CLASS ROOM TRAINING OR OJT.

"There'll always be a difference between classroom training and OJT or the production floor.
Nobody would appreciate if we don't teach them ground realities or prepare them for the floor. Class-room training is just the preparation.
There'll be lot things that would happen on the floor, every minute a new situation. Class-room training prepares for that.
We want to prepare you for all those live situations where you wont get much time to recollect. Whereas a few would expect us to give a list of situations and the responses.
"Say this if customer says that and that if says this".
This is exactly not how things work in the real world.
Class-room training is intended to develop you to get your own responses, prepares you for every new situation for which not even a little less than a star caller has the answer.
Learning comes with time and efforts.
You tell me, haven't you ever asked a question to get the answer for another question you didn’t ask?

Or haven't you ever said something as a customer in way to imply something else or the opposite?
This is what you do in the real world?
Broaden your view. Don’t ever stick to the list of responses.

So what is the right approach?

Right approach.
Content-based or performance-based.

Somebody defined performance based training as, "Learn as you do" and content based approach similar to "trying to learn how to drive by reading manual".
By hypothetical definitions, performance based training emphasize more on industry's best practices whereas content-based learning on developing and enhancing general skills. Content based approach focuses on the broader aspect of learning while performance based approach targets on a specific task.
To help you relate: In school, you might have wondered why do you have to learn lessons on so many things you may not apply in your lives. But still you had to learn those lessons. Content based teachings may not be directly related to the performance of a particular task but are significant in the betterment or efficiency of employees performing the task. I learned to ride bicycle when I was in 2nd grade. My brother gave me a little idea about how to keep it moving and how to apply brakes. He didn't tell me anything about traffic rules as he himself wasn't aware then. I bumped it several times. Eventually I learned how to waltz through traffic circles, signals, crowd, and what side to keep, etc.
I m pretty sure that if somebody told me about those many things before, learning would've definitely been a lot easy. I still have bruise marks on my shank.

There are certain jobs which are not like learning creative arts. If you ask a pilot training institute, they'll give you the exact idea of the content-based training. Learn to fly a plane is more complex than learn to drive a car, etc.

A balanced training model is what we recommend, is a mix of both, based on the organizational goal. The most important of all is "what we teach and how we teach" and the application.

Let us face the reality now; ask yourself, if your training department simply kills time or is engaged in other non-core functions. May be that's the reason why the dept. always falls behind and doesn't even add any value to the exportable services.
A major %age of the total work hours of your training staff is spent on administrative work. We have to draw a line between training administration and core-training.
Administrative functions have taken the place of development/research. Research/development and training are inseparable.

One of the biggest training function challenges today is managing and deploying the training. May be trainers are doing the best job in the world with available resources, but whether employees apply training largely depends on the content quality, methodology, and applicability. If it is not easily applicable employees will go back to their old ways of doing things.

Training initiatives can do wonders if are based on knowledge and its applicability. Today, training & development as a corporate function needs a careful examination. Annual training reports should explain what exactly employees learned; whether or not they apply what they learned. To get the real picture we can run a survey to check the effectiveness, to know if they learned anything or not. "

Inviting further suggestions and ideas from others on the same.