It’s okay to admit that you get nervous training employees sometimes, especially if you’re training a room full of employees from the C-suite or dozens of clueless yet bright-eyed new hires. Or maybe you simply don’t provide live training sessions that often or feel you have room for improvement and could use a littler refresher or updates on how to deliver a live training session.
Whether you’re administering a training session online or in person, there are eight basic best practices (that, thankfully, apply to both methods) you’ll want to consider when going live. Below are three of them, and tomorrow’s post will contain five more.
1. Send Reminder E-Mails, and Get a Real Head Count
Before hosting a live training session, you’ll want to send at least two reminder e-mails well in advance of the live training session to ensure you get a high attendance rate. Collecting responses to RSVPs will also ensure you’re able to gather the right number of physical materials for your in-person training sessions and that you’ve booked the best room or space for the training sessions. And it will allow you to ensure you have the proper bandwidth and technology for online live training sessions.
2. Be Prepared, and Know Your Training Material
It’s always a good idea to rehearse the material you’ll be covering in your live training session ahead of time, as it will help you stay focused and allow for you to work out any kinks. Create and review talking points and notes, but try not to rely on a text-dense slide deck (in case it’s not accessible during the training session due to technology failures or related issues).
And don’t try to memorize an entire written speech, as it will make you come across as mechanical and inexperienced. If it helps, ask someone you trust if you can rehearse in front of him or her so that he or she can provide you with constructive criticism and feedback well before you go live. Or you can even practice your material in front of a mirror.
3. Know How to Use Your Equipment and Apps
Whether you’re hosting a live training session in person or online, chances are you’ll still be using some type of technology. For in-person training sessions, you’ll probably be using a projector, or at least a microphone. And for online training sessions, you’ll probably be using some sort of meeting or communications app.
Whatever technology it is, make sure you know how to use it before your training session goes live. Don’t inconvenience your audience of learners because you didn’t tinker with and figure out how to use such technology ahead of time.