5 tips for delivering training remotely

There is no doubt for any of us in the learning world that the way we deliver training has had to change. With remote working hurtling towards becoming the norm and a leaner, more agile (not just a buzzword!) workforce becoming our audience, we need to adapt our skills, style and methods to accommodate the "New World"

For the last 12 months or so, I've been delivering leadership courses across the globe in the virtual classroom and picked up a few things along the way as I shifted from game show style face to face delivery, to comfortably make the most of the challenges and opportunities of the virtual classroom. I'm going to share 5 top tips for virtual delivery and some of my experiences along the way!

I hope that by learning from a few of my faux pax and some informed opinion and theory you can reflect on how well you deliver virtual training in your organisation and at the end of the article I will ask you a few questions to see if you think I can help you and your teams.

So with no further dilly dally, let's dive in!

Learning remotely, through the medium of the virtual classroom will utilise all the skills of a good facilitator, from your delivery style, attention to the audience and knowledge of the content. I've identified these 5 adjustments/style tweaks and considerations:

1. Technology - How to use it to its most effective, using what you've got and making sure it works
2. Energy - Bringing your trademark charm and engagement and channelling it when your body language is reduced to the size of a postage stamp
3. Interactivity - How often should you get your delegates to engage, how can you do it and why it is important
4. Optimising your content for virtual classrooms - PowerPoint is great, but platforms, bandwidth and style of activity all can throw a spanner into the works
5. Using what is available to you - The internet is a wonderful place, what tools, delights and activities can you use to bring your learning experience to life.

So, you've gone and done it. You've agreed to deliver training remotely!

Your delegates are invited, your session plan is ready to go.

You go to start and your sound doesn't work, half your delegates cannot login and your slides are looking more abstract than you remember...

Technology is your biggest ally, most turbulent nemesis and your crutch. I have a love-hate relationship with tech. I love the gadgetry and the potential, but I've learned to be cynical in my planning for virtual classrooms.

Take my leadership programme with a group of leaders from Canada. International delivery from the comfort of my home office? Wow. Technology is amazing. However, just as when you set up your training room for delegates, the first impressions count. The way you layout your classroom online will be dependant on your available platforms and will set your session up for success.

I have used MS Teams, Skype, Zoom and more, but for the ability to get great results I recommend a dedicated platform. I've been using Adobe Connect, a little old school in its user interface but it has great functionality which I will talk about later.

When you are using a platform, here is a few tips I highly recommend:

1: Test it first

If possible, get a test in with your delegates ahead of the session, make sure they are comfortable with all the features and if that's not possible, invest a little time in good, clear and concise joining instructions. Nothing can suck the life out of the first 15 minutes of your session like connection issues.

We've all played "skype bingo" before with such hits as "you're still on mute", "can you see my screen", "sorry, you dropped out there" and of course "No Gary, we can't see you, you have to press the camera button... no that's mute, the camera icon on the right Gary, just click on it and.... I think Gary has hung up...." Investing a little time at the beginning or before your session pays dividends later on.

2: Get a decent microphone

Your voice is your biggest asset in the virtual classroom, the clarity of your speech, your timbre, the richness of your tone and volume of delivery. If you're delivering a training session that sounds like it is being delivered over "walkie talkie" then your delegates will likely go walkies and not do too much in the way of talkies. It disengages.

3. Bandwith

Now, everyone, their mothers and possibly even the family pet are on the internet right now. there are a lot of organisations using the platforms. One thing I have learned from delivering internationally and locally is to set expectations with technology, internet connections and have some fun with it. You need to consider bandwidth. There are many benefits to having 4K content and rich media and obvious benefits to using quality video for you and your delegates.

That being said, these are huge drains on the platforms. If you have everyone's video on and you are trying to show your 250GB slide deck consider this; have a plan. My go-to plan B has always been to reduce the quality of my video and only ask delegates to come on video in activities. The downside is engagement, as there is an observer effect when people know they can be seen. But it helps to have this in your back pocket.

Make sure your internet is strong, you might consider a hard-wired ethernet connection, you should stay away from the microwave and ensure your internet devices aren't connected (You won't need to be watching Netflix at the same time...though if like me you are similarly afflicted with children, download the Peppa Pig in advance.) This can ensure your connection is good, but it equally depends on your delegates' connection as well. You may wish to pass these tips onto them!

With technology tested and ready to go, you are probably getting ready to get people engaged and ready to go!

If you, like me, enjoy bringing the energy to a session from the moment people come online, then you will probably be okay and muddle through on pure enthusiasm. Being energetic and enthusiastic has helped me massively in getting people learning effectively in the virtual classroom.

Now, just to clarify energy, as trainers we are all different. Facilitators all have their own unique energy and style. I always compare it to 16 year old me taking a girl on a date to the bowling alley. I'd, of course, pick up the heaviest ball, swing hard and let the ball tumble down the alley with breathtaking speed and minimal accuracy. Conversely, my lucky date would often pick a more sensible ball, throw it far too slow as I shake my head dismissively and to my surprise it would knock down the same amount of pins... The point I am trying to make here is those different energies, styles and approaches can yield similar results. A stretch of a metaphor? Probably... But I made this bowling avatar of me and I wanted to use it.

Your energy and enthusiasm, however it manifests normally, will be challenged in the virtual space and can be impacted by several factors such as audio quality and your surroundings. So how you start a session will inform how it continues and by demonstrating warmth, enthusiasm and confidence you will help people feel ready to learn as well as set the expectation that they should try and communicate clearly.

