Learning and development programmes are often seen as important ways in which to support business growth. However, in an environment of a global health pandemic – like the one currently being experienced as a result of an outbreak of COVID-19 – businesses are responsibly acting to reduce the impact on business continuity by transitioning to remote or home working.
Among the things to be dropped as a result are often learning & development programmes. This is because, more often than not, they are based on face-to-face learning that requires congregations of employees and suppliers.
As my colleague Kevin Johnson stated in his latest article on looking to Coronavirus as a lesson in adapting to adversity; “Of course the most tragic implications here are those on our environment, human life, and health. These must be at the forefront of our mind with great sympathy and understanding of the trauma and pain these crises cause.”
These are points that cannot be understated, and the impacts are far more eloquently explored by Kevin.
Using Technology To Continue Supporting Learning
There is no doubt that we must be aware of the situation that we are in and learn from previous experiences where technology has helped. It has not been the first time that businesses have been forced to adapt to remote working, and therefore remote learning.
Other events that have required a transition to rely on technology include financial events such as the credit crunch in 2008, the volcanic ash in 2010, climate change and the increased importance on environmental policies that restrict travel being just a few.
Moving from global events to organisations, we can see policies or strategies that have accelerated this transition through;
- the need for speed when it comes to rollout, or
- perhaps a digital transformation,
- mergers and acquisitions which mean reaching new territories.
These are all scenarios which we have been through at OnTrack with our clients and continue to support many of them within today’s environment.
Technology is already playing a part in this pandemic. The WHO are themselves using technology to provide online training as a weapon to fight COVID-19. Schools, colleges and universities already use remote learning, and Ireland, where schools are being shut, is just one example of where this tactic will be rolled out as widely as possible.
For our existing clients, we can quickly transfer the majority of bespoke face-to-face learning events into an online/virtual classroom environment.
For businesses who are perhaps less familiar with virtual classrooms, but need to make a quick transition we have developed our own 45 – 90 minute session. See here to view the titles we have and to get started.
The following titles are ready to go now, and we will be adding more in the coming weeks to address the typical challenges our clients face to ensure them to retain some level of business continuity, and of course learning continuity with a remote and dispersed workforce.
- Training in a virtual environment (How To)
- Delegation
- Enabling high performance
- Managing change
- Maximising performance and prioritising for success
- Stakeholder management
Clients often have concerns about the technology platform to use, which you ultimately shouldn’t. Most of the time these fears are unfounded. We are platform agnostic, using three different platforms regularly with our client base, but we are equally as comfortable using a client-specific or preferred version.
Faced with adversity, as we all are, and the need to be responsible, answers do exist, learning can continue and at OnTrack we have been helping clients with this transition to virtual for a number of years.
If you need help to upskill internal trainers or line managers from face to face training to online environments, then we can help. If you want to simply offer interactive learning experiences for your people in a remote/online modality, then please do get in touch to see how you can very quickly respond to the unprecedented pace of change facing all businesses. https://landing.ontrackinternational.com/Virtual-Classroom/virtual-classroom.html
