Shortly after Clarisse Agbegnenou started a coaching course at HEC Paris, in October of last year, the second Covid-19 lockdown threw her into the world of online executive training. The French judo champion is used to endurance tests, but quickly found herself suffering from “zoom fatigue” on endless video calls. “It’s hard to concentrate for long – I get restless,” she says.

Agbegnenou, who competes in the 63 kg category, has won four world judo titles, a handful of European championships and an Olympic silver medal. While she believes in-person meetings can enable richer interactions that are difficult to replicate online, she admits that technology has reduced travel costs and made learning more convenient.

“I didn’t want to leave campus, but I was happy that we could continue to learn despite a global pandemic,” she says.

The 30-day course, at € 19,900, gave her the coaching skills and confidence to prepare for a second career when she retires from the sport. Agbegnenou, 28, still has a lot of struggles but wants to become a life coach in the future, helping people overcome professional and personal challenges.

The coronavirus has hit executive training programs hard, with many participants unwilling to switch to digital training, at least initially. “In the spring of 2020, our activities were not successful,” says Don Huesman, executive director of e-learning at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. “Many companies rated the face-to-face experience as superior. We are mammals; it is in our DNA to prefer to be in the physical presence of each other.

Anne-Valérie Corboz, associate dean of executive training at HEC Paris, agrees that the coronavirus has upset the economic model. Executive training has always been one of the least digitized areas of business education, with most of the income coming from in-person classes, she says. “It was not easy having to move the entire portfolio online almost overnight. Covid-19 has forced a complete rethink of what we deliver – and how. ”

The good news for business schools is that enthusiasm for online education has been boosted by the pandemic. Corboz says executives have become more familiar with technology in a remote working world, providing a vital source of income. “Technology has been our savior,” she says.

Denis Konanchuk, director of executive education at Skolkovo Business School in Moscow, said the technology actually secures the income from executive education, which many business schools rely heavily on.

“Technology has helped us replace the lost income of the spring; our bottom line has remained constant, ”he says. But schools must strike a trade-off between the often higher price of in-person courses and the lower costs and scalability of online training.

Professors at Moscow’s Skolkovo Business School found that they needed to “ inject more energy ” into the teaching sessions © DPA / Alamy

Suppliers have also had to redesign online programs to appeal to skeptical corporate customers. Konanchuk notes that Zoom’s fatigue reduced attendees’ enthusiasm for the lectures. “What we were doing on campus just doesn’t work online,” he says. “Everyone is so tired that we have to inject more energy into the sessions.” This includes frequent small group discussions where participants reflect on the application of the learning to their work. “Online education is more about asking questions than giving answers,” he says.

Philip Moscoso, associate dean of executive education at Iese Business School in Spain, agrees that “you can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach” to online education. He reflects on the challenge of overcoming faculty resistance to technology: “We had to get all teachers up to speed quickly with a crash course in online teaching.”

Now that the pandemic is in its second year, confidence in the merits of online education has been boosted. Moscoso points out that it’s easier to attract top guest speakers as well as time-strapped clients into a virtual classroom. Digital delivery also allays concerns about the high cost and carbon footprint of so many trips, he says.

Another advantage is the democratization of learning. Eleanor Murray, Associate Dean for Executive Education at Oxford: Said Business School, says technology gives access to more applicants, rather than courses just for senior executives. “We started to reach a new audience who might not have considered executive education,” she says. “Technology offers the possibility of extending programs across entire organizations.”

The pandemic has prompted investment in technology to enrich the learning experience. “For most schools, Zoom was a temporary solution, but we are getting more and more sophisticated,” explains Corboz at HEC Paris, which tests holograms that broadcast a live image of a tutor or participant on the campus. “You get the non-verbal communication that Zoom lacks. It is a step in the future. “

For most participants, however, studying on campus still offers a deeper level of engagement and better networking opportunities. Christof Grass-Fleury was scheduled to start Iese’s management development program in Barcelona last year, but the pandemic forced him to move online (although on-campus classes continued for those who could travel ). “What you lack are all the social interactions, the informal coffee-shops where you really get to know people,” he says. “There is a quality of interaction that you cannot replicate online.”

But Grass-Fleury – who heads a team of catastrophe reinsurance analysts at Zurich Insurance in Switzerland – says technology has encouraged introverts to speak out in the classroom. “People often monopolize the discussion, but with videoconferencing, the distribution of airtime is more even.” He shares a consensus view that online training is here to stay.

Don Huesman of Wharton says many training providers expect to “turn the classroom around,” with students learning material at their own pace online, then coming to campus for a group discussion and hands-on application of the material. theory.

“Online learning can complement rather than cannibalize our current face-to-face activity,” he says. “We’ll probably see a combination of the two. . . in the future.”