Is Online Training Here to Stay? (Post-COVID19)
With the clear preface that the author of this blog has zero medical qualifications and no real place commenting on anything medical, it’s fair to say the outlook for the World in regards COVID19 is looking better.
If the past year has taught us anything it’s of course not to count chickens, to wait until the race is won, don’t speak too soon, you can chose your cliché. But of course, it’s a brave person who says “We’re home and dry!”. Having said all that though, falling infection rates and deaths combined with the real hope that vaccines have brought means that for the first time in a long time, we can start to consider a working World beyond Coronavirus and the 2 metre rule.
No-one is expecting us to be entirely back to ‘normal’ in 2021. Odds are, some remnants of the preventative measures against infection that have become entirely routine will remain. Face-masks, some element of social distancing and regular hand-washing will be here for at least the foreseeable future. But a return to offices and the shift from working from home being the standard to a
more teams based setting is likely to re-emerge in the latter stages of the year. And with that, many of the old workplace practises will return. Staff meetings, strategy sessions, networking events etc. They’ll all re-emerge in an ‘in person’ context.
Sure, many who didn’t work from home before the pandemic will choose or be asked to carry on working from home. Many workplaces will embrace this ‘new normal’ as we’ve come to call it and see remote working as their new default setting. But odds are, the majority of people currently working from home will be back in a workplace setting for 50%+ of the week before Christmas. That may fill you with dread, joy or somewhere in between, but it’s the seemingly likely roadmap we face in the coming months and years.
But whilst some practises will revert to a face to face setting and some will remain remote, where exactly do training events sit in that paradigm?
The popularity for Zoom webinars, online networking, charity workshops, seminars (etc) has exploded in the past year. And whilst too often people resort to hyperbole nowadays, “exploded” is definitely the word to use. Eventbrite has hosted 72 million online training or networking events in the past year. This compares to roughly 5 million in the preceding 12 months. That is, for anyone lacking a calculator, a 1340% increase! Yes, many of these are tiny events which only booked a couple of tickets or were provided by online trainers who simply expanded their offering. But a huge number of these were new events from new online providers (just like us at Third Sector Network).
So let’s say, purely for the sake of discussion that roughly 50% of people currently working from home return to the office full time and in total 80% of staff return to the office for at least 50% of the week (figures along this line have been touted by the media recently as an expectation for 2022), will we see a huge drop off in the demand for online training? Will charities, social enterprises and private sector companies now demand training to be delivered ‘in person’ and only look for networking events hosted at a physical venue?
We’re going to call it… The answer to that is no. No way. Non. Nein. Nie, Nah!
Yes of course we have a vested interest at Third Sector to push that narrative. We can’t deny that. If all of sudden no-one is interested in online training, we have a serious problem. So let’s put some meat to those bones and give some compelling reasons why this won’t happen and the World of online training and networking is here to say.
Firstly, let’s look at the major plus point to in-person events. They’re more engaging usually, a bit more entertaining sometimes and occasionally nicer in that they provide catering or freebies! It’s a general feel to them. For some, the option of sitting across from someone at a table or sitting in a chair to listen to someone talk a few metres aware is always superior to even the best webinar. And if that’s how you feel, fair enough, we’re not going to argue with that.
So let’s consider time. Let’s say you’ve found two training events you’re interested in. Same content, same host (etc) but one is online, one is at a local venue. They’re both scheduled to last 2 hours. The ‘in person’ event starts at midday. It’s roughly 20 mins away from your office by car. You leave with enough to to factor in delays, to park and to get there 10 mins before the start time so you can grab a drink and hopefully a decent spot. So you need to leave at roughly 11:15am. The event finishes at 2pm on time, you walk back to the car, drive back to the office and park etc. You’re back by 3pm. In total you’ve used 3 hours and 45 minutes. With the online event, you log in three minutes before it starts and you log out precisely on time. You need a comfort break after the meeting, and a new drink. So we’ll add 15 mins for that in total. That option uses 2 hours and 18 minutes… 1 hour 27 minutes less. On a one-off basis that may not seem that big a deal but you start going to more of these events, that adds up. You only need to go to roughly four events in person and you’ve lost an entire working day just to the extra time the ‘in person’ events entail. Attend 20 in a year (networking and training) and you’ve lost a whole week!
Now let’s look at cost. Most online training events aren’t free. But they’re almost always cheaper than the ‘in person’ ones. This is simply because there’s no room to hire and no catering costs. This saving can be passed on to the attendees. If there was just a couple of quid in it, you’d probably favour the non-online option. But there is usually a lot more than a few quid in it. An event that would cost £45 per person at a hotel or conference centre would more than likely costs less than £20 online. Indeed none of our events at Third Sector Network cost more than £20 per person, ever. We don’t offer venue events, but if we did, to cover our costs we’d almost certainly have to treble our event tickets at least!
Finally, there’s the interaction options. People often jump to the assumption that ‘in person’ events offer the best opportunity for audience interaction. But, from our experience, this is rarely the case. The chat functions in video webinars make it much easier to ask a question and for the host to then address that answer at the appropriate time. Many people might be uncomfortable asking their question in front of everyone in a room, but online you have the relative anonymity to ask your question and not feel silly in the slightest if it turns out it was an obvious question or had already been covered.
So overall, there are of course pros and cons to online training events and ‘in person’ ones. No-one at Third Sector Network would ever argue there aren’t clear benefits to some elements of meeting people in person. But they’re balanced out in so many ways by the benefits of online events.
There is simply no way that the ability to dip in an out of training and networking more conveniently, from home or the office at a lower cost isn’t going to continue appealing to millions of professionals and volunteers around the UK.
Only time will tell if we’re right about this…. But we’re pretty confident we are!
