When planning a corporate learning event, the method of delivery plays an enormous role in reaching your intended audience. Is it best to go virtual, or should you gather your people face-to-face? Is a hybrid method the answer, or should you opt for a fully digital approach? The answer depends on the objective, scope, timeline, and budget of your project. For instance, an enterprise-wide upskilling initiative will have a very different set of priorities than a training retreat delivered to a few dozen executives. However, in both cases, it is important to get the delivery details right. In this blog, we examine four types of learning events, exploring their unique strengths and sharing invaluable insights into when and where they work best.
#1 Face-to-Face Learning Events
In a face-to-face learning event, participants and speakers gather in person to learn together as a group. These in-person learning events are often led by facilitators and may include keynote speeches and lectures, as well as additional smaller group activities such as breakout discussions, workshops, and hands-on opportunities.
The Advantages of Face-to-Face Learning
The biggest advantage of a face-to-face approach is the opportunity to interact directly with other participants. In a face-to-face setting, participants are free from external distractions and focused on the topics being discussed. Learners can collaborate with others by sharing, discussing, and asking questions together. This drives deeper engagement, which helps learners better retain what they have learned. An in-person event also provides valuable networking opportunities, allowing employees to build professional relationships with colleagues from across the organization.
Challenges with Face-to-Face Learning
While face-to-face events offer plenty of benefits, they are the most difficult and costly to plan and execute. For starters, it can be challenging to find a venue that’s accessible to attendees and that can accommodate the size of the group. It’s also important to ensure that the venue provides access to projectors, screens, wi-fi, and rooms for small group activities. Additionally, arranging flights and accommodations for participants can be costly and time-consuming.
Face-to-Face Learning Works Best:
- When applied to small or moderate-sized events
- For leadership conferences or departmental initiatives
- To provide opportunities to interact and network
- For excellent collaboration and preventing external distractions
#2 Virtual Learning Events
Virtual learning events are still staged live but take place entirely online, with both participants and facilitators interacting through a virtual platform, instead of meeting in person.
The Advantages of Virtual Learning
Virtual learning events are more flexible, scalable and cost-effective than face-to-face events. When an event is staged virtually, it eliminates the logistical and budgetary challenges involved with transporting, providing meals and accommodating participants. Since employees and facilitators can join the event from anywhere in the world, it makes the experience accessible to a much larger audience.
Virtual events also allow administrators to provide a wider range of learning activities—such as polls, quizzes and learning games—that are much easier to deliver when everyone is working virtually.
Challenges with Virtual Learning
While a virtual event eliminates many of the difficulties associated with an in-person event, hosting a virtual event for a large audience presents its own challenges. First, you will need to find a platform that can accommodate the size of your audience and provide the features necessary for hosting breakout sessions and other small group activities. You also need to provide adequate technical support to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Additionally, if you have attendees joining from different regions and time zones, it can be difficult to find a time that accommodates everyone’s schedule.
Virtual events lack the engagement and networking opportunities of face-to-face gatherings. Therefore, it’s crucial to have a facilitator skilled in using interactive activities to keep learners engaged. Furthermore, it is important to maximize audience participation by using your digital platform to replicate in-person activities, such as breakout rooms, whiteboards and virtual collaborative spaces, or by incorporating a greater variety of digitally exclusive activities into the experience, such as games and simulations.
Virtual Learning Works Best:
- For both large-scale and smaller events
- For limited budgets
- To accommodate participants in different regions and time zones
- For programs with a shorter duration (2–3 hours)
#3 Hybrid Learning Events
Hybrid learning events are live presentations that are presented through both face-to-face and virtual delivery methods, allowing participants to choose how they participate.
The Advantages of Hybrid Learning
Hybrid learning events offer a highly flexible solution that caters to everyone’s unique preferences and circumstances. By allowing employees to choose how they participate, organizations make their events more accessible and inclusive to their entire workforce, including those with mobility issues or other challenges.
A hybrid approach provides the benefits of both face-to-face and virtual modalities. It can reduce travel and venue costs, while still offering the advantages of in-person learning and networking for those who are interested.
Challenges with Hybrid Learning
Hosting a hybrid event will require you to overcome the challenges associated with both in-person and virtual events. It is critically important to understand how many people will be attending in person and how much of your audience will be virtual. This will determine both the size of the venue that you need and the platform that will be necessary for digital participants.
Since hybrid learning combines both face-to-face and digital options, it is also important to balance your delivery so that it is not too heavily weighted toward one experience. Be sure to provide a range of materials that accommodate both types of learner; otherwise, you risk alienating a significant part of your audience.
Hybrid Learning Works Best:
- For events of all sizes
- As an effective option for a distributed workforce
- To deliver learning at scale efficiently
- For participants who may not be able to travel to the site location
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#4 Digital Learning Events
Unlike the other three types, a digital learning approach is not a single live event, but a combination of learning activities that are accessed remotely. Digital learning events often utilize a blend of asynchronous and synchronous learning. For instance, the event may include webinars, virtual classes, and lectures, supplemented by eLearning courses, articles, or work assignments.
The Advantages of Digital Learning
Digital learning enables you to take a blended approach to learning that would be difficult in a face-to-face, virtual or hybrid event. In a blended learning journey, participants engage with a variety of activities, each of which targets a different learning style. For instance, webinars and virtual classes provide an avenue for social learning, while videos use visuals, lectures use audio, and games provide interactive learning opportunities. This mixture of learning methods greatly boosts learner engagement and retention.
In a digital event, all activities are accessed remotely, making it much more cost-effective than in-person or hybrid events. This also makes it much easier to accommodate learners in different time zones.
Challenges with Digital Learning
While face-to-face, virtual, and hybrid learning events are delivered at a particular time, digital learning allows participants to complete lessons at their own pace. This is more convenient for learners, but it is not as well suited to driving changes that are high-priority or time-sensitive.
It can also be challenging to keep learners on task and engaged throughout the experience. For this reason, it may be necessary to assign a digital moderator to communicate with your learners, observe engagement activity, and nudge participants to complete activities in a timely manner.
Digital Learning Works Best:
- For building general knowledge and skills
- For time-poor employees
- As a career development tool
- At delivering learning at scale
Choose a Learning Event That Balances Your Priorities
When planning a learning event, it is important to choose a delivery method that aligns with the full range of your project’s needs. Start by focusing on your objective and determining which type of event will help you best accomplish your goals. Once determined, it’s important to balance this ideal solution with the project’s scope, timeline and budgetary constraints. While a face-to-face event may be ideal, it might not fit your budget. In such cases, a hybrid event can be a workable compromise, offering in-person learning at a reduced cost.
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