In March 2020, when pandemic-related lockdowns were adopted around the country, people were quick to pivot to online educational and networking opportunities. Individuals signed up for webinars and learned how to navigate Zoom; companies and other organizations quickly produced online offerings.
Initially, there was a sense that everyone must make do until things could return to “normal.” But an interesting shift happened along the way. Hidden benefits to online gatherings were discovered, not only for the organizations offering the online experiences, but for participants.
Virtual training: Is the change permanent?
Some aspects of post-pandemic training are likely to be one-time events. For example, with fewer cars on the road in early 2020, there were fewer accidents and therefore fewer new repair jobs coming in. Shops were able to work through their backlogs and focus on other priorities—sometimes for the first time in years. This change was situation-specific and not likely to be ongoing, but it presented a valuable opportunity. When shops are too busy to slow production, crews may fall behind when it comes to building expertise on the newest products and repair techniques. The respite shops experienced in 2020 allowed the value of training to outweigh the value of production for most owners. While no owner is ever comfortable with a drop in production, it is important to remember that training is a long-term investment that will improve profitability over the long term.
Another unique aspect of 2020 was that employers throughout the industry had to furlough employees, reduce hours, etc., and many senior staff chose retirement options if they were offered. This led to a sudden drop in team-wide experience levels. Because the repair industry had already struggled to fill its talent funnel due to workforce shortages, these retirements exacerbated the knowledge gap. Shop owners responded by conducting more training than they might have been planning for at the outset of the year.
Benefits of virtual training
Perhaps the biggest benefit to virtual training has been a fuller understanding of the opportunity costs imposed by constant physical travel. The logistics of travel, hours spent in transit, and the inconvenience of ad-hoc working conditions while on the road—all, ultimately, can represent time and money that is better spent elsewhere. One of the best places to reallocate funds is toward more touchpoints, including those with previously underserved customers.
Auto body shops in remote areas, for example, may have historically received many fewer in-person visits from vendors than their urban counterparts. But with Webex, Skype, Zoom and many other platforms now offering a simple way for product representatives and technicians to connect, ample training opportunities are available. Moreover, virtual “visits” from a product representative can happen in more than one location simultaneously. For example, one training event was attended by several multi-shop operators, spread across five different states. A total of more than 70 individuals participated in that session. Having a single educator conduct training in more than one location at once is an efficiency that was undreamt of before the pandemic.
In addition to body shops, distributors need to keep up-to-date with new products and repair procedures. The more knowledge a distributor can pass along to the shops who purchase from them, the more valuable the service they are providing. Distribution owners, therefore, have shown great interest in using down time to train their sales teams.
How Does Virtual Training Work?
An important discovery enabled by the country’s sudden, enforced learning curve was that even “hands-on” training can be conducted remotely. With proper planning and set-up, in which trainees have workstations and supplies at the ready, remote instructors can guide them and give feedback very effectively.
Employers or other point persons within the shop should gather training materials (such as panels or other substrates) well in advance of the training date. Adequate time should be factored in to contact the vendor for any additional materials needed (such as adhesives), including time to have the material shipped.
Breakout rooms--a feature many software platforms now provide--can be used to separate large groups into smaller ones, enhancing the personalization of the training and potentially increasing participants' comfort with speaking out and asking questions. It is even possible to have breakout teams present to the larger group. The chat feature of software can be used to optimize the efficiency of a training session. Instead of setting aside a long block of time for questions and answers, questions can be submitted in real time and answered by a moderator. This not only captures questions while they are fresh but can shorten the total time of the training event.
Shops and distributors should invest in stable Wi-Fi, webcams, microphones and any other equipment necessary to ensure every attendee can see and be seen (as well as heard). The team should be fully briefed on how interactive software works; for example, they should be shown what control features will enable them to record the session (if desired), initiate a two-way chat, share information from their own computer screen, or manage settings such as volume. Employers should also make sure that employees attending training are-comfortable talking and asking questions in the new, virtual format. As with in-person training sessions, it should be emphasized to attendees that all the normal rules of etiquette apply: personal devices should be put away, email programs should be turned off, and full attention should be paid to the speaker. Finally, any drawbacks associated with not having the trainer on-site to provide physical help are greatly offset by having a better trainee-to-instructor ratio. Remote instructors are often able to dedicate themselves to one-on-one instruction as opposed to being in a large classroom setting.
Most people are looking forward to a slow return of face-to-face meetings. Many experts, however, predict that there will never be a full return to what we once viewed as normal: cross-country trips undertaken for relatively low ROI training sessions. In the future, in-person meetings are likely to be deployed much more strategically than they were before—owners and employers will want to be sure that those meetings are high value. Employees, too, are likely to weigh in with their preferences. Overall, teams will be able to achieve a balance between in-person and digital formats, catering to personal preferences, budgets and logistics.
While a “can-do” spirit and sense of perseverance may have prompted the mass migration to online venues, now that the formats are established, they are likely to have staying power. The reduction in workload and decline in institutional knowledge that took a toll on the aftermarket repair industry in 2020 brought training needs to the fore—but those needs were well-answered by the industry’s willingness to transition to new ways of learning.
