Online training hell

[RoadKingLarry]

Annual asbestos training. It's the exact same training I've done every year for the last 15 years.   We used to be able to skip to the test. 3-4 years ago "they" decided that actually knowing the material wasn't enough, the training "experience" was vital.
 

Next I get to experience "Corporate physical security theater"



*expletive deleted*ck me.

[HankB]

Sounds like a good task for an intern/co-op student.

"Okay, boss, I clicked through the material, you can take the test now."   

[Hawkmoon]

On-line training. There should be a special corner of Hell reserved for whoever came up with on-line training.

Several years ago my wife and I adopted (for reasons not pertinent to this discussion) her granddaughter. As part of the adoption process, we had to take ten hours of on-line training for potential adoptive parents -- with a test at the end of each module. Many of the modules dealt with issues such as adopting a child of a different color, different ethnicity, or different religion. Basically, since my wife had raised the kid for about 9 of her 12 years, none of that applied, so I skipped to the test and answered everything as "N/A" -- which was the correct and only honest answer.

The test results were rejected. We were informed, not very politely, that "N/A" was not an acceptable answer. After a lengthy exchange of e-mails with the testing company, they acknowledged that the classes and tests did not apply to us ... but we still had to go through the motions because "the law requires it." So they reset us to get a new access to the classes. They monitored our time, it turned out, so I called up each lesson, left it open in a window while I played Solitaire or cruised a few forums online, then I went back and answered the questions.

I have a professional license that requires a minimum number of hours of in-service training each year to keep active. I've been attending live classes. Periodically, I get a follow-up e-mail survey from the licensing agency asking a lot of inane questions that have no real answer, and ending with "Which topics do you feel would be better suited to an on-line format?" My answer is always, "None. On-line instruction is a misnomer and an anathema." I'm sure they love seeing my surveys come in.

[Boomhauer]

On-line training. There should be a special corner of Hell reserved for whoever came up with on-line training.

I would be happy to send them there

[MillCreek]

We are doing online training/refreshers in a big way in healthcare these days. I have to say that I prefer it to sitting in a room listening to a lecture.  I can get through the online much faster and at my convenience, as opposed to carving out time in my schedule for a meeting.

[wmenorr67]

Not specifically online but reminds me when I came back from Iraq in 2007 and was home for only a couple of weeks just to go to Ft Bliss to "train" up to go back over.

Was in one class and it was the exact same material that I was shown 14-16 months prior.  When they didn't bring up anything new that was going on and asked if anyone had any questions I raised my hand.  I asked my question and their first question was how I knew about that particular subject matter.  They *expletive deleted*it a brick when I said I had just been in country two-three weeks prior.  Their answer was that they hadn't been authorized to instruct on it at that time.  I went off stating that they knew of a threat that was killing our service members but couldn't instruct on it because it hadn't been "authorized."  Needless to say there was a lot of extra "unauthorized" training conducted.

[vaskidmark]

We are doing online training/refreshers in a big way in healthcare these days. I have to say that I prefer it to sitting in a room listening to a lecture.  I can get through the online much faster and at my convenience, as opposed to carving out time in my schedule for a meeting.

As Hawkmoon noted, some of those "things" have timers built into them.  They either time from when you open the module to when you open the test portion or time how long each page is open.

Once I asked about that, commenting that it discriminated against speed readers and folks who already knew the stuff.  My question and comment didn't go far, but I did.  Straight to IT to explain how it was possible to already know the material they had just spent gleaning from literature starting 5 years old and going backwards.

I showed them my name in about 30% of the literature.     

IMHO good training takes a plausable scenario, some ground rules, and throws the class into the deep end to come up with a) a solution, and b) the most elegant solution* they can in the time allotted.  Science.  Technology.  Engineering.  Mathematics.  The "soft" sciences like medicine, psychology, HR.  The "applied" sciences like pushing a broom or repairing either something as simple as a 5Megawat transmission system or as complex as the O2 sensor in my POS car.

stay safe.

