Classroom vs. Virtual Capability Training

It is proven that offering capability development opportunities to employees not only benefits the organisation due to increased efficiencies and effective productivity but is also a valuable tool, that not only motivates your teams, but also aids in retaining them too. If you are seen to be invested in your people, they will be invested in you.

Capability development programmes can seem like a costly investment, and one that takes people away from the day job, sometimes for days at a time; But it really needn’t be the case.

We have delivered development training for many years, in the classroom, on the job and virtually. Since the pandemic, demand has shifted heavily towards a need for more virtual training vs. face to face. This evidently has been driven due to restrictions and people’s wellbeing. However, despite restrictions being lifted and workers getting back into the office, we are witnessing a continued requirement for virtual development. Why? Because virtual training has lots of benefits:

1. It is more cost effective – there is no need to book hotels or travel to get your teams into one room. We recently saved one of our Global clients c.$600K by eradicating the need to fly their teams across all parts of the US
2. It isn’t as time consuming – Virtual training should never ideally be longer than 3 hours at a time as it is just too much concentrated screen time to take in. Some programmes evidently need longer, so we break these up into bitesize chunks over days or weeks. This means that your people can get back to the day job and workflow has a minimum impact.
3. You can deliver pretty much anything virtually as you would in the classroom – Technology has advanced so much that we are able to do the same types of exercises and style of presentations virtually as you would in a classroom. Chat enables colleagues to comment in real time. Whiteboard enables you to draw, write, document as you would on a flipchart. You can share presentations and videos and also run breakout sessions for group or individual workshops.
4. It can be cross functional and cross markets – One major benefit we have noticed is that hosting virtual programmes means there is much more flexibility for cross functional teams and markets to join. Whilst time zones may be different, people plan their work around this. It is much more accessible as there is no upheaval of travel. As virtual is so accessible and cost effective, more people are also able to join and learn from other functions.
5. You can track engagement – Some training platforms, such as Adobe Connect also gives you an engagement monitor. You can see which delegates are engaged or indeed are looking at something else on their laptop rather than your slides. You can then call them out with a question, to draw them back into the learning. Even if you are using Zoom or Teams, ensuring everyone has their cameras on, ensures you can see if they are concentrating!

So, as you can see are lots of benefits to virtual development. We do recognise, that there is always a need for face-to-face development, particularly on the job training, but virtual definitely can play a vital part in employee growth, and a cost effective one at that.

If you would like to know more about virtual capability development, then please get in touch at help@pureblueocean.com