Workshop, Webinar, and Coaching Extraordinaire
As you plan your organization’s 2025 professional development strategy – perhaps in tandem with your 2025 return-to-office strategy – it can be tough to decide between onsite training or virtual, instructor-led training. Both formats have their strengths: In-person workshops bring unmatched energy as colleagues engage face-to-face in activities and discussions, building team camaraderie and sharing stories over the course of the day. They’re ideal for offsites, all-hands meetings, kickoffs, programming that lives within cohort-based development, interdepartmental mingling, and many more purposes.
Lately, we’ve found that virtual workshops can be just as effective, depending on your objectives and expectations for the training. It’s an inclusive option for organizations with dispersed teams to engage their remote employees and it’s accessible for short bursts of learning that don’t demand a commute into an office. Another unexpected yet powerful benefit has emerged from virtual training: candor. The ability to privately chat with the facilitator has empowered participants to ask questions, provide insights, and even share sensitive feedback in ways that don’t always happen in-person in front of a room of peers, managers, or executives.
Consider this: Are there times you have thoughts or opinions about a certain topic, but you keep it to yourself out of fear of saying the ‘wrong thing’ in front of the room? Or perhaps you’ve had a burning question for weeks, months, or years, but you’ve been too afraid to ask out of fear of sounding stupid?
If you were at an onsite training, you might not pull the instructor aside during a break to discuss with them. In a virtual setting – especially one where you’ve been given permission to ask the facilitator anything – you might feel more inclined to share.
At the start of each virtual session I facilitate, I let participants know they can share any additional thoughts privately with me if they aren’t comfortable voicing them off-mute or in the public chat space. I assure them their identity will remain anonymous, and – if relevant to the topic at hand – we will use their input to make the conversations as impactful as possible. And let me tell you, sometimes the insights shared are absolute gold for shaping content and organizational culture. Oftentimes, their questions or comments are echoed by many other participants and they end up feeling validated for broaching the topic in the first place. Over the past few years, I’ve seen this benefit improve team cultures, foster deeper connections, and drive employee retention as people feel supported through these learning opportunities. There is value in a third-party expert sharing best practices, career growth advice, and tangible tools to help make work better.
As you plan for (the remainder of) 2024 and 2025, remember that both in-person and virtual workshops have their benefits. The most forward-thinking organizations embrace both formats to create a balanced, holistic learning strategy. If you’re unsure which format is right for your organization, our team at JB Training Solutions is here to help you craft the perfect approach. Reach out to us here or give us a call to learn more.