* - http://www.techopedia.com/definition/14357/elegant-solution

 - http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/elegant-solution  (I disagree with this as sometimes employing duct tape yields a more elegant result as regards time and cost while still meeting durability requirements.)

[Scout26]

Every other year I have to take Election Judge Refresher training.


Online.


All videos.


That you can neither skip nor fast forward.   You just have to sit there and endure or walk away, do something else until it reaches the end and you can take the test.

It's painful.  However, we get paid for each hour of "Training" even though I spend a good 75% of that time cleaning the kitchen, taking a crap, or goofing off here.  And the thing is I score 95-100% on each module and have been told by one of the Election Commission members, that my scores are why I get moved to different precincts so much.  I "fix" problem children from the last election, by running efficient polling places.

My question has always been "So why I don't i get paid more?" 

"Pay for technical judges of election are set by law."


Whatever, I still get a nice paycheck so I don't complain too much. 

[Northwoods]

Western Washington University is requiring all students to take alcohol abuse and sexual violence awareness training on pain of having ability to register for future classes suspended if not complete by sometime in February.

I took the alcohol portion with a bottle of rye whiskey at hand.  It was still painful.

Haven't done the other one yet.

[RoadKingLarry]

So, are you going to take the sexual violence course in hand as well?

[lupinus]

We have a nifty little website now "Lupe's Company's University". Its painful.

All of it designed by someone on Chicago with nothing better to do. And best part is random *expletive deleted*it drops down to your email as required training. I may be paid hourly but damnit I'm certified to interview and hire executives. The little print out certificate in my cube tells me so.

[erictank]

We are doing online training/refreshers in a big way in healthcare these days. I have to say that I prefer it to sitting in a room listening to a lecture.  I can get through the online much faster and at my convenience, as opposed to carving out time in my schedule for a meeting.

This. It might be hard to tell in advance, in many cases, but there's a LOT of training which self-paced online can be done just fine.

I had to watch an annual safety video at the plant I just visited last week. Took over half an hour, with fill-in-the-blank questions that I had to answer. I could have gotten a passing grade (>70%) without watching the video at all; give me something I can read rather than watch covering all that information, and I can do it in 5 minutes instead of 35, with the same perfect score.

Same sort of stuff as I spent YEARS going over at the power plant I used to work at, and very similar for the water plant I worked at after that. The nuke plant used to allow us to do online CBT - it took about a half-day to get through, but it covered EVERYTHING we were required to know on a routine basis for both industrial and radiological safety for 2 years, IIRC. Same material would probably have taken 2 days of classroom or video training.

Give me CBT any day.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Much of what passes for training, online or not, is a joke. But typically the organizations are not happy to be told that . The reading speed thing drives me nuts.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[MillCreek]

Much of what passes for training, online or not, is a joke. But typically the organizations are not happy to be told that . The reading speed thing drives me nuts.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

And it is often being done only for legal, regulatory or compliance reason.  If I have an employee who breaches medical record confidentiality, I need to confirm that they were indeed trained on the subject before I take action against them.  Or if the Feds come raid my billing office, I need to demonstrate that all of my coders were trained on healthcare billing fraud, waste and abuse.

[RoadKingLarry]

Holy mother of $diety! It's getting worse. But, it is new this year.

Disaster preparedness now. The videos that we are required to watch are at about the 3rd grade level. The rest of the slide are read by the narrator in a voice like one would use to read to a 5 year old.

  aaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh!

[TechMan]

Holy mother of $diety! It's getting worse. But, it is new this year.

Disaster preparedness now. The videos that we are required to watch are at about the 3rd grade level. The rest of the slide are read by the narrator in a voice like one would use to read to a 5 year old.

  aaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh!

So it is about this level:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60

[RoadKingLarry]

That would have been an improvement.
More this level of hell.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KLvlXVEihKw

[TechMan]

That would have been an improvement.
More this level of hell.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KLvlXVEihKw

Oh, that is bad.  Worse than this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L3AAZ8Sx9M

[RoadKingLarry]

I think they save those guys for the technical training.