How to Choose the Right Employee Training Method for Your Team

Employee training plays a crucial role in shaping a productive and skilled workforce—but not every method works for every team. As workplaces evolve and become more diverse and distributed, the way companies approach training needs to evolve too.

While there are several popular employee training methods available—on-the-job training, eLearning, video-based training, and more—many companies struggle with a common challenge: how to choose the right training method for their team. Selecting the wrong approach can lead to wasted time, poor engagement, and missed learning goals.

In this guide, we break down the top training methods and show you exactly how to choose the best one based on key factors like team size, learning preferences, training goals, and work environment. Whether you're onboarding new employees or upskilling existing staff, this article will help you make smarter decisions and build a more impactful employee training strategy.

Why Choosing the Right Training Method Matters

Selecting the wrong employee training method can do more harm than good. When training doesn’t align with your team’s needs, it often results in low engagement, poor knowledge retention, and wasted time and resources. Employees may feel overwhelmed, disengaged, or confused—undermining the effectiveness of your entire training program.

Conversely, choosing the right training approach—one that matches your team’s size, learning preferences, and goals—can dramatically improve learning outcomes. Tailored training boosts knowledge retention, enhances job performance, and fosters a motivated, confident workforce. Whether your team benefits most from hands-on learning, visual content, collaboration, or self-paced courses, the right method ensures your training truly sticks.

In the next section, we’ll explore five of the most effective and widely used employee training methods. We’ll guide you on when and how to apply each one so you can build a training strategy perfectly suited to your team’s unique needs.

5 Most Common Employee Training Methods

Choosing the right employee training method starts with understanding the options available. Below, we explore five of the most effective and widely used training methods, what they involve, who they’re best suited for, and their key advantages and drawbacks.

1. On-the-Job Training (OJT)

On-the-Job Training (OJT) is one of the most practical and direct methods for employee development. It involves learning through hands-on experience while performing actual job tasks, guided by a supervisor or a seasoned team member. This approach immerses employees in real work situations, allowing them to acquire relevant skills and knowledge as they go, while receiving immediate feedback to correct mistakes and reinforce learning.

OJT is especially ideal for new hires, entry-level employees, or roles in industries such as manufacturing, technical services, and customer support—where practical skills and familiarity with equipment or processes are essential. This method helps employees become productive quickly and builds confidence by learning within the actual work environment.

Pros:

1. Employees apply new skills right away, reinforcing learning through practice
2. Provides meaningful real-world experience, making training more relevant and engaging
3. Highly cost-effective since training happens alongside regular work duties, minimizing downtime

Cons:

1. The quality of training can vary widely depending on the skills and commitment of the trainer
2. Initially, productivity might slow as trainees learn on the job
3. Limited focus on theoretical concepts or broader knowledge, which might be necessary for complex tasks

By integrating OJT thoughtfully, companies can create a dynamic learning environment that supports continuous improvement and faster onboarding.

2. Instructor-Led Training (ILT)

Instructor-Led Training (ILT) is a traditional and highly structured approach where a subject-matter expert leads a group of learners through a course—either in a physical classroom or a virtual setting. This format typically includes lectures, presentations, live demonstrations, group discussions, and interactive activities that allow participants to engage directly with the material and the instructor.

ILT is especially effective for topics that require deep understanding, real-time discussion, or group collaboration—such as compliance training, technical concepts, and leadership development. It’s also a go-to choice for certification preparation or when a company wants to align teams with new processes or policies in a consistent manner.

Pros:

1. Offers a highly interactive learning experience with opportunities for real-time questions and feedback
2. Encourages collaboration, group problem-solving, and team bonding
3. Content delivery is consistent, guided by an expert who ensures clarity and accuracy

Cons:

1. Can be logistically challenging due to scheduling, location, and availability of instructors
2. Often more costly, especially for in-person sessions that involve travel, venue, or facilitator fees
3. May not cater to employees who prefer learning at their own pace or need more time to absorb information

While ILT may require more planning and resources, its ability to engage teams and deliver high-impact training makes it a valuable method—especially for complex or high-stakes subjects.

3. eLearning / Online Courses

eLearning—or online course-based training—is a flexible and scalable method that delivers training content digitally. Employees access learning materials like videos, quizzes, presentations, and reading assignments through a learning management system (LMS) or online platform. One of the biggest advantages of eLearning is its self-paced nature, allowing employees to learn anytime, anywhere, and at a speed that suits them.

This method is especially effective for remote teams, large organizations looking to onboard or upskill employees at scale, and businesses that prioritize continuous learning and development. Whether it’s compliance, soft skills, or product knowledge, eLearning makes it easy to deliver consistent training across locations without the logistical challenges of in-person sessions.

Pros:

1. Highly flexible—employees can train at their own pace and convenience
2. Easily scalable for distributed teams or large groups
3. Simple to update and reuse content as information or policies evolve
4. Can include multimedia (videos, animations, gamified elements) to make learning more engaging

Cons:

1. Requires a high level of self-discipline and time management from learners
2. Limited opportunities for real-time interaction, discussion, or feedback
3. Not ideal for developing hands-on or practical skills that need physical practice

eLearning has become a go-to employee training method in today’s hybrid and remote work environments. With the right platform and engaging content, it can deliver strong results—especially when paired with other training formats.

4. Video-Based Training

Video-based training is a visually rich method where learning is delivered through pre-recorded or live videos—ranging from screen recordings and product demos to animated explainers and instructional videos. It caters especially well to visual learners and is a powerful format for breaking down complex concepts into digestible, engaging content.

