Training followed by coaching is FAR better than just the training. (And also, training AND coaching is far better than just coaching). You need BOTH. And yet most organisations don’t follow training with coaching, probably due to costs, or maybe they’ve just never really thought about it.
So the ideal process is
- Training: show people a load of great new stuff
- Coaching: help to choose the bits that will help them, get them to be specific about how to apply it, and then, later, hold them to account: did they apply it, how did it go, do they need any help?
You could broaden this out, to be:
- Diagnostic: what do people need? (remember they may not know what they don’t know)
- Training
- Coaching
- Action.
And there is feedback, so the action is followed by coaching to check it was done and to help with any difficulties. And the coaching could result in identifying needs for more training.
Final thought – can we use A.I. for the above, or at least find cheaper ways then getting someone in to do it?
Yes!
Diagnostics can be done by computers, and A.I.
Training can be done by Zoom, saving travel costs and giving you access to trainers from all over the world, and allowing it to be done in bitesize pieces of maybe an hour at a time, which might be a better way to learn than doing a whole day at a time because the trainer has travelled to see you.
Training can be done by pre-recorded Video courses, which are much cheaper than getting the trainer in, and they can be done at any convenient time (evenings, gaps in work, pausing or repeating videos etc), in any convenient place (at home, remote workers, etc) – as long as it’s followed up by coaching then video training can be great. If it’s not followed by coaching then people can skim through it, not really engaging with it, or not understand it and they can’t ask questions – but coaching solves this.
Coaching is less easy to automate – A.I. can almost do it, certainly in terms of answering questions, but the learner can switch the AI off, so they aren’t going to be held to account in such a strong way as when they have a real coach coming to see them to check on progress.
Coaching can be done by Zoom, which makes it much cheaper as the coach doesn’t have to spend time travelling, and it can be done in groups of 2 or 3 or 4 to save money, and the groups can learn from each other as well as the coach.
So the cheapest combination would be
1 – Automated diagnostic system
2 – Video training, maybe supported by some zoom sessions
3 – Zoom coaching
4 – Action, and then back to 3, and sometimes back to 2.
