Our MD reviews the shift to remote online training in 2020, and looks at the benefits that will bring in 2021.
Our MD Ian Watson talks about moving training forward in 2021.
Looking forward to 2022 (that’s a joke!)
Whilst it’s fairly clear that we’re all likely to experience a high level of personal and professional disruption for some time yet, and we may not have seen the very worst of the pandemic in this country, there are definite green shoots of recovery starting to appear.
When I first blogged about the impact of COVID19 on our business and the wider world back in March 2020 I wrote:
“We are incredibly fortunate that our chosen model of instructor-led training translates exceptionally well to remote delivery and attendance. The last two weeks have proven to us the effectiveness of current video conferencing technology - delegates and their organisations can still benefit significantly from the expertise of our instructors without needing to all be in the same room. It’s also quickly becoming apparent that opportunities to be ‘together’ with our colleagues, even via video conferencing, are becoming increasingly precious and important moments in our working days.”
I think those early sentiments have been proven correct – throughout the whole of last year we were able to continue helping our clients take advantage of new technologies and adopt improved development practices.
We definitely saw some projects deferred due to market uncertainties in the early stages of the pandemic, but there are clear indications that these delayed activities are now coming back online – the general sentiment appears to be “while life won’t be like this forever, it will be for quite a while, so we might as well get on with it!”
I also blogged in June 2020 about the potential for improving the efficiency of our training model now the logistical shackles involved with instructors travelling to client sites have been removed:
“Over the last two months many of our courses have been broken down further into multiple half-day sessions, in some cases spread over two or three weeks.
After completing some longer-form graduate intake training programmes in Q3 and Q4 of 2020 that in previous years have been delivered in a more traditional format, it’s become apparent that our instinctive responses have been proven correct.
Delegate and instructor fatigue was significantly reduced, impact on day-to-day operations was no longer a major issue and post-course assessments have indicated that there has been no diminution in the level of knowledge acquired by the delegates. In certain cases, client feedback suggests there may have been a higher uptake of useful knowledge despite fewer hours being spent in the (virtual) classroom.
The shift to remote delivery is allowing us to provide another bite-sized format; short follow-up practical mentoring sessions once the classroom training has completed. This provides the delegates with access to support and advice on real-world issues they are facing when applying the new knowledge, whilst also benefiting from periodic revision, which we all know has a hugely positive impact on the long-term assimilation of learned knowledge.
It remains to be seen whether the training industry will return to pre-pandemic practices once we have begun to return to normal life; here at Framework Training we intend to offer the best of both, with tried-and-tested hybrid remote / in-person instructor-led courses.
To that end we’re very close to updating our website UX to reflect the potential for a more bite-sized approach to all our training services including the public course schedule – more on that in the next blog!
I’ll take this opportunity to mention our free Demystifying Tech sessions again. These short interactive sessions are designed to help L&D and HR teams gain a deeper understanding about the key technologies you’ll come across when recruiting and supporting IT staff.
Workshops include:
We’d really love to hear from you about how your approach to training has been affected, as we’re continually looking to improve our services to meet the challenges businesses face..
