With the second wave of Covid about to hit Europe again, I thought it was a good time to reflect on the last 6 months and how training has been impacted and developed. Up until March 2020, I was delivering around 90% of my marketing training face to face in classroom or company office environments. Whether it was open public training, where delegates would pay per day and mix with others from different companies, or in-house deliveries of bespoke courses for marketing teams from within that country, face to face was the preferred medium of delivery.
All that changed in early March. Suddenly, I couldn't work in company offices as my clients were all told to work from home and training venues and hotels were closed. My initial thought was that it would be temporary, but my work was about to dry up.
Luckily for me, I have had some experience of virtual deliveries for many years, with larger global brands like HP and BP moving to virtual deliveries a few years ago to save on travelling costs and to allow more people to attend. One of the issues of face to face training, is that it is hard to justify the cost of travel for the employees who work away from regional head offices. As a trainer, you assume that the travel costs for you to travel are the only costs, but typically that is just the tip of the iceberg as delegates have to come into the regional hubs themselves which adds time and costs for the client. I would travel from London to Singapore, but delegates may fly in from Japan, China, South Korea etc which adds substantial cost and inconvenience for delegates.
Of course, that has now changed. Every client that I am working with has switched to virtual. Some clients delayed face to face for a while, thinking it was a temporary postponement, but most of those have now re-booked virtual courses.
What has been interesting to me, as I do more virtual and hopefully become more accomplished at it, is that there are many benefits to virtual training (in addition to the travel cost savings):
Here are some of those benefits:
- Everyone can attend - you don't have to be based in Head Office or close by
- More people can attend - you are not limited by room size, so you an invite other delegates from different teams and departments
- Timings are so much more flexible - almost all classes were a full day, I now do 1, 2, 3, 4 and even 7 hour virtual class sessions
- It is easier to schedule classes - previously, all delegates had to be in one place on the same day, now we can be flexible, running multiple sessions in different time zones. Also, it is much easier to get a 2 hour slot in everyone's diaries when they are working at home, then finding a day when everyone is available in the office
- Quieter delegates can join in - there are so many ways for delegates to interact via polls, quizzes, chats and whiteboards - in a class room it can be intimidating for quieter or less confident delegates to speak up
- Delegates are more relaxed - they haven't had the early start to catch the train in, they are not jet lagged from flying in, they are in their home working environment. They get regular breaks, so they can do what needs to be done and get back on the call.
The biggest news though, is that delegates are MORE SATISFIED. By reviewing my delegate feedback forms from all of my clients, I can see that satisfaction and recommendations are higher than classroom sessions.
So, if you are considering what your training programme looks like and wondering if virtual is the way to go, don't hesitate, give it a try. I use Zoom, Teams, Adobe Connect, GoToMeeting - there are so many platforms and all have strengths and weaknesses. That is for another day! I'd love to know your opinions on this, please comment and let me know what you think. Will we ever go back to face to face?
I believe that the future will be a mixture of virtual and face to face, they complement each other well. I don't think I will get as many Air Miles in future, but I believe I will be more productive and will be able to offer clients a more cost efficient and flexible range of formats and training styles.
Comments