As the landscape of work continues to evolve with remote teams and digital transformation, the transition from traditional instructor-led training (ILT) to more dynamic virtual or eLearning formats has become a necessity. This shift isn’t just about moving content online; it’s about transforming how we teach, learn, and engage with material in a way that’s effective, accessible, and scalable.
There are really three types of transitions that are happening in our industry, ILT to VILT (Virtual Instructor Led Training), ILT to eLearning (self-paced online learning courses), and VILT to eLearning. We have received several requests in the past couple of weeks to do all three, so I thought what a perfect topic to discuss this week.
And if I can stress one thing that you need to remember as you read this blog:
Please don’t just do a straight conversion!
If you need help, contact us…we can help…please don’t do a straight conversion from one format to the other. It doesn’t result in effective learning. Now, I digress.
First and foremost, why would you want to convert from ILT?
Why VILT? Advantages of VILT
- Interactive Engagement: VILT allows real-time interaction between instructors and learners, which can lead to more dynamic discussions and immediate feedback, enhancing the learning experience.
- Flexibility in Scheduling: VILT sessions can be scheduled more flexibly compared to traditional ILT, accommodating global participants across different time zones without the need for physical presence.
- Reduced Costs: VILT eliminates many costs associated with traditional classroom training, such as travel, lodging, and venue expenses, making it a cost-effective training solution.
- Broader Reach: Instructors can engage with a larger number of participants spread across various locations, increasing the training’s reach without additional costs.
- Consistent Delivery: Every session can be delivered with the same level of quality and interaction, ensuring consistency across all training modules.
- Resource Efficiency: Resources like digital handouts, recordings of sessions, and other learning aids can be reused and easily distributed to learners, optimizing resource utilization.
- Enhanced Tracking and Reporting: With VILT, it’s easier to track attendance, participation, and engagement through digital tools, helping trainers to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the training.
Why eLearning? Advantages of eLearning
- Flexibility and Accessibility: eLearning modules are accessible 24/7 from anywhere, making it easier to fit training into busy schedules without geographical constraints.
- Personalization: Digital platforms allow for customized learning paths that cater to the pace and skill level of individual learners, enhancing both engagement and effectiveness.
- Enhanced Retention: Interactive and multimedia approaches can improve retention rates by up to 60%, a significant leap over traditional lecture-based formats.
- Cost Efficiency: Transitioning to eLearning can cut training costs significantly by reducing the need for travel, physical materials, and venue expenses.
- Consistency and Scalability: eLearning provides a standardized training experience across multiple locations, ensuring consistent learning outcomes and easy scalability.
Transforming Traditional Training into Engaging eLearning
- Evaluate Your Existing Resources:
- Start by reviewing your current training assets like PowerPoint slides, videos, and manuals.
- Determine which method, VILT or eLearning is going to best fit your needs, audience, resources, and content.
- Determine what can be adapted, what needs updating, and what should be discarded.
- For VILT, determine who will teach and technically produce the session. Do you have the skills internally, or do you need to hire someone to help (wink, wink…like us, ZPS)? What sort of preparation, skill building will they need?
- Select the Right Tools:
- If you choose to transition to a VILT, choose the right delivery tools. Choose how you will present content, PowerPoint or Canva. Select the platform from which you will teach (Adobe Connect, Zoom, Microsoft Teams). Choose the tools you will you use (that might be outside of our teaching platform) to create interaction. Some that we like are aha slides, Mural.co, Online Stopwatch, Wheel of Names, to name just a few.
- If you choose to move your content to self-paced eLearning, choose robust eLearning tools like Articulate Storyline, Articulate Rise, Camtasia, Vyond, or Adobe Captivate that enable you to transform static content into interactive learning experiences with quizzes, simulations, and scenarios.
- Incorporate Effective Design Strategies:
- For both deliveries, utilize instructional design principles and best practices to create engaging content. This includes storytelling, scenario-based learning, and gamification to connect with learners on a more interactive and emotional level.
- Be sure you redesign your content for the new delivery method, especially eLearning.
- Diversify Your Media:
- Enrich your courses with a mix of media—videos, podcasts, panels, infographics, and animations—to cater to different learning preferences and increase engagement.
- Pilot and Refine:
- Launch a pilot version of your course for a select group of learners. Use their feedback to make iterative improvements, ensuring the content is effective and meets learning objectives.
Case Study Highlight
One of the projects we do most often is help clients move from ILT or VILT to eLearning for their Onboarding programs. One client we worked with needed to take a full day VILT session that they did with new employees and convert it to an eLearning experience. In addition, they needed help identifying what teams were doing in addition and see if some of that content could be streamlined into the eLearning.
Some of Their Challenges:
- They presented A LOT of information in one day and then would send it to their teams. Teams were telling them that the new employees were not retaining much and so ended up doing a lot of their own repeated training.
- They consistently had new employees saying that they didn’t know who to reach out to when they had questions.
- Their words, onboarding was a “time suck.” With a two-person HR team, they just didn’t have the resources to onboard new employees around their other responsibilities.
- Lack of consistency was a major issue. The onboarding was not very structured, so employees not only got a different experience when they were with HR for their day training, but when they went to their teams, their experiences were SO VARIED, and some were not good.
- The content was also outdated and needed to be refreshed.
Our Solution was Two Phases:
Phase one: We conducted a Roadmap. The Roadmap Process is where we conduct an in-depth analysis of the client’s needs, identifying the key areas where training can make the most significant impact. We interview team members and leaders and use those insights to propose customized training strategies that address their specific issues and enhance their team’s capabilities. They receive a detailed plan that includes a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of their current training landscape, actionable recommendations for course design and development, and a clear cost estimate and project timeline. They liked our recommendations, and asked us to move forward with phase two.
Phase two: HR took a blended approach and met with employees for 1-2 hours to welcome them and get them acclimated to their new role, but with a much more connection-oriented purpose. Then, we worked with HR and the teams to create an onboarding eLearning experience in Rise that enabled them to onboard their new employees consistently and effectively, while lessening the burden on the teams.
It was a win-win for the organization, and the new employees.
Conclusion: Future-Proofing Your Training Approach
Moving from ILT or VILT to VILT or eLearning is not just a shift in format—it’s a strategic upgrade to how organizations deliver training. By embracing digital learning, you ensure that your training programs are not only more economical and efficient but also more aligned with the needs of today’s tech-savvy workforce. This transformation is essential for staying competitive and effective in the rapidly evolving professional landscape.
Need help? We love this type of work and are ready to help you and your organization.
P. S. We have written about this topic before, back in 2017, and while the statistics are probably out of date, the content is still solid, and you might find those helpful.
Part 1 of 2: Maximizing Your Training ROI Using eLearning
Part 2 of 2: 5 Considerations when Converting ILT to eLearning