share with each other, they inadvertently keep knowledge from the broader community. For example, ask workers where they learned more: from the how-to manual handed out in their training class or from the coworker/friend who took them under their wing.
For companies with dispersed workforces, such as the virtual call center industry, addressing these learning needs is critical for producing highly trained professionals who are 100 percent comfortable in a virtual environment. Below are five tried-and-true tips to help companies effectively train a virtual workforce.
5 Must-Dos for Effectively Training a Virtual Workforce
- Develop curriculum with multi-modal learning opportunities
For those of us without a doctorate in education, multi-modal means offering different ways to approach, learn, and apply the same information. In the context of corporate training, this can mean providing students with reading material, showing them a video and then covering the same topic during an online class discussion.
The first step in developing an effective, multi-modal curriculum is to design multiple opportunities for learners to apply what they learn. In the call center industry, for example, courses start with customer service fundamentals and are then layered with client specific information. From there, courses are created incorporating both self-paced learning (asynchronous) and instructor-led (synchronous) classes, or what is known in the adult learning world as blended learning. Both elicit engagement from the students, while recognizing and enabling individual learning styles.
- Employ Facilitation, Not Instruction
There is a significant difference between instructing and facilitating. During live, online classroom sessions, rather than lecture, facilitators should provide interactive, just-in-time coaching, guidance and course correction by calling directly on learners to answer questions, solve problems, and demonstrate skills. Similar to medical students on rounds, this Socratic method of teaching encourages learning by doing instead of by hearing. It requires students to be prepared at all times and gives them ownership of their learning. Plus, it promotes an environment where students can learn from their peers.
- Provide Social Learning Opportunities
Many companies make the mistake of viewing unstructured social interaction as unproductive or a waste of time. In reality, researchers have discovered that informal interactions among peers sharing a common goal, also known as a “community of practice,” are a vital part of effective learning. Discussion boards and chat rooms make it easy to form online study groups and work on team projects. At Alpine Access, employees have said these venues created a sense of community and interaction that continued on well after the training program was concluded.
- Hands-On Learning in a Virtual Environment Starts Day-One
The best way to ensure employees are successful in a virtual work environment is to immerse them in the online world from day one. Too many companies make the mistake of deploying a “hub-and-spoke” approach to training home-based employees. This means they bring them to a brick-and-mortar location for training and then send them back to their geographically dispersed locations. A better approach is to conduct training online, using the same communication tools and technologies that employees will utilize once they are on the job taking calls. This way, they become comfortable with the at-home virtual work environment.
Another pitfall many call center companies experience when training a virtual workforce is requiring students to attend weeks of classes before they have a chance to experience a single phone call. Instead, authentic hands-on call activities should be immediately introduced. Students can start with simulations, role plays, or virtual call-shadowing and eventually progress to handling live customer calls supported in real-time by a coach or peer. In this way, students will increase their confidence and competence to handle live calls on their own by the time the training program is complete.
- Evaluate Performance Based on the Whole Picture
A tremendous advantage of training using a blended approach is the real-time insight that modern learning platforms can provide a Facilitator regarding overall class progress and individual learner progress. Individual class participation can also be factored into the evaluation, creating a more complete picture of preparedness. The type of insight into student performance achieved through the use of technology is simply not available in a traditional brick-and-mortar environment.
By following these tenets for training a virtual workforce, companies are able to compress training time and reduce dropout rates without sacrificing quality. In fact, we have seen a typical customer care program save approximately $1 million in training costs. The time has come to bring adult-learning theories to the corporate world. A learner-centered training program will produce better trained, more satisfied, and higher performing professionals. Lecturing to tuned-out students is a thing of the past.
John Kruper is president of Alpine Access University, Alpine Access’ virtual learning institution. Alpine Access is the leading provider of employee-based virtual contact center solutions and services. Recently named the best contact center and CRM outsourcer for client satisfaction by Datamonitor’s Black Book of Outsourcing, Alpine Access’ clients include ten of the Fortune 100 companies in the financial services, communications, technology, healthcare, retail, travel and hospitality sectors.
John Kruper is President of Alpine Access University, Alpine Access� virtual learning institution. To read more of John's articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by
Jennifer Russell