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Author  Craig Kilford, CEO Course Conductor/Co-Author Management of Portfolios; and Nicole Coyle, Director of Virtual Training Enablement/Lead Virtual Training Assessor at Course Conductor

April 16, 2021 |

 4 min read

  • Blog
  • Capabilities
  • Career progression
  • Collaboration
  • Customer needs
  • Leadership
  • Skills
  • Training

Over the past few weeks most classroom training courses around the world have been cancelled, causing a major impact to the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of trainers and training vendors everywhere. Not only are these people worried about the wellbeing of their family during a global pandemic, but now they have to pivot very quickly to virtual training and maintain their income.

These people are part of our community, many are our clients and our friends. So, we wanted to help them in any way we could whilst they make the transition to virtual training.

We have the pleasure of talking to lots of great trainers every day, and one idea that came up last week was to get ten top virtual trainer tips from experienced virtual trainers and share those tips with the new virtual trainers within the community. So, we picked the phone up last Saturday morning and dialled the best of the best in the training industry. By the end of the weekend over 40 Course Conductor Accredited Trusted Trainers had answered the call to action and wanted to help their fellow training professionals.

We published the report a few days ago. In total we had 60 expert virtual trainers from 13 countries contribute, so we aptly named the report “60 Top Tips To Help New Virtual Trainers (By 60 Trusted Virtual Trainers)”. It’s packed full of priceless virtual training tips, all of which will be incredibly helpful for new virtual trainers, and a useful reminder for the more experienced virtual trainers.

The trainers involved represent a wide range of training specialisms, ranging from ITSM, cyber-security, Agile and SCRUM, to more people-focused courses such as creative thinking, imposter syndrome, leadership and innovation.

To give you a flavour of the kind of tips in the report, here are four from trainers that specialise in ITIL and Agile. All of which have been independently evaluated and accredited by Course Conductor as Trusted Virtual Training Vendors.

Erika Flora from Beyond20:


"It’s our job as instructors to make it a great learning experience and to create a sense of community. Otherwise, you’ll find that you end up ‘talking to a brick wall’ and that’s no fun for anyone. Now’s a great time to push yourself as an instructor and take your virtual classroom to the next level.”

Thijs Loggen from Capgemini Academy:

"It always gives a sense of comfort to fall back on your routine or habit, but does it really fit the new online way of working? Check again and look at the outcome you want to achieve, don’t copy and paste your current training to an online version. When you have the outcome in mind, think of how you want to achieve that goal and what exercises fit that purpose.”

Ed Lively from International Institute for Learning (IIL):

Developing your people engagement skills is always first, but don't forget the technology and equipment. Engaging your audience online is the most important skill in teaching a virtual class. Invest in the right equipment. Get a great headset with microphone, a solid network connection (hardwired to your router for maximum speed and to reduce buffering), and a good virtual platform that allows for voice, chat, whiteboards, sharing desktops, breakout rooms, file sharing, web-linking and other tools you might want to use. Practice until your performance is flawless.

Marcin Trendel from INPROGRESS:

"When you conduct virtual training, ask your attendees to switch on their cameras. It will be much easier for you to interact with other people in virtual classroom, because you can see all reactions. It`s important because you can have your training under control and feel more self-confident.”

To read the other 56 virtual training tips, you can access and download the free report: www.courseconductor.com/virtualtips

Whilst no-one really knows what the new normal will look, one thing is for sure; we’ll only get there by working together, collaborating creatively and doing all we can to support each other during these turbulent times.

We are grateful for the energy and contribution of all the Trusted Trainers included in the report, our clients, partners and the team at Course Conductor for making this happen.

We hope the report is useful for you and we wish you, your family and business well.

AXELOS is proud to be a partner with Course Conductor on this project.

Course Conductor helps the best virtual trainers and ATOs increase growth. To learn more about Course Conductor’s independent accreditation visit: Courseconductor.com.