For the last month or so, we have all gone into what marketing company Taboola calls “content consumption mode,” voraciously reading anything and everything that has even the tiniest mention of coronavirus. Almost all of us are also sitting at home, trying valiantly to adjust to the new “normal” of working and living at the same place, in the confines of our homes — jackets above the waist and pajamas below, cats on keyboards, kids waltzing in during video calls with the boss …

Those of us who do not have a study, have hastily shuffled furniture, changed curtains, hung pictures and rearranged bookshelves in our sitting rooms, dining rooms, or even bedrooms to turn them into offices. Many of us were so preoccupied with these changes to our personal routines that we haven’t come around to think about our professional lives (except the occasional jitters that we may lose our jobs).

Now that we have (hopefully) brought about some semblance of order at the SOHO (small office/home office), it’s time for us, as learning and development (L&D) leaders, to ask ourselves six questions:

1. Have You Converted Any of Your Classroom Training Into Virtual Training?

If your answer is “yes,” kudos to you. How did it go? How can you improve it? Did you collect feedback from the learners and the trainers? How are you planning to evaluate future virtual training at a higher level?

If your answer is “no,” ask yourself, “Why not?” Everyone is spending hours on virtual meetings — why not sit through an hour-long class? Are you feeling complacent that things may soon come back to normal and that it will be “business as usual”?

2. Is Your Organization Doing any Training Continuity Planning?

Most successful companies have a business continuity plan — but what about talent development planning and efforts in the short term, medium term and long term? In the last month, was there a senior-level meeting to discuss training? Your business heads and vice presidents are all probably furiously discussing revenues, collections, works in progress and inventories, but has there been even a mention of training? Are your training plans going to be honored? What are you going to do about it? Can you create a training continuity plan?

3. If the Current Scenario Continues, What Training Options Are You Considering?

Will you evaluate your existing courses and start thinking about which of them should be made into virtual training and which into eLearning? Will you consider a blended approach and minimize classroom training? Will you forget about mobile learning? (Remember, nobody is mobile anymore!) Will self-paced eLearning become obsolete? Do you think microlearning in video format may engage learners better?

4. What New Training Needs Do You Forsee?

We are experiencing a lot of change in how our customers buy; how our organizations sell and deliver to them; and how we hire, train and manage employees. That change is here to stay, and the only way for employees to master change is to acquire new knowledge, skills and attitudes. There can be many new training needs. Maybe you need to train employees on how to be productive and professional while working from home or managers and leaders on how to engage and motivate staff remotely. What about training your salespeople on how to sell on the phone or on a video chat? Can you train people on online interpersonal skills? Will you train your trainers on virtual delivery?

5. Do You Predict a Reduction in Training Budgets?

If your answer is a “yes,” don’t wait to react. Be proactive, and make sure the powers that be understand that training has to continue or even increase if you are to bounce back. Most of us can actually spend more on training now if we use even part of the money we’re all saving on the travel and hotel costs previously earmarked for classroom training. Think out of the box to convince your stakeholders that reducing training spend will, ultimately, be counterproductive.

6. Where Will You Spend, and Where Will You Make Cuts?

Will you consider moving to a more economical learning management system (LMS) or eliminating insipid catalog courses that you buy in the thousands? Converting most of your classroom training into live virtual or recorded digital sessions? Making a more rigorous training needs assessment? Asking learners what they want to learn, for a change? Changing over to rapid eLearning design and development and ending those costly albatrosses of eLearning design processes that includes all kinds of bell and whistles?

We are definitely living in tough times, but as the saying goes, they don’t last, but we will, if we persevere. To paraphrase Nietzsche, we will come out stronger, make no mistake. Everyone agrees that learning is important — but is anyone saying that it is urgent? As L&D professionals, we need to be more proactive to keep the flame of training and learning burning bright in our organizations. When these times pass, people will thank you, but for now, gird your loins. Failure is not an option.