Today’s training industry is changing more than ever, and this demands that trainers keep abreast of trends and technology. Webinars (“Web seminars”) hold promise for connecting remote learners and subject matter experts, reducing travel, and extending a trainer’s reach, yet many trainers struggle with the idea of losing face-to-face communications. The solution is to delineate the unique strengths of both and create blended programs.
- Webinars: A Beginner's Guide
- Engagement Above and Beyond “The Usual”
- Blending Webinars With Face-to-Face
In this third of a three-article series, we explore blending Webinars with face-to-face training in the context of a case study, inductively developing best practices from the experience of a Fortune 500 computer company.
Situation and challenges
Each year the company hosts a six-day worldwide sales meeting. Typical activities include motivation about new opportunities, rolling out an updated compensation plan, presentations from various departments, account reviews, soft skills development, etc.
This meeting’s plan also included two significant additions: introduction of a new collaborative sales methodology, and rollout of a complex new customer relationship management (CRM) system. Because of the volume of new content added, initial planning called for several days more than ten hours in length.
Begin by embracing a new medium – with documented stakeholder benefits
The training team began by identifying and presenting a plan to use Webinars as a way to pre-launch upcoming changes, and deliver reinforcement after the face-to-face session. Despite extensively quantifying benefits such as reduced time out-of-field, sales leadership was apprehensive at first – until they saw bottom-line dollars.
Takeaway: Decreasing the meeting length from six days to four by moving some content to Webinars delivered tangible financial benefit that got attention because, at the time, that was a key priority for decision makers.
Identify what can only be accomplished face-to-face
Reducing the total training content was not an option. The first task in deciding what content to use Webinars for, however, was not one of instructional design, but of social design. They had planned team building exercises such as a chili cook-off. Some of the exercises to teach the new collaborative sales methodology were games that required spatial interaction. And camaraderie was important to senior leaders. While not part of the official curriculum, the question was raised asking, “what is an acceptable minimum number of evenings available for downtime over drinks or recreational activities?”
Takeaway: Numerous psychosocial factors do not translate well to a synchronous remote environment. Identifying the “irreducible minimum” will help you avoid cutting costs that come at the expense of effectiveness or other priorities.
Uncover new methods the Webinar environment offers
After identifying the content and activities that could only be delivered face-to-face, the remainder of content was evaluated from the opposite perspective: “what content would actually be improved through using Webinars shortly before or after the in-person meeting?” Three specific drivers were identified.
- Skills reinforcement: Pre- and post-meeting work on the new sales methodology and accompanying CRM system emerged as opportunities never previously possible.
- Q&A with additional executives or subject matter experts: Other departments such as marketing and accounting customarily sent a representative to make one thirty-minute presentation, a task often delegated or impractical. Focused Webinars delivered the same content, but give sales reps access to knowledge and authority, with the ability to provide feedback.
- No-cost recording. Two types of content were determined to be useful for later review. One, while presentations such as “updates to the expense report process” were important, reps often didn’t pay attention and would ask for support later. Two, a software demonstration had elements the reps wanted to review more than once. Both, as recordings, saved one-on-one follow up calls.
Takeaway: Webinars are a change of environment, opening up new opportunities. Explore how new tools afford that which may have been previously impractical or impossible.
Chunk content to increase reinforcement
For this meeting, Webinars enabled a content chunking strategy for both the soft skills with the new account management method, and reinforcement for using the new CRM.
A Webinar in advance of the onsite meeting accomplished two purposes. Foundational background content prepared reps for the upcoming transition, and they were assigned homework to have them assemble key account information to use at the in-person session.
Second, a short series of Webinars after the onsite meeting provided two tracks. One track delivered training on additional functionality not covered in-person, and had instructors review each trainee’s progress. The second track facilitated soft-skills reinforcement, using role-playing to practice new messaging in front of managers.
Takeaway: People learn many skills better through repetition. Because Webinars enable dialogue at a distance, trainers can decrease pressure to “data dump” by chunking curricula into more manageable sessions delivered with increased frequency.
Leverage Webinar recordings first to save time and money
In this case study, two sales reps had excused absences, one for his honeymoon and another for a family emergency. While shooting video of the onsite sessions was deemed prohibitively expensive, recordings of the Webinars proved of benefit in two ways.
First, they posted the recordings to an intranet site, along with handouts from all meetings, saving support time from various departments and decreasing the amount of catch-up content delivered by the training team. Second, the content was later incorporated into new-hire training, providing new reps a reviewable resource after initial immersion.
Takeaway: The recording of a Webinar is on-demand content, lacking the interactivity critical to many learning situations. The benefit, however, is the ability to generate a library of knowledge that would not otherwise be captured and available.
The Bottom Line
Webinars uniquely deliver synchronous communications at a distance, but they don’t replace all face-to-face training. Thoughtfully planned, however, not only can they be interactive and influential, but they can deliver benefits impossible or impractical in a classroom. For many trainers, blending the two may be the answer for accomplishing their goals.
