Introduction
Training has become an important part of human life. Many companies apply to training of their employees in order to increase their knowledge in the sphere, top promote their skills and to encourage them for personal development as the professionalism of the staff is a guarantee of a success of the company. Human resources are considered as one of the most important factor for the company successful development, therefore, much time and effort is devoted to the human resources in the company. However, online training has both advantages and disadvantages.
On the one hand, online training due to the development of the innovative technologies allows people to increase their knowledge, improve their skills without leaning their working place. Employees are able to complete online training whenever they want that increases their interest and the desire to complete the training effectively. Time of driving to the place where training is held is also saved. Online training helps employees to become familiar with the innovative technologies which may be applied into practice in the company.
However, there are a number of disadvantages which help many employees to refuse from this type of training. Online training cannot involve group practices which are usually inevitable parts of training in real life. Personal contact is really important, but people are unable to feel it while online training. Online training does not presuppose the monitoring of the progress on the regular basis which reduces the effectiveness of training and does not give the expected results. Therefore, there are two sides of online training, advantageous and disadvantageous which help the employers to make up a decision whether to refer to online or traditional training.
Advantages of Online Training
The main advantage of online training is that it helps train employees who are remote from the usual place of work. Such specifics of online training help all the employees to become trained, even though some of them may be on a business trip (Allison 2003). Many specific developments are based on this particular feature of the online training. Employers actively use it in order to make sure that all the employees managed to train their skills.
The importance of the on time delivery of the information and acquiring of the appropriate skills in the modern condition of constant competition is important. The innovative technologies do not stand on the same place and in case staff is unable to cope with some tasks which apply more innovative knowledge the company may lose its profit. Online training is effective when all the innovative technologies are involved. The use of chart rooms, speakers and web cameras may help the employees to appear in a web room and imagine that they are in one and the same place.
It is easy to communicate with other employees and a professor while teaching if training is scheduled and employees have a freedom in choosing the time when they want to train. All the employees may be involved into training at one and the same time without lengthy absence from work as different employees will complete the task at one and the same time and will stay at their working places (Huggett 2007).
Bonk (2002) tried to conduct personal research and consider the main reasons why employees want to take up online training. Easy access in learning âauditoryâ, growth in employee skills, âability to track learner progress through a learning management systemâ (Bonk 2002, p. 47), increased job performance, standardization, interactivity, learner satisfaction, online tech support, improved learning, and employee retention are considered as the most popular responses among employees.
However, there are the variants offered by the employees as additional factors which that believe add to the advantages of the online training, they are âcost savings, reduced travel time, greater flexibility in delivery, and the timeliness of trainingâ (Bonk 2002, p. 48). These factors are mentioned by many different scholars in their research that it becomes obvious that he results may be generalized and used as the proved facts. Media and other additional advantages of online learning are also effective as they help employees understand the training task better (if the procedure is presented in the video lesson). Moreover, help may be taken any time and the results of the training may be checked at the desire of a trainee (Shank 2011).
Teleconferences have already become the part of the business world (Moore & Kearsley 2011). The use of this technology while training may create the vision of the personal presence, even if it is not correct. However, in this case people will have to lose one of the advantages of online training which is the use of the sources any time when one desires. Each employer should understand what is going to be more effective for his/her employees and choose the theoretic ground which is more appropriate for them.
Therefore, having considered the advantages of the online training the specific procedure of such type of training should be discussed. The employer should consider whether the employees are familiar with the innovative technologies and consider the level of their awareness as this is the basis of the selection of the online training type. The instructions should be explained both in a traditional way and by means of online software. Each employee should be given a deadline and a freedom in completing the training task. The employees should keep in mind that they are going to be monitored on the constant basis. Apart from the mentioned advantages of the online training each person is offered a personal approach as in case of some problems with task completion or apprehension of the material each trainee is going to be presented with the instructions individually.
