Even an eLearning training course needs instructors to guide trainees for different reasons. I don’t believe that eLearning means to automate everything or to convert all your training into asynchronous courses. I know many companies are trying to save money in their training budget, but this does not mean you should eliminate all trainers to save money. Many times, the expertise lost can be more expensive than the salaries and compensation of these trainers. You can leverage technology to facilitate the training conducted by these trainers and save on things like venue, materials, trips, meals, and so on, but you want to keep them around.
For this reason, I decided to create this post on five reasons to keep your trainers as part of your training programs. I believe these reasons are very powerful and you should think about them before slashing that budget. First off, consider the topic they are expected to deliver. Is it easy to replace an instructor with a book or an off-site solution? How much of a loss does this mean to the organization? Unless you have a sophisticated learning management system (LMS) that can deliver meaningful reports on learner performance, you still need instructors to produce such reports, along an analysis on the performance of each learner. On this same note, bots have started entering the picture in eLearning but at some point, a learner may need to interact with a human instructor, who can provide feedback that can help the learner move along in the course. No intelligent system in the word can now give you a complete profile of your learners or trainees that will point out to their weaknesses and strengths and what to do to reduce the latter and reinforce the former. Finally, who will update the subject matter? An intelligent system will not do this, even at this stage of artificial intelligence advancement. Updating tests, practical cases, and so on should fall on an expert, such as the course instructor or trainer.
Because they teach a specialized subject
Of course, nobody is indispensable, but you will lose a lot when a trainer leaves your organization. All that experience is lost so the best you can do is to document everything they do for the program, this way a replacement will start with a great advantage and will get up to speed quicker. We should not treat subject matter experts (SME) as disposable, they are professionals committed to their area and they should feel appreciated. You need to invest in their own improvement by paying for training to update their skills, and even to acquire new ones. Having the necessary experience to conduct training brings respectability to the program. Trainees will appreciate feedback that comes from a true expert.
Because they can produce reports on course accomplishments
When you set out to roll out a training program, you already made a plan that details what you hope to accomplish. But you will not be there in the trenches recording that data, you are too busy running a program! The instructor is the best member of your team qualified to produce these reports needed for future evaluations of the program. You will have trainer buy-in because they were involved in the design process of the courses and the program, so they know the critical steps and areas where they need to collect the data. I would suggest you involve them during the evaluation process, this will bring them into a stronger commitment to the program. During the execution of the program they will be more committed to the success of it, their performance will reflect this effort because they know they are evaluated as well from these results.
Because they can provide effective feedback
I take training courses many times and I sincerely don’t take seriously any feedback provided by automated systems. I honestly believe an expert in the subject matter, with practical experience, is the only one qualified to provide valuable feedback on my performance. That, I take seriously, and I believe I am not alone. Also, a trainer can show you how to perform a task correctly, and you will see where you failed the first time. Those moments when the instructor makes a demonstration (the pandemic showed us that trainers can demonstrate tasks or operations virtually) is when learners are the most focused on, taking notes and making mental adjustments to their own future performance.
Because they can assess learners’ weaknesses and strengths
A LMS by itself, or a trainee record will not tell you outright the strengths and weaknesses for a particular learner. If you interview them, they might give you some information (many tend to exaggerate their strengths or to minimize the weaknesses). A trainer has a vantage point in the sense that they keep in constant touch with learners, they can test their knowledge in a format where they can assess accurately the holes in the trainee’s learning (not only multiple-choice quizzes). They can keep records for each learner with detailed notes on their performances that shows where they need to work so they plug those knowledge gaps.
Because they are the most qualified to improve the curriculum
If you have an asynchronous course with no trainer to lead the training, how would you go about improving the course? I guess you could take surveys, look at scores, learner activity in the LMS, focus groups, and so on. All of this can be avoided by having a trainer that can send you a report with proposals on how to improve the training program. They can suggest new ways to evaluate trainees, update the content with technology that can add some experience in the course (using virtual reality, for example). What about creating a corporate university or formal training program? They can help you build those learning paths that can effectively lead learners to new levels of expertise in the organization.
Conclusions
It is important in an eLearning training course that you keep trainers and instructors close to those they train (even if this means they communicate virtually.) It will benefit your program that they have this accumulated experience, they are experts on the subject matter and know what parts are the most important to learn. They can improve the content and the course as a whole; they know what worked and what didn’t. They are the most qualified to provide feedback to learners, even if you have bots to help learners during the course, their feedback would be more valuable to them, coming from an actual expert. They can tell you which learner needs help and how to help them. All the data required to make decisions regarding the course will be gathered by them, at least they will provide some important part of it. You need someone who can tell you what parts of the course need improvement, what parts need elimination, that is priceless information. I hope I have convinced you about the importance of instructors in eLearning training courses, not only to monitor trainees but to lead the training in an effective way that supports learning.
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