This method is ideal for remote teams, fast-paced onboarding, product walkthroughs, and process demonstrations. Since videos can be paused, replayed, and watched at any time, they offer flexibility without sacrificing clarity—making them perfect for asynchronous learning.

Pros:

1. Highly engaging and easier to retain compared to text-heavy content
2. Accessible across devices, making it convenient for distributed teams
3. Allows for repeat viewing, which reinforces understanding and learning retention
4. Great for standardizing training across teams and locations

Cons:

1. May lack real-time interaction – but this can be easily addressed by combining videos with short quizzes, feedback forms, or follow-up discussions.
2. Production quality matters – while it’s true that clarity and structure are key, modern tools like WowTo simplify video creation with screen recorder, text to speech, AI voiceovers, and easy editing—even for non-designers.
3. Requires some upfront effort to create – but once made, these videos can be reused, updated, and scaled across teams—offering long-term ROI.

Pro Tip:

Tools like WowTo take video-based training to the next level by allowing businesses to create engaging, searchable training videos that are easy to access and engaging to watch. With built-in features like a screen recorder extension, AI voiceovers and avatars, text-to-speech, and hosting capabilities via a centralized video knowledge base, WowTo makes it simple to manage and scale your training content—all in one place.

This makes it especially valuable for SaaS companies, product-led teams, and growing businesses looking to streamline employee onboarding or customer education with on-demand, high-impact video training.

5. Mentorship and Coaching

Mentorship and coaching is a personalized employee training method where employees are guided by experienced mentors or professional coaches. Rather than relying on structured curriculums, this method focuses on one-on-one support, career development, and continuous feedback. Whether formal or informal, mentorship builds a supportive environment for knowledge sharing, skill development, and professional growth.

Coaching often targets performance improvement or leadership development, while mentorship typically focuses on broader career advice, cultural integration, and long-term development. Sessions may be ongoing or goal-based and can happen in person or virtually depending on the organization’s setup.

Ideal for:

1. Leadership training and succession planning
2. Helping high-potential employees grow into new roles
3. Teams focused on soft skills, decision-making, and communication

Pros:

1. Deeply personalized learning experience tailored to individual strengths, challenges, and aspirations
2. Builds strong internal relationships that support collaboration and retention
3. Encourages continuous development through consistent feedback and goal tracking
4. Improves employee morale and engagement, especially when mentorship is linked to career progression

Cons:

1. Time and resource intensive, especially for mentors or coaches managing multiple mentees
2. Harder to scale in fast-growing or large organizations without a formal mentorship framework
3. Varies in effectiveness depending on mentor quality, chemistry, and consistency

Mentorship and coaching don’t just transfer skills—they cultivate trust, confidence, and a growth mindset. When combined with scalable training tools like video-based learning or knowledge bases, this method can round out your training strategy by offering both depth and reach.

How to Choose the Right Employee Training Method

Picking the right training approach can feel overwhelming, but focusing on a few key factors makes it easier. Here’s a simple framework to help you decide what fits your team best:

1. Consider Your Team Size: Small teams often get the most from personalized methods like Mentorship or On-the-Job Training, where direct guidance matters. If you’re managing a large or distributed workforce, scalable options like eLearning and Video-Based Training make more sense.
2. Look at Your Budget: Training costs add up. For tight budgets, On-the-Job Training and video-based courses (especially those you can create and manage yourself with tools like WowTo) are affordable yet effective. Instructor-led sessions and coaching programs usually require more investment in trainers and time.
3. Think About Where Your Team Works: Remote and hybrid teams need flexible, accessible training options—online courses and videos let employees learn anytime, anywhere. In contrast, in-office teams might benefit from more traditional Instructor-Led Training or hands-on learning.
4. Plan for Scalability: If your company is growing fast, or you need to train many employees quickly, digital methods like eLearning and video training scale easily. Mentorship and coaching offer great depth but can be tough to implement widely without enough mentors.
5. Align With Your Training Goals: What’s the purpose of the training? Onboarding often calls for hands-on or video-based learning to get new hires up to speed fast. For ongoing skill development, eLearning’s self-paced style works well. Compliance training and certifications often require instructor-led formats for interaction and assessment, while leadership development benefits from one-on-one mentorship.

By balancing these factors, you can tailor your training strategy to fit your company’s needs perfectly. Remember, mixing different methods often gives the best results — combining flexibility, engagement, and impact.

Hybrid Training — The Best of Both Worlds

Many successful companies recognize that no single training method fits every need. That’s why they combine multiple approaches to create a hybrid training strategy — blending the strengths of different methods to maximize learning outcomes.

For example, pairing video-based training with mentorship offers employees the flexibility to learn key concepts on their own time while receiving personalized guidance to apply those skills in real-world situations. Similarly, combining Instructor-Led Training (ILT) with eLearning lets teams benefit from structured, interactive sessions alongside self-paced digital courses that reinforce and expand learning.

Using technology like WowTo makes bridging these formats seamless. WowTo’s platform empowers organizations to create interactive, searchable training videos that employees can revisit anytime, while mentors and trainers provide ongoing support and feedback. This blend of self-paced and guided learning helps boost engagement, retention, and overall performance — making hybrid training a powerful strategy for modern teams.

Elevate Your Employee Training with WowTo

Aligning your training methods with your team’s unique needs is key to boosting engagement, retention, and overall performance. But choosing the right approach can be challenging — especially as work environments evolve.

WowTo's flexible and scalable video training platform empowers you to create engaging, searchable training content that fits any team size, learning style, or goal. From onboarding to upskilling, WowTo helps your employees learn faster and stay engaged — anytime, anywhere.

Ready to transform your training experience? Try WowTo’s video training platform today and see the difference for yourself.