Take a deep breath and ask yourself: If I was going to help employees in my organization make a major change in the way they work—with major implications for their job enjoyment and career, and with technology they don’t know—what would we do to help them?

 Odds are it wouldn’t be to make the leap to virtual instructor-led training (VILT).

As experienced instructors and learning professionals, we understand what our learners need to embrace new skills and technology in the workplace. We’re really good at that.  It’s our job. So why do we do such a lousy job when it comes to developing our own skills?

Let me share with you some numbers that have come out of my work with clients and ATD chapters around the United States:

• More than 60 percent of instructors moving from the classroom to VILT have never participated as learners in a positive virtual learning environment.

• More than 80 percent of instructors were asked to either design, convert, or deliver virtually without receiving any coaching, training, or intense practice with the tool they’d be using.

• Our research shows fewer than 20 percent of instructors “get real enjoyment” from training virtually (and hands up if you think some of them are fibbing?).

• Some 10 percent of virtual instructors feel confident that they use the tools well, assuming they’re using them at all.

• Eighty (80) percent of all virtual platform users (trainers or otherwise) use fewer than 25 percent of the features of the platform on which they deliver training or presentations.

Is it any wonder then that there is a lot of “drama” associated with helping trainers inside our organizations (and maybe even ourselves) make the move from the world we “grew up in” to an entirely new way of teaching?

Think about the most common objections to VILT:

• It’s not as effective as classroom training.

• It’s not interactive and doesn’t mesh with what we know about adult learning.

• You can’t gauge understanding.

• We hate it.

Well, if you think about the way most of us have been introduced to it, is it any wonder that these objections arise? We’re fundamentally changing something we know and love—not modeling or showing positive examples, and offering little to no professional guidance. All that, and we’re shocked that it’s not working as well as it should.

The “shoemaker’s children” complaint (that the shoemaker is so busy making shoes for customers his own kids go without) is an all-to-common complaint in our world. But if the organization really wants to help make a smooth, profitable, and drama-free transition to VILT training, we all know what needs to happen:

• Learners (that’s us) must see the tools used successfully and modeled professionally.

• Learners (us, again) must have the opportunity to receive practice and hands-on coaching with feedback in order to develop the muscle memory to become fluent in the use of the tools.

• Designers of training must design the learning to maximize the power of the virtual environment and make it easy to implement so trainers can focus on the facilitation and learning transfer, not making themselves crazy making sure the tools work.

So, after all that, here’s the simple question: What is your organization, and you as a learning professional, doing to ensure you make a smooth, drama-free transition to VILT?

Join Wayne Turmel and ATD on August 7, 2014, for a free webcast, “Moving From the Classroom To VILT With No Drama”. Download more information and register.