Training tips: Seven tips for engaging live online training

Last week I wrote about self-paced online learning, and today I want to share a few thoughts about how to successfully run engaging live instructor-led trainings (and meetings) online. When I was working at Facebook, I was one of the most active sales trainers in the region and in addition to all of the face-to-face trainings that I delivered, we ended up moving many trainings to a video conference format in the past few years. One of them was a full day internal tools workshop, and the less-than-engaging topic taught me that it is indeed possible to keep an audience engaged over video, even in the most difficult circumstances. 

Let me share seven things that I learnt over the years in relation to live online trainings:

• You need a co-facilitator: Even if you are presenting all of the content yourself, it is extremely valuable to have a co-facilitator on board. Is someone having technical problems? Are people submitting comments or questions in the chat? Is someone not engaging/disturbing the training (who forgot to mute?!)? Let your co-facilitator handle all of the surrounding tasks and you can focus on keeping the training engaging and interactive. Naturally, this means that you might have to return the favour for your co-facilitator, but I promise you that it is worth it. 

• Know the attendees: Sometimes it might feel like a waste of time to let everyone introduce themselves at the beginning of a meeting or training, but it can make all the difference to the educational quality. By doing a virtual around-the-room to get an understanding of everyones roles and expectations for the day (take brief notes of this), you will be able to make the training much more relevant and adjust your content, pace, and tone to the experience level and background of the attendees. You are also able to call different people out and make the training feel much more personal: “Hannah, you said you work on global brands, so I am sure that you have experienced this challenge before, do you mind sharing?”. 

• Be clear about the “rules” from the start: Take a few minutes at the beginning to lay down the rules of engagement. Laptops open/closed? How to handle questions? When will we finish/have a break? What do you expect from the attendees? It might seem to you that some of these things are common sense, but I promise you that is makes a massive difference to say for example: “I would appreciate if you would close your laptops and pay attention for the next 45 minutes. We will have a break at 10.00 - then you will get 15 minutes to answer your urgent emails.” 

• Make it easy for people to interact: Lightweight interactions can make all the difference to your training. It might sometimes be hard to get the trainees to engage by just saying “Can someone share an example?”, especially over VC, so try to find easier ways for people to interact: Online polls, activities, status updates, an online “raise hand” function etc. The tools at your disposal might be a limiting factor, but using Kahoot! (online quiz tool, to be found here), or the native polling/chat functionality in Zoom (learn more here) will make a massive difference. 

• Spend time on the structure: How to develop a training is a much larger topic, but some things are extra important when running online trainings as it is much easier for attendees to "drift off" in a remote environment. Limit the time/amount of information that you include and divide the information into sections to make it more easy to digest. Spend some time thinking about how the training can follow a logical “flow” and arrange the sections accordingly. Present the informations in different ways (text, images, videos, exercises) to accommodate for different learning styles and to keep energy levels high. The more time you have spent planning the structure of your online training, the more successful it will be.  

• Whats in it for them?: In my experience, the one things that trainees appreciate the most, and that makes information “stick” is if you are able to connect the learnings to stories that translate into real-life benefits. By showing the attendees how this new information can benefit them in their future day-to-day work, it will not only be more memorable, but also more useful. For example, when I did sales onboarding training at Facebook, I always tried to include stories of how I have used this information in my interaction with clients. Don’t be afraid to mention past failures, the fact that you are able to reflect on them just makes you seem more competent. 

• Take breaks: It might be tempting to skip breaks during online trainings, as people leaving their laptops at their own time is less interruptive for the group. My piece of advice: Don’t! Breaks are as useful during online trainings as they are in an office environment. Both our bodys and brains need regular breaks to be able to maintain focus. Also, during online meetings and trainings, it might be harder to “read the room” to judge when a break if needed, so it is actually even more important to schedule these at a regular interval. 

I hope this was helpful for those of you that run online meetings or trainings. Even though nothing beats face-to-face communication, I personally think online trainings and meetings can be both useful and fun when using the tools at hand in a creative way.