These times are anything but typical. We’re dealing with health, social and economic challenges all at the same time. We need new strategies and skills to move forward and transition our organizations.
Don’t let your people struggle through these challenges and leave as a result of poor leadership - or worse - become disengaged and stay. Instead, help your leaders develop the skills to create a new vision, and align their staff to move through new ideas quickly, breakdown innovation barriers and recognize new opportunities.
Your competitors are re-inventing themselves, pivoting their services and identifying new markets. So your leaders need to be agile, people-centred problem solvers who can clearly communicate your vision and coach their staff to be resilient, collaborative, adaptable life-long learners who understand the goals. Your corporate survival likely depends on it. What are you and your people capable of doing? And what upskilling is required?
If any industry has pivoted recently, it’s training and development. As of March 15th, speaking engagements and face-to-face contracts were either postponed or cancelled. Some organizations had previously been delivering blended solutions, e-learning, some virtual webinars and limited classroom training. Then within days, the entire industry needed to ramp up, re-examine and re-skill almost every program to help their clients deal with the new “working from home” reality. I am proud of how our industry has re-tooled and readied ourselves to help organizations develop their staff for this new economy.
WATMEC is right in step with these industry changes. We had previously offered a limited number of virtual classroom courses and often augmented our coaching with e-learning knowledge modules. But we recognized the need to re-tool everything, and do so at the same exceptional level of our face-to-face training.
I invite you to check out the new Live Virtual Classroom Training section on the WATMEC website. We feel we are well on our way to meeting the needs of the virtual marketplace with our training solutions. We will continue to add topics and explore new technology as it becomes available and affordable. And we will continue to provide details about the government training grants available to some of our clients.
We know that a training budget cut likely looms ahead of us, and yet, more than ever we are willing and able to help show that training is an investment, not a cost. That it makes a difference in how your company can and will survive and thrive in the future.
So create that new vision, evaluate what skills your people will need to deliver it, then talk to someone in training and development to make it happen.
At WATMEC we’re doing our part. We’re all in this together.
Dale
At WATMEC, we’re doing our part to help you manage through the COVID-19 crisis. Review our new Live Virtual Training section, and visit our homepage for our complimentary online learning opportunities.
About Dale
Dale Wilcox is co-owner of WATMEC. Dale is a respected board member, former volunteer of the year, and inaugural Chair of the Canadian Society for Training and Development.