Training is one of the best investments you can make for your business. Organizations that invest on training have lower employee turnover, which in turn leads to higher productivity and profitability.  The question is, what training methods should you invest in?  Here are some ideas:

Live training

Live or classroom-style training can be used for product and skills training where students would need hands-on practice.  It also works best for motivational trainings, since students can participate in recitations,group work, and other real-time activities. One of its biggest advantages is that more students can benefit from the discussion as opposed to one-on-one methods.  An instructor can also readily respond to questions that need complex answers.

To determine the ideal class size, consider classroom equipment, safety concerns, and training complexity. Some studies indicate that a small classroom size would be better for trainings that require higher cognitive thinking.

Recorded lecture

This can be a recorded webinar, podcast, or lecture. E-learning has two big advantages. Training time can be drastically cut down from one day full training to just 40 minutes, since a lot of distractions and added commentary that come up in classroom-style training are eliminated.  It also gives greater flexibility for students, since they can review content, break up long lectures into more manageable chunks, and take breaks without missing any part of the training.Although interaction is very limited, instructors can still give assignments after a session. For a recorded training to be effective, make sure your content is engaging, concise, and relevant. When done right, recorded lectures will save you a lot of time, money, and effort.

Live webinar

A live webinar is a webcast of a training done in real-time. This is especially advantageous if you want to gain the expertise of a speaker from another region. Participants may still interact with the lecturer through voice or text chat.  A lot of subject matter experts now offer recorded or live webinars for netizens, so be on the lookout for these free trainings.

One-on-one coaching

One-on-one coaching pairs up a team member with a compatible and usually more senior coach.  This gives employees the opportunity to share their ideas and plans in a private setting.  The coaches’ role is to listen to and draw out key issues from the person he is coaching. Coaches build a culture of accountability between him and his junior. The frequency and duration are left to the discretion of the coach. While one-on-one sessions can be time-consuming for leaders, they also result to highly motivated employees who feel recognized for their contributions.

Tasking

One of the best ways to learn is to actually do.   Start by giving team members small tasks. As they gain skills and confidence, let them handle bigger responsibilities. Later on, you can actually get out of the way and let them strategize and decide on their own.  This is one of the best ways to build up your organization’s next generation leaders.

Combine different training and coaching methods and see which best works for teams and individuals.