Bring your session to life early in the session with a good icebreaker (which is linked to the content) and brings to life the functionality of the virtual classroom. One of my favourites is a simple activity where you bring up a picture of a map and get everyone to initial where they are and share facts about their home town. Super simple, rapport building and a good introduction to the tools they can use.

Your attention, like everyone else, can be drawn away by IM's pinging and email as well as perhaps that Amazon delivery. But try and be present, enthusiastic, engaging and bring your energy out through your tone of voice, gestures and facial expressions. The quality of your content is equal to that of your communication when delivering remotely, so strike the right balance of humour, credibility and warmth that learning professionals are famous for.

As I said before, technology is a nemesis. My first session with one client was wrought with sound issues, disconnections and challenges. It was tough, but I kept up the energy, humour and did not show the panic that was pulsing through me. It was this and a little patience which carried the session. For this reason alone, you want your style to come through regardless of challenges and make sure your delegates buy into you, the session and the virtual classroom experience.

Of course, it is substance over style, absolutely, but the style helps!

One of the CRITICAL components of great virtual learning experiences is interactivity.

You are competing for attention. IM's, emails, news notifications, Tinder matches, Pikachu sightings. Technology is a marvel, but people have never been more distracted than they are now. These distractions are complemented by our natural human instinct to zone out occasionally putting pressure on you as a facilitator to keep engagement.

I've delivered webinars in the past where I have known people have not been paying attention, whether by their silence or repeating of questions it can be disheartening just like in a classroom environment. If you do virtual classrooms well, you can avoid this, maintain the energy and get people to remark that "the time flew by".

When looking to design and implement a virtual classroom experience over a webinar, the key difference is interactivity.

Whether it is a "big" contribution or just mini interactions like sharing an emoji or chat message, a good facilitator will get some form of engagement every 5 minutes.

There are many ways you can get people to interact depending on the technology you use!

It can sound daunting, but something I quickly realised is that when you are working with people face to face you do this naturally through questions, body language and your trusty flip chart!

I wanted to share with you a few different ways you can interact in your next session, meeting or module:

1. Hand raising when you have a question
2. Poll questions & voting
3. Annotation and screen drawing
4. Contributions through the chat
5. Getting them speaking
6. Using Emoticons / Emoji

By using all of these and designing them into your session, you can get loads of interactivity. One thing I have found myself using more and more, regardless of the platform I use is making the most of chat. Getting people to share their thoughts and ideas in the chat allows you as the facilitator to sense who is engaging and also invite people onto the mic to share a bit more detail. It is quick and easy and helps you explore points maybe even more deeply than through voice alone.

Now, many of you may just be using MS Teams or similar, but you can use all of these features on there. It isn't as smooth, but a quick google will show you how to add polls and whiteboards.

One feature pretty exclusive to the "virtual classroom" platforms such as Cisco's WebEx or Adobe Connect is the "breakout" feature. This allows you to set, complete and monitor group work. From experience, this is one of the most powerful elements of your session and gives delegates a welcome break to collaborate free from your voice.

Explore what features you have available, from emojis to screen drawing and get creative. My golden rule though, and do try to keep it, is the 5-minute rule. It helps you monitor engagement, keeps people in "the room" and makes sessions more powerful in their aim to help people learn.

This section naturally leads on from the last.

I remember my first session, beautifully designed, quirky fonts and my trademark deployment of quirky illustrations. It came out garbled. It looked less of a learning and development Monet and distinctly more Salvador Dali.

It is so important that you design your sessions based on the platforms you use and adapt them to be interactive in terms of the virtual classroom.

Virtual Classroom platforms have a lot going on.

Let's just take this little shot, you've got my face, a poll question, content, chatbox, multiple documents, all your controls.

It can get messy quite quickly! Lots of things to draw the eye. So with that in mind, when we are optimising our design, try and keep it simple. Keep words on the screen to a minimum depending on what you are delivering. You want to make sure the focus is learning, communication and collaboration and lots of data on the screen is problematic.

This is universal truth on any platform, but you want to make sure everything works and is accessible. Learning is often found in the conversation and the chat so prioritise your design for that.

I found out the hard way that spending an age perfecting the perfect PowerPoint transition does nothing for your session and only causes problems. Keep it clean, fresh and simple to help people access the content and use interactivity to keep people engaged.

You are training in the biggest classroom in the world, with the whole sum of human knowledge at the fingertips of your delegates.

If you use it well, the internet is an amazing resource that you can use without getting too distracted.

Use it to your advantage by getting delegates to research, share knowledge, build resources together and explore the topic online. You can do this by sharing links, sharing screens and setting tasks.

YouTube, LinkedIn and HBR will no doubt have some content for people to explore as well as allowing your delegates to discover on their own.

Whether it is using the internet for research of a topic or as part of an Ice Breaker, don't feel you have to keep people locked to your platform and session if you can. Just set expectations, rules and timings and let them soar through the web like an eagle chasing a mouse made of wisdom.

The Virtual Classroom is going to become the playground for many of us and I know you will have a lot of fun exploring how you can use it and use it well.

The topic is vast and the learning curve is steep. Learners still need support, business challenges still need to be faced and people still require investing in. Whether it is frontline skills, leadership or learning technologies, there is a period of growth, change and excitement ahead for our industry.

If I can help at all, or think Ember Group can, we are ready to deliver a range of virtual classroom sessions from a TTT on how to do it yourself, to leadership, customer service, sales and coaching. All delivered virtually.

If we can help, or if you have some thoughts on the article, I'd love you to drop a like or a comment below. What do you agree with, what have I missed, Where are you on your virtual learning journey?

Ember Group is an international boutique learning, analytics and services consultancy operating across the UK & Canada.

We can help you with all things learning through design, delivery and analysis.

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