Putting “live” back into video training

[Eric Wong (Eric_Wong)]

Note: 

Eric Wong left Polycom as of March 2015. This blog post is his personal view and reflective of his thoughts while at Polycom.

During a recent conference, sitting amongst 150+ senior HR practitioners from APAC, the topic of using technology to enable HR processes came up. It was fascinating to hear the two distinctive camps and their divided views on the subject of “video training”.

What was common in the whole exchange was the general definition of video training. Almost everyone in the room defined it as a “pre-recorded” video, uploaded onto the intranet or learning management system (LMS), for employees to access and self-serve. There were the advocates who felt that this is the way to capture and document institutional knowledge for future reference, and there was another group of participants who felt that the method has its limitations in keeping the audience engaged throughout the presentation, thus will not be the most effective delivery.

Being my usual passionate self and rather surprised that most in the room felt that recording is the way video training is done, my hand shot up at this moment to offer a different perspective.

A lot of the HR practitioners were not entirely familiar with how technology has advanced over the past few years. Thus they felt that in order to get the best video quality, a clip will have to be pre-recorded and posted online. However, what is often overlooked is the ability to leverage today’s video collaboration technology with “live” trainers and deliver real time, interactive programs across a wide geographic region. The availability of high definition (HD) video technology and cost effective bandwidth allows us to create real presence and connection between the trainer and participants.

Live video training gives us new exciting possibilities with numerous benefits. For one, we can get a much higher level of engagement with the participants. We can now also achieve a better economy of scale; defying distance and simultaneously bridging multiple locations, in order to bring participants together whether they are based across a country, a region, or the globe. From a quality perspective, we can also ensure a single standard, where content is being delivered in consistent manner. This is extremely useful, especially for industries that need to enforce a strict standard of consistency, and conformance to a set of guidelines.

At the conference, I gave an example of how an equipment training session was conducted over telepresence. The trainer made use of high definition cameras to zoom in on specific parts of the equipment to illustrate “live” how that piece of hardware is dismantled and serviced. I did get a few nods of acknowledge from counterparts from the aviation, airline and luxury retail industry.

The technology we have access to today has come far and the way we design and deliver training has evolved. It is time for HR departments to reap the benefits. .

You can reach me at eric.wong@polycom.com if you have any comments or thoughts on enabling the HR of the future with technology.

To find out more about how HR teams can benefit from video and help their organisation to defy distance, take a look at this page.

Eric Wong