Sales Trend 7 from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2021 explores the changes in Learning and Development that precipitated as a consequence of lockdowns and other restrictions.

By Jens Hartmann, Head of Learning & Development - Barrett

Blog number 72020 has been a devastating year, there is no amount of glossing over that can change that. But, interestingly, it has brought positive consequences for some important aspects of Learning & Development. It fast-tracked and enforced changes that many people were reluctant to apply or didn’t know about. Within 6 months it had pushed people’s approach to learning further than the advance in technology, the science behind learning, or the changes in global infrastructure and environmental challenges had in the previous 5 years.

What happened?

In March 2020, most training initiatives in and around sales and service came to a full halt. The restrictions brought about by the COVID pandemic stopped them, like they stopped a vast number of other business activities. Now, in the past, when a recession hit, learning and development budgets were traditionally slashed first. On top of that, sales training programs were often the last to get re-initiated, only once business had picked up. (Which is a bit like saying we can only refuel our truck once the delivery is made, regardless of what is left in the tank to get there.)

But this time, much more happened. Even if organisations still wanted to run training sessions physical conferences or classroom training were not possible anymore. At the same time a lot of training content, particularly in sales was no longer relevant. Most organisation had to completely reassess their business development and sales approach as every market was disrupted, and sales teams were at a complete loss as to what steps to take to reignite opportunities.  

Within the first three months of the crisis, however, many businesses started to realise that this disruption in the markets was a key reason why they couldn’t put all development of their staff on hold for an unforeseeable period of time. They realised that they couldn’t just sit and wait because their markets wouldn’t be the same by the end of the crisis.

Another significant factor in getting training initiatives back sooner was the acceleration of the digital transformation, most prominently through the surge of communication apps like Zoom or Teams. Everyone had to use those applications now to stay in touch with their own staff and colleagues, but more and more also to stay in touch with their customers.

The more everyone got used to these tools, the more it became evident, that pretty much any kind of training, coaching or other development could happen remotely through conferencing platforms. And people quickly started to accept other forms of “electronic learning”, like online learning tools, video tutorials, webinars, etc. The digital transformation, most experts agree, will not be wound back. Digital services and client communication channels as well as decentralised workplace models will continue to grow and will become still more relevant.

What are the consequences of all this for those in charge of Learning & Development in their organisations? Here are a few things to consider in order to keep up with the pace of this development and get the benefits from it:

  1. Learning through live webinars, Zoom workshops and online training works. Now content, delivery, and methodology need to follow.
  2. People can’t stay focused on a screen training for a full day. Training organisers will need to rethink how to organise sessions, without setting up workshops for more than 2 or 3 hours, depending on the size of the group, and how interactive the session is meant to be. Training structures and methods need to be adapted for shorter, sequenced training sessions. Instead of having one 8-hour training day, there needs to be 3 or 4 sessions, over several days or weeks.
  3. There is an amazing upside to such “fragmented” program: It improves the learning. Instead of the traditional bulk upload of content and skills training onto participants happening within a tight 1, 2 or 3-day workshop setting, bite sized chunks of learning, with the opportunity to practice in-between sessions will improve training effectiveness.
  4. There’s another factor contributing to the multiple small session approach: At first glance it might appear that the effort to run a training program gets bigger, as people will need to attend 3 instead of just one event. However, most of the travel time and cost will drop to zero, and the day-to-day work gets less disrupted. Even getting a whole team away from work at the same time, impossible to think of in the past, when it would have required to close a branch or department for a day, now becomes possible. A quick team workshop for an hour or two, at the beginning or the end of the day has nowhere near the disrupting effect of whole-day sessions, neither for the participants, nor their customers. Training becomes much more versatile and can be initiated on short notice to cover urgent topics, which this crisis taught us is critical for a business.

All this doesn’t mean that the annual conference will disappear, or that face-to-face classroom training doesn’t have its benefits. But the new opportunities to learning provide us with a much broader list of tools for a truly blended and effective learning journey. This is a unique chance to update the overall approach to Learning & Development of our organisations. It comes with huge opportunities to improve learning outcomes, training efficiency, and overall staff retention and satisfaction around their development opportunities.

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