Virtual finance training is key to planning your way out of Covid
Quality online corporate finance training is giving businesses a critical edge as they plan financial strategies in a volatile environment.
By Mark Woolhouse, managing director, Capital City Training
As markets recover, many companies have an opportunity to fill long-standing talent gaps in finance while still working from home.
As the pandemic recedes, many firms need to rebuild finance capacity and skills quickly. But multiple surveys have shown a lack of adequate training over many years has led to a dire shortage of the right capabilities. Many companies tell us they lack the forecasting and planning skills they need to inform strategy and navigate the post-pandemic landscape effectively.
As they rebuild, companies need to train smarter to help them face ever more pressing challenges such as economic and political uncertainty; the impact of new technology; and shifting customer expectations. Covid has exacerbated many of these challenges and will likely reshape competitive structures, sources of growth, and product innovation.
If your company is still struggling financially, the need for skilled finance professionals to help you through the challenge has never been greater. For example, there may be some difficult conversations with your financiers ahead, which you need to be better equipped to handle.
The effects of the pandemic could bring growth, too – for example, acquiring competitors cheaply could accelerate expansion.
But you cannot face these challenges and opportunities if your team lacks a thorough understanding of strategic planning, budgeting, and other financial issues, such as valuing companies. Without proper training in these areas, you may miss these opportunities completely. Alongside finance teams, executives and non-finance staff also need better training on financial planning and strategic issues to help their companies navigate these challenges.
The time for virtual training is now
Lockdowns and working from home policies have forced many companies to rely more heavily on virtual training. But they have discovered and embraced the benefits quickly. For example, virtual training often allows them to cut training budgets by 30% to 40%, as it removes the need for venues, travel, and accommodation.
Virtual training allows much greater flexibility in terms of tailoring, timing, content and geography. A virtual course can effortlessly run in Sydney and London at the same time; and all in one day or across many weeks to suit trainees’ diaries. Any absent staff can easily watch videos of parts of the course to catch up.
People are still social and prefer working in task-focused teams. They learn by doing, discussing, collaborating and competing. With good case study material, a modular approach and innovations such as virtual break-out rooms, online training can allow this social approach to continue effectively but much more cheaply and flexibly.
Do not cut quality and interaction
Any employer looking to use online financial learning methods should be sure to maintain the quality of training, which means it must involve tailored participation from a hands-on, human trainer.
E-learning is not virtual training – it has much less human input. E-learning has its place but requires much more self-discipline for the trainee and can be a lonely, dry experience. To create your own e-learning programme can take lots of time and money, but the result can still be stodgy, static, rigid and much less likely to engage the trainee.
A human trainer, even through a screen, can entertain and connect with the audience; encourage active participation; tailor the material to your company’s needs; invigorate it with real-life, interactive studies; and adjust content whenever required.
Providing quality online finance training can also improve recruitment and retention, and boost morale by helping remote staff bond with their teams and feel more connected.
Most learning actually happens on the job. But companies are cutting down on their office environments, and staff continue to work from home as the pandemic recedes. This creates a huge challenge for companies as a generation of junior recruits will start their working life in their bedroom with little or no face-to-face contact with peers and managers. This could create a learning deficit that long-term costs companies much more than they save on desk space.
Virtual training cannot replace face-to-face interaction, but it is sufficiently social and flexible enough to help address this problem.
To show how a flexible virtual training programme could work in practice, imagine your team is working on a four-week project to build a business case for a major new investment, ending with a pitch and presentation to the board. Virtual training can support this project from start to finish. For example, the team could start with an introductory session, then get together for short weekly tutorials, case studies and mentoring. It could reduce costs further by blending in some technical e-learning around the sessions.
Instead of taking everyone away for two days, you could also split people into smaller teams and have more focused and time sensitive team sessions over the four weeks.
This flexible and targeted approach should help your staff create a highly polished and effective pitch without ever leaving their dining room tables.
Why virtual learning is crucial in corporate finance
Whether you are struggling, thriving or somewhere in between, your staff must keep on top of cashflow and strategic modelling skills to help plan your company’s post-pandemic strategy.
Improving corporate finance capability will enhance dialogue between teams and allow staff to play a more meaningful role in this strategic planning. It can also trigger new ways of thinking about challenges and opportunities – invigorating mindsets and sparking dynamism in your teams. People often come back from training days with a renewed sense of momentum, giving exhausted staff a desperately needed injection of energy and optimism.
The pandemic is only one of many pressures that may have led you to neglect your finance training, making skills gaps wider. Others may have included the threat of increasing regulation and technological disruption. But as the benefits of virtual finance training become clearer, you have a chance to address the skills gap for the long-term good of your staff and your company – and there has never been a better time to do it.
