Since March 2020, I have been considered a live online training enthusiast. Over the past ten months, I have delivered nearly 150 live online training sessions. We have set up a studio that enables truly high-quality, interactive live online training. And I can say: live online training is not an emergency solution, but an absolutely enriching extension of our training portfolio. And the posts I was able to observe in recent months, before the renewed lockdown, on the topic of “Great, we are running in-person training again, or workshops, or seminars” confirm what I wrote in the article that I posted back in June. Many of these photos look like they are from the 1990s.
Unfortunately, I have to say this, even at the risk of making myself unpopular: it is not a loss that this kind of event is disappearing. And it is downright absurd when exceptionally talented in-person trainers are forced to deliver Stone Age didactics under coronavirus restrictions.
Now in-person training is once again completely a thing of the past. In recent months, everything planned with us for November and December as in-person has been cancelled. But “cancelled” is the wrong word: we are converting it into live online training. And I have to vent a little, because I had repeatedly asked many of these clients: Are you sure it will really take place in person? In many cases, relying on hope has cost a lot of money, because hotels had to be cancelled. And that is not always possible free of charge. To be honest, I can understand the hotels here as well: cancellation fees are currently their only income.
Hoping for in-person training
To cut a long story short: hoping for in-person training makes no sense for the next six months. More and more companies are deciding to switch to an online-only strategy. In-person training, seminars, and workshops are no longer being planned at all. This is a drastic change, a real disruption. Because if a company has not held a single in-person training session for a year or longer, one thing is clear: structures have become entrenched.
In-person training will be an important format from 2022, but no longer the standard. In some companies, it will even be the exception. Everyone within the learning and development community must adapt to this. A drastic change.
This means:
- We all need to become really excellent live online trainers.
- To do that, we need the necessary setup: technically and methodologically. The requirements will continue to grow. As always, it is the American superstar trainers who are leading the way here, for example Tony Robbins. And there are already some German colleagues with a questionable reputation who can nevertheless serve as technical role models.
- We need to completely overhaul our training concepts. An in-person training course cannot simply be delivered live online 1:1. Schedules change. Two times eight hours makes no sense. Some exercises do not work, while others work better. In short: every training course needs to be redesigned.
That is exactly what is currently happening in some companies. For freelance trainers or agencies, this means: we also need to be paid for redesign and new concepts. Some clients still lack understanding here.
A case for technical moderators
Finally, my credo: we need a new role in live online training, seminars, courses, and workshops—namely the technical moderator (male or female). One person alone cannot handle it. The more interactive the event, the more overwhelmed a single person becomes. We need a second person who monitors the tool, assigns groups, resolves technical issues, introduces certain tools, and ensures in advance, for example, that you are invited to the customer’s tenant in Microsoft Teams, etc. And this is where we all need to actively promote this new role.
This is not about revenue at all, because as an agency I am already happy if I can find good technical moderators. I do not want to earn money from it. It is about ensuring that everyone—especially within companies—understands this necessity. No one is capable of multitasking, not even trainers. And if we try to manage the tool, our technical studio setup, and the training itself at the same time, we overwhelm our brains.
If the client does not pay for what is actually necessary, you end up with live online experiences that may be perfectly planned, but are less interactive and by no means flexible. And nobody has an interest in that—neither the participants, nor the trainers, nor the client. In fact, we all have the same interests here—we just do not realise it yet.
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