ZOOM Training: is it a Compromise

18 months of ZOOM training. How much of a compromise is it?

If someone had told me two years ago that I would be running an online ZOOM training session for our highly successful Services Development Programs, sitting in my home office in Australia, with two participants online in Ethiopia, one in Iran, one in Holland, two in Dubai and two in Malaysia I would not have believed them.

Eighteen months of running these sessions online, to manage the greatest disrupter of our lifetime – COVID19, has most definitely been its own learning experience. So, what precisely have we learned?

• Online sessions are a compromise, no question.

• They do not work as well as face-to-face training but are much better than we expected.

• We have got a lot better at running them.

• Our participants have got a lot better at accepting the new way.

• They are much harder work for all parties, and in particular for the trainer.

• Keeping engagement is very challenging when you are not in the same room.

• ZOOM / TEAMS / WEBEX fatigue is real and needs to be allowed for in the planning and execution of sessions.

At Catalyst Global we are in the business of changing people’s behaviour, to motivate them to think and act differently. The primary key to achieving this, alongside the given of highly customised and well-researched content, is maximising participant engagement. Online training makes this extremely challenging.

So, how have we gone about making the very best of the compromise solution of online program delivery during these travel restricted times? As with all things in life and business, it starts with careful planning. We shared some initial thoughts on this in our May 2020 blog on the same subject. Sixteen months of experience have only compounded this.

To minimise the impact of ZOOM / TEAMS / WEBEX fatigue, we split our usual 8-hour training day into two half-days. Each half-day is again split into two 90-minute sessions with a 30-minute break in between. A full day of interactive, online training is just too much and not beneficial to anyone.

As a trainer, get your home office / online training room set up so that you are comfortable, with everything to hand. Working with two screens is a must from our point of view, one large, main screen to watch the participants on and to project and share your presentation material, plus a laptop close by, in presenter mode, as you would have in a live training room.

As a trainer running a ZOOM based program, much more of your concentration is taken up in consciously watching all participants faces and reading the level of engagement. As such, keeping an eye on time is a challenge. Keep a watch or clock face in clear view in front of you. Carefully plan your timing on a sheet of paper with content “waypoints” in large type and the time at which you want to complete each waypoint in equally large, but also bold and red type next to it. This allows you to glance at the planning sheet for a quick check that you are on schedule.

Running training online, 10 participants is the absolute maximum to maintain engagement and a good view of the class. A prerequisite for successful engagement is to have all cameras on for the duration of the training session. We always have all participants up on the main large screen, in gallery view, hovering above the presentation. The laptop to the side in presenter view, will show which slide we have up.

One trick we found very early on is the trainer should be always standing up rather than sitting down in front of the camera. This forces the physical engagement of moving hands and body as you present, to make the communication more dynamic. A good headset is key to making this work so that participants can still hear you if you are moving back and forth.

As we recommended in our May 2020 blog, a customer focussed poster on the wall behind you is preferential to virtual backgrounds, which do not cope well with a moving, animated presenter.

Sound and lighting are critical for both the presenter and participants. Ask the participants in advance not to sit with their back to a window, for example. Good lighting is very important, as is a headset if any participants are attending from their desk in a shared office. We always have a 10 to 15-minute pre-start to get everyone online and sort out the cameras, audio and technical challenges. We also use this to familiarise the participants with their ZOOM screens, how to enter a chat, or give a reaction, i.e., raise a hand, etc.

At the re-start of every 90-minute session we remind the participants of the challenges of online training, how they can get the most out it and ask for their patience.

An engaging workbook, in which participants complete exercises, make notes and discuss the content presented, has always been part of Catalyst Global training sessions and is especially important in the ZOOM environment. We send this as a pdf in advance and ask all to have it printed and available (with a pen) before we start.

So far at Catalyst Global we only offer our Service Development Programs online. We do not offer the Sales Development or Sales Excellence Programs online as we find salespeople need particularly high engagement and participation to ensure the effectiveness of the training. That is a polite way of saying they are more easily distracted and have shorter attention spans!

As a professional and passionate presenter, online ZOOM based technology is a compromise but, in these travel restricted times, with careful planning of each session, offers a good solution to staying in front of our clients’ teams.

Jonathan Clark

Partner

Catalyst Global