Training your Team in time of Pandemic

Tool: Story Telling

Challenge and Selection

This pandemic is challenging for all of us, but especially for business whose main focus is to educate and  train both internal and external customers. It might be tempting to cut corners at a time like this to save  your business money. But one area where you should not skimp is on employee training. Over the years  conducting training to employees, partners, customers have been a way of life to me, however since this  pandemic started the routine for trainings have turned upside down for the reasons that first, training  use to be a face to face interaction. Second, training involves hands on experiences with the product.  Lastly, our culture is not yet familiar with other tools for training. But then again as a leader I must adopt  to the changing world but not sacrificing the learning opportunities for my team. And without a second  thought I decided to proceed with our regular training on a different perspective.

Application

At first, I understand that conducting online training is much more expensive than the regular one, each members  of your team must have strong internet connection which a bit challenging especially for people who belong to  developing countries like ours, strong internet connection means you should be connected to a WiFi or LTE type  data plan that is more expensive since you are paying for every data usage, another point to consider is those team  member who are in a remote location with poor internet signal. But above all this what I want to clearly stress that  while keeping costs in line is extremely important, there is one critical area where we should not stop and that is in  our employee training. During this especially stressful time when there are political issues, safety issues and people  are experiencing COVID fatigue, there is a reasonable chance that our team and even I myself may encounter a  workplace situation that calls for knowing how to properly handle and diffuse the situation.

Insight & Approach

So! The big wow is? How did we start? How did I come up with a strategic training plan. This  pandemic has sharpened the need for a well-defined, strategic employee training plan” and so planning begins first on  the list is I have to establish our goals and objectives. What we want to achieve at the end of this training program, how  will it contribute for our growth as a team and How will it help us to do better once we resume our normal work  schedule.  Second is thinking on the effective online platform t use. We tried using Google Meet, Messenger Teams,  Microsoft Team and Zoom which we find the easy to use platform so once we finalized the zoom is the most effective  tool for us. 40 minutes of free subscription wouldn’t be enough and so we upgraded our plan for us to maximize and  make sure that every training topic will be finished without interruption. Next is creation of our training plan. One key to  effective training is correct training plan, a systematic process that applies research- based principles to  educational practice. If the training plan is effective, instruction will also be effective. And then goes the execution.

Considering that this is a new platform for us I took the liberty to look and find ways in conducting online training  effectively while reading articles, watching webinars, I bumped into this article posted by Bates (in Foley, 2003)  proposed twelve golden rules for the use of technology in education. These rules offer guidance in the broader  areas of designing and developing distance education:

1. Good teaching matters. Quality design of learning activities is important for all delivery methods.

2. Each medium has its own aesthetic. Therefore professional design is important.

3. Education technologies are flexible. They have their own unique characteristics, but successful teaching can

be achieved with any technology.

4. There is no “super-technology.” Each has its strengths and weaknesses; therefore they need to be

combined (an integrated mix).

5. Make multiple media available to teachers and learners. Print, audio, video, and computers should all be

available.

6. Balance variety with economy. Using many technologies makes design more complex and expensive; there-

fore, limit the range of technologies in a given circumstance.

7. Interaction is essential.

8. Student numbers are critical. The choice of a medium will depend greatly on the number of learners

reached over the life of a course.

9. New technologies are not necessarily better than old ones.

10. Teachers need training to use technology effectively.

11. Teamwork is essential. No one person has all the skills to develop and deliver a distance learning course;

therefore, subject-matter experts, instructional designers, and media specialists are essential on every  team.

And then the last part is the Execution, with all the information and studies we gathered, we are now more  confident that we as a team can make it as the saying goes: “Teamwork makes the Dream Works”.

