Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, many instructional courses moved online, including courses about workplace safety training.

Now that things have changed so people can meet in person again, you may be wondering whether in-person training is superior to online training.

Generally, in-person safety training will help the attendees learn better, but there are advantages and disadvantages to both. Read on to learn more:

• Online Safety Training
  • Advantages
  • Disadvantages
  • Summary
• In-Person Safety Training
  • Advantages
  • Disadvantages
  • Summary
• Which is Better?

If your business is in Ontario, Acute Safety offers dozens of different safety courses, both online and in-person. Check out our online course schedule or contact us today, and take advantage of our state-of-the-art training space to equip your workers with the safety knowledge they need.

Online Safety Training

One of the changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic was that a lot of educational content moved online. For instance, many universities, music classes, therapy sessions, and safety training classes moved online.

This change to an online focus actually resulted in many improvements to video-conferencing software, but is it still worth meeting online, now that it’s not the only option? Read on to decide for yourself.

Advantages of Online Safety Training

Convenient

One major benefit of online safety training is its convenience. Almost any computer, laptop, or phone will allow you to connect to the video portion of a course, and then afterwards look up any online supplementary documents. This means you can join the class while at work, at home, or even somewhere in between, like a café.

Affordable

Because online courses don’t involve as much overhead to set up, insure, and run, they’re often cheaper than live courses. Of course, this is not the case in all cases, but at the very least you won’t need to purchase gas to drive to the location of the class.

Easy to Follow

Because of the limitations inherent to online safety training, online classes are often streamlined and focused. The classes can’t get sidetracked by discussion or disruptions like live classes can. This makes them easier to follow, provided you’re paying attention.

Disadvantages of Online Safety Training

Less Engaging

It’s no secret that people have a harder time focusing and caring about online classes. It’s impacted everyone from public school kids to working adults. The extra layer of removal imposed by the online format makes it much easier to tune out of the teaching, making it easier to miss portions of instruction. But for safety training, zoning out can result in you missing essential teaching that could help to keep you safe.

More Technical

Even though digital education software and video conferencing apps have improved rapidly in recent years, they still require a baseline level of technological proficiency to operate. Online safety training is not well suited to an audience of people who are uninterested or ill-equipped to handle a certain level of technological involvement.

Clumsy Interaction

It’s much harder to interact with your peers or the trainer when you’re doing an online class. At best you have to communicate that you have a comment or question and wait for the teacher to even notice you, but most people don’t even bother. If your teacher is capable and interesting this is less of an issue, but otherwise, it can be difficult to get clarification when needed.

Less Social

One of the things that makes training bearable is the social experience. Being able to learn with peers, coworkers, or friends can make you feel like you’re all working towards the same goal together but online training lacks all of that. If you’re an especially extroverted person, you may find online safety training to be extraordinarily uninteresting, or even isolating.

Summary

The primary advantage of online safety training is its convenience. It’s best used for situations where meeting in person would be impractical.

Additionally, because online courses are harder to learn from than live ones, online content is best saved for small updates that are easy to read and remember.

In-Person Safety Training

In-person safety training courses are how workplace training is normally conducted.

Read on for some of the most important advantages and disadvantages of meeting for safety training in-person.

Advantages of In-Person Safety Training

Easier to Learn

Compared to online classes, studies have shown that live, in-person classes are significantly more effective at getting the audience to remember important knowledge. Live classes make it easier to ask questions or interact with the teacher. Even being able to observe the training in a 3-dimensional space enhances your ability to understand and retain information.

Hands-On

When you meet for a live class, especially a class about safety training, you’ll have the opportunity to physically interact with the training material. This makes everything more engaging and more fun which aids retention.

A Social Experience

In-person learning is far better for extroverted people who are energized by social situations. Simply learning with your peers can make the entire experience more engaging and worthwhile.

Disadvantages of In-Person Safety Training

Investment

In-person training demands more time and money to be involved in. In-person courses can be more expensive, they’ll require transit costs, and they take much more time than an online course. Many safety training classes can take between half a work day to the entire day, which combined with transit time require a fair amount of commitment.

Location

When meeting for safety training in person, the physical location of the training matters much more. Ideally, you want the training facility to be equidistant from all workers going in to be trained, but this is rarely the case. Some people may have to drive a long while to get to the training location, which can be inconvenient.

Summary

In-person training is the superior way to get safety training. It’s more engaging, more social, and conveys information better.

Of course, in-person training has some inconveniences, like how people will have to actually drive to the location, but if you properly plan around these logistical issues, you’ll find the training to be much more effective than online.

Which is Better?

Overall, online training is better either for smaller groups, smaller announcements, or as a last resort when an in-person gathering is too difficult.

In-person training, on the other hand, is more interesting, easier to learn from, and easier to engage with. We recommend signing up yourself and your workers for in-person training when possible.