So, you’ve identified the area of expertise that you need to brush up in, you’ve found the course you want to do with IMNZ, and you’re faced with the decision of doing it either online or in person. But what’s the difference between these formats (apart from the obvious) and which one should you choose?
Online learning with IMNZ is a little different to what you might expect
IMNZ introduced a range of online learning options for our most popular courses in 2020. This was done to provide people with more flexibility around selecting the training format that best suits them. It also means that professional development doesn’t need to grind to a halt every time the country enters a lock down. Don’t let COVID hold you back – You can still chip away at achieving your professional goals regardless of what life throws at you.
We did a lot of research into what learning styles worked best for online training and issues that people were apprehensive about. As a result, for our leadership-based courses like Team Leader Essentials, Elevate, Project Management Fundamentals and Think On Your Feet (which have a focus on building people skills), we designed courses that are webinar based, giving people the ability to interact with the facilitator and other participants in live time.
These courses all have:
- live sessions, that are highly interactive and help people keep their training on track;
- online activities designed to help cement what people learn during the webinars; and
- weekly bite sized sessions, that are run over a longer period of time, so that people can implement what they’re learning in the real world and then use those learnings or ask for advice in their next training session.
For courses that are more technically focused, like Finance for Non-Financial Managers, we found people preferred to stick with self-paced learning, that again used bite sized sessions run over a longer period of time. So, we built our online training to suit these needs.
How classroom-based learning works
This one is pretty straight forward. These classes are run on regular basis at physical locations throughout the country. Our classroom-based learning covers the same topics like Team Leader Essentials, Elevate, Project Management Fundamentals, Think On Your Feet and Finance for Non-Financial Managers. We also offer bespoke training solutions that can be delivered at your own offices for your whole team.
Finding the best fit for you
Everyone learns in different ways and has different challenges that they face in their working environment that either helps or hinders their training. As a result, we recommend people consider all of the points listed below when making their decisions around which is the best training format for them.
- Think about your learning style, are you a tactile learner who learns better by physically writing things down and interacting with people, or are you a more visual or auditory based learner? If you’re a tactile learner, then we highly recommend doing classroom-based learning as it will help you retain more of what you’ve learned in the long run. If you’re a visual or auditory learner then classroom and online learning options will work equally well for you.
- Do you prefer to learn in small bite sized chunks, so that you can then implement what you’ve learned in your working life, before going back and learning something new? If that’s the case, then our online courses are ideal for you. Alternatively, if you prefer to immerse yourself in a full day of training on a single subject, then our classroom learning has been designed with you in mind.
- Are you someone who struggles to find the quiet time to focus on your self-improvement and upskilling when you’re in the office? Or are you in a position at work that means you’re constantly interrupted throughout the day by people needing sign off, advice or information from you? If so classroom-based learning and removing yourself from your fast paced work environment is probably a better fit for you. Going off site into a classroom situation helps to remove any forms of distraction and interruption, and as a result allows you to focus solely on the task of learning new skills.
- Do you find that regularly taking small amounts of time out of your busy schedule to focus on yourself and your learning needs helps you stay more centred and up to speed with industry best practice? Is physically getting away from the office to attend training not possible given the role you have or cost prohibitive due where you’re based? If you answered yes to either question, then online learning is the better option for you.
Some final tips
When you’ve found a course you like, we recommend downloading the brochure for it. This way you’ll get more detailed information on the course and the different training formats, their pricing and their timing. If after that you’re still a little unsure about which course you want to do, or which training format is best for you, then get in touch with our friendly team via the website or give us a call on 0508 22 55 46.
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