Organizations Need to Level Up Efforts With Virtual Meetings, Webinars, and Training

Virtual work is here to stay, which means virtual meetings and training are here to stay too. It’s time for organizations and business leaders to get serious about improving engagement in the virtual space and make sure their meetings, webinars, and training efforts deliver valuable impact. To help support this, the Association for Talent Development (ATD) has released a new book, Interact and Engage, 2nd Edition: 75+ Activities for Virtual Training, Meetings, and Webinars, authored by master virtual trainer Kassy LaBorie and Tom Stone, a senior research analyst for the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp).

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The COVID-19 pandemic almost overnight created a new reality that forced a large percentage of the global workforce into remote work. That abrupt transition also shifted the reality of meetings and talent development initiatives. While virtual training and meetings occasionally happened at many organizations prior to the pandemic, the reality of mandatory shutdowns shifted the importance—and frequency—of those virtual engagements.

“The shift to remote work, meetings, and virtual training was so abrupt and so broad that many people struggled to feel comfortable using platforms like Zoom, Teams, Webex, and others,” LaBorie observes. “Making sure online meetings, webinars, and training programs were interactive, engaging, and effective had long been something I was focused on, but suddenly it was everyone’s goal.” LaBorie contends that while many professionals successfully made the jump to the virtual environment, it is now time to get intentional with virtual meetings, webinars, and training by using leading practices that ensure engagement, drive knowledge and skill development, and create lasting behavior change.

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Interact and Engage! includes research that indicates virtual training and meetings are here to stay. Data from i4cp show that virtual training went from being an infrequently used approach (51 percent of survey participants said it comprised 20 percent or less of their organization’s instructor-led training) to becoming the most commonly used approach. Eighty-three percent of i4cp’s survey participants said virtual training comprised 80 percent or more of their instructor-led training since the onset of the pandemic.

With that reality in mind, the authors set out to update their original work, published in 2015, with more timely and relevant insights to help today’s global workforce embrace and excel in creating and facilitating virtual experiences.

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