A short read 3 minutes

Efficient Shorter Workshop Sessions Are The Future.

Organisations, Industry, NGO’s and training companies have to realise that the era of long full day or longer seminars are no longer relevant.

COVID-19 And Remote Working & Shorter Workshop Sessions

The workplace probably forever, but from a positive point of view, made time management and the allocation of that time of paramount importance. The time required for every meeting, workshop, or activity is being put under the microscope of time and is being re-evaluated in terms of the time each requires.

The objectives for these activities have not changed only the time required for the delivery.
We have been offering companies shorter bite-sized shorter seminar training for many years, generally not exceeding three hours or even shorter sessions.

The advantages of shorter workshops sessions are numerous.

1. Less work rescheduling and disruption
2. Avoiding the afternoon yawning training session after lunch 😊
3. Cost-effective for the company
4. No catering is required
5. The delegates can be trained remotely or in the office
6. Bite-size knowledge is transferred
7. More time for Q&A sessions
8. Discuss actual work-related matters, almost consultancy.
9. The training material is customised to only deal with one or two features per session.
10. Training for the full course can be done over a few weeks. Planning is easier and work progress can be evaluated by the relevant superiors.

11. More skilled employees only need to attend the sessions that they need to. Less time wastage.
12. Boredom is minimised.
13. Participation is enhanced and in an emergency, a delegate can attend to any urgent problem.
14. A greater personal willingness to attend a seminar as there is only a small disruption to their work schedule.
15. As the training is onsite or virtual, transportation and other logistics are avoided.
16. The course material can be customised to include the company’s documents, budgets, etc.
17. Generic examples are fine for basic levels, but the objective is to transfer new concepts DIRECTLY into the workplace, therefore using work-related data is the logical solution.
18. Generations X and Z apparently have shorter attention spans and get disinterested quickly. Shorter seminars are a solution.
19. The pace of the training can be adjusted to match the subject matter and difficulty thereof within the session.
20. Follow-up questions can be prepared for the next sessions by the facilitator and delegates.

Many companies are experiencing financial hardships due to lockdown, looting, and the “Great Resignation” phenomenon where large numbers of good employees are resigning, due to a lack of feeling a sense of belonging and due to remote working and other issues. I will be sharing a blog about this problem shortly.

In a recent article about training

McKinsey & Company comments: “Now is the time for companies to double down on their learning budgets and commit to reskilling. Developing this muscle will also strengthen companies for future disruptions.”
Arranging short weekly seminars is a method of making your employees feel more inclusive and help to retain these valuable members of staff.

For example, we train many Excel courses, from Basics, Advanced , and Dashboard reporting. The client then expects the employees to absorb these complex features and implement them in the workplace. Quite often they are not successful and then the” Facilitator” was not great! and running shorter workshop sessions could be the solution.

Attending shorter workshop sessions

with weekly follow-ups and sessions just dealing with the integration of the new concepts is so effective and a simple way of achieving the company’s goals of more productive staff. Higher productivity also can mean a happier workforce.

In some cases, the problem that the staff is experiencing is the lack of VBA Automation which can reduce the drudgery of performing mundane tasks like spreadsheet reconciliation that can be Automated.

I look forward to any comments and where your company has started using shorter workshop training sessions. Arnold email sales@collegeafricagroup.com

Learn More About Workshop Sessions

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