Online or Face-to-Face Training?

Online or face-to-face training?

When you want your employees to learn about something new, you usually have two options available to you. You can either enrol them on an online course or use an external training provider for face to face training.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of these?

Online advantages:

• Employees can work at their own pace.
• Work can be done in their own time, often outside office hours.
• It can be used by many employees in different locations.
• It negates the expense of hiring somebody to come on-site, or the inconvenience of having employees go offsite to undertake training.

Online disadvantages:

• Lack of personal face to face support.
• The possibility of procrastination when undertaking training outside of work.
• Problems accessing technology.
• Lack of peer support and communication with others when learning together.

Face to face advantages:

• Getting together with colleagues to share information and knowledge.
• Help and support on hand during the course.
• Good for team building and morale.

Face to face disadvantages:

• It might feel for some like being ‘back at school’ and they may fear speaking up.
• People have different learning styles and paces, and some may work and understand more quickly than others.
• Face to face training is likely to be more expensive.

 

It is often a good bet to have a combination of the different types of training available to employees, depending on the type of business you have and the number of employees. If you wish to discuss your training needs further, please get in touch.

(c) Ben Thornber, Thornber HR Law