Chamber Microsoft Office trainer, John Legge of JPL IT Training Limited, discusses adapting to the new virtual world of online training:
After 25 years of onsite training face-to-face for over 10,000 staff across the UK, it came as a bit of a shock on the 18th March to be told ‘train virtually’ or not at all!
Thankfully, coming from a strong IT background this was not a fear rather a challenge to re-invent ourselves as a training services company virtual as well as F2F. For most of us in the new world who have technology to hand, it has been an essential means of communicating with those we know and love as well as those whom we do business with.
For us, virtual training has opened a whole variety of doors. We are no longer limited by distance. We were a couple of hours into a recent training session before we found out our trainee was in sunny Lanzarote. We have saved our little bit of the environment in not using our cars anything like as much.
We have seen dogs on laps, crowded bookshelves in rooms, faces and no faces; just a voice. We even trained someone who I could not see or hear but fortunately they could hear me and it worked simply fine.
We use Webex but Teams and Zoom are other popular options. We can share screens, take breaks still and share stories and enjoy a joke too.
I do miss the group training room scenario but am happy to stay in this dual environment: “now I see you, now I don’t”.