This past week we presented at the Virtual CLO Exchange – 21st edition. It was not only SNI’s first time at the event, but also the first time it was ever hosted virtually.
In preparation for our session we discussed what we have seen up to this point in the training world relating to the challenges posed by COVID-19. Initially, most clients appeared frozen and daunted by the situation as they were totally unprepared. Over the last month we have noticed that most companies fall into one of these three camps:
- Postponing and/or cancelling all training in the foreseeable future.
- Self-assessing and identifying current competency gaps while using in-house resources to address those gaps.
- Doubling down on training, tools, and the future as they see an opportunity and preparing to take full advantage.
As we thought through these typical responses and researched the last economic downturn, we came across a study by the BCG group. This study details the actions that were both the most and least effective to company performance and the employees’ commitment during the crisis. Included were two actions around training – cutting back on both individual and functional training – each action highlighted as the two LEAST effective actions which a company could implement during an economic downturn.
It motivated us to focus our keynote into one on helping learning leaders negotiate internally for more resources by providing them the tools to negotiate with their superiors and colleagues to buy into training during this challenging time when it may seem counter-intuitive. We are proud of this session and if it helped one CLO/Director of L&D/Sales Enablement/Learning Leader secure more funds, more buy-in, more resources of any type for a strong training initiative, it was all worthwhile….and supported by BCG!