Disadvantages of Online Training
Some scholars point at the low effectiveness of the online training in case the algorithm of performing the task is too complicated (Moraesa & Machado 2004). Many employees do nota have enough time or do not want to spend time on reading too lengthy or complicated instructions, therefore, if they see that algorithm is too long, they just skip to performing the task being sure that they will be able to understand the task in the process of performing it. It reduces the effectiveness of training as employees do not focus on performing the task effectively, but they try to believe it to be completed at least correct. Video lessons may be effective, however, they should be properly composed, without lengthy and complicated instructions.
Shea-Schultz and Fogarty (2002) point to the problem of cultural differences. Speaking about a global company with multicultural environment, online training may cause a number of problems for some employees if they are not presented a specific training course and if the tasks they are to perform may contradict their cultural peculiarities. In this respect, the language problems may appear. If the online training is created for all the employees and no one follows the progress and success or failures of the staff, those who have English as a second language may suffer from failure to understand something and the inability to contact the instruction who cannot be available 24/7.
Palloff and Pratt (2011) consider a lot of advantages of online learning making it a perfect instructor, however, several serous disadvantages are still noticed. Online training instructor cannot be as flexible as the real group training classes, or traditional one. When a person refers to online training, he/she may have an opportunity to reread or watch the instructions one more time, but people are unable to get another version of the instructions.
When a group of people gathers in the room an instructor may explain the instructions by means of applying to different words and explanation, while online training usually offers only one specific variant. Therefore, if one fails to check understand the instruction on the web appropriately and the repetition of the instruction dos not help, the training effectiveness may be reduced. Palloff and Pratt (2011) also consider that online training does not presuppose discourse which may be an important part of understanding the most effective way for teaching new approaches or finding the most effective ways.
PĂ©rez Cereijo (2006) finds the same problem in asynchronous web-based courses. When employees are offered to save time and money on getting to the place of training and do it on the most appropriate time they want to, the trainer should remember that the progress of different employees will be absolutely different. The problems may appear during the work when some employees will already apply to the new strategies they have already managed to acquire from the online training on the individual basis and others will not understand what is going on. Such model for training is absolutely inappropriate when people have to work on one and the same project and they are presupposes to apply to the same strategies. The training experience should be balanced and completed simultaneously.
One more problem which exists in reality small companies is the lack of experience among the trainers and trainees (Wilson 2005). Innovative technologies may seem a real problem for those who have not worked in the sphere. There are a lot of different programs available on the Internet and which may be useful for those who can work with them. However, if a trained used to the traditional system of training and applies to the online training without special personal learning, the failure is obvious. The advantages of the online training in this case become its disadvantages. Online training presupposes the change of the human resource strategy, the intervention into organizational issues and the reconsideration of the social practices. Therefore, Wilson (2005) is sure that it is impossible to start online training successfully without additional preparations.
Thus, the disadvantages of the online training are numerous and they increase if the trainer does not have appropriate knowledge and skills in training staff by means of World Wide Web. The global tendencies in business may also become a barrier on the way to the effective online training. Taking in consideration that online training is not that effective as it should be, trainers should not refuse from the innovative technologies in traditional group training. Different media files and computer simulations as the part of training may diversify the training of the staff and increase their interest in training courses.
Conclusion
Therefore, it may be concluded, that online training has two sides, positive and negative. The possibility to apply to the advantages of online training and the avoidance of the disadvantages will help the company to complete the human resource development on the highest level. All the advantages of the online training are directed at the conditions of the modern world where people do not have much free time, when they have to adjust to the surrounding world and spend extra time effectively in different situations.
Even though that many scholars point to the absence of the personal interaction while online training, schedules classes and the use of speakers and web cameras may reduce this problem to minimum. Innovative technologies and human desire to apply it into the business and every day world as much as possible creates all the conditions for successful implementation of the Internet. Even though there are some specific difficulties, it is impossible to imagine even traditional group training without media or other means of innovative technologies. Therefore, most employers are interested in online training, but not all companies are ready to skip to the online training courses at once due to the absence of the technological support and enough knowledge.
Reference List
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