THE COVID-19 pandemic has forced every business to make changes, however corporate training took an exceptionally big blow.
Most, if not all, corporate training sessions are conducted in large groups at company premises. This pandemic has made that near impossible.
In addition, training is the first to be cut each time there is a slash in budget.
Director of Chapter One Asia and principal of BrandImage International Institute Wendy Lee admitted that this pandemic has had a massive impact on corporate trainers.
“We were suddenly forced to restructure our training methods while trying to continue paying staff salaries and manage overheads.
“We all knew that someday online training would be the way forward but this caught us completely off guard. We started on a downward spiral before we knew what hit us.”
Lee said to make matters worse; many companies suddenly stopped training workshops altogether because it was no longer a priority.
“Trainings came to a sudden halt with a lot of companies cutting budget. And what made matters worse was whatever budget left over was focused on technical must-have skills. Other soft skills became ‘nice to have’ but not ‘must have’.”
The few of us (corporate trainers) who quickly went online survived, she pointed out.
“I had to be creative in developing new programmes that were more relevant to the current situation. For example, designing training workshops entitled, Elevating Your Online Presence.
“I also started developing self-learning online courses within the first month of the movement control order (MCO).”
Unfortunately, many other trainers were still assuming that this is just a phase which will pass.
Lee explained that her team also developed future skills programmes to stay afloat.
“We are now implementing ‘360 Digital Marketing’ and ‘Mindset of IR 4.0’. Methods like these are now being picked up by multinational companies (MNCs) to further educate their employees.”
However, not everything is doom and gloom on the training front.
“Online presence has given me the opportunity to reach out to so many countries. Today, I have participants from Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand and London in my sessions,” Lee added.
“There is a very, very big market out there. The pandemic has actually opened the doors to many opportunities. So we need to have a global mindset to go further and not limit ourselves.”
President of the Malaysia Association of Professional Trainers & Coaches and HC Consultants Group chief strategist, Sunil Hasmukharay, echoed Lee’s opinion.
“There must be a shift of mindset, for example I was used to travelling to different countries to train so it came as a real shock when I was confined to Malaysia.
“However, I had to accept that this is the reality of life and get out of my comfort zone. I needed to become more agile.
“Also, many of us who are not tech savvy had to learn from trainers who are more technologically savvy.”
Amidst COVID-19 we need to be hungry and open to learn from each other, Hasmukharay suggested.
“This pandemic has thought us to rely on the expertise of each other, to share our strengths. We can no longer function as a single entity.”
Hasmukharay is now paying it forward by providing free coaching support to Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and frontliners. – Dec 13, 2020
