Unexpected impact of the coronavirus epidemic: Many companies have trained workers

“One of the lessons we have learned from the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus is that no one can just sit back and do nothing, you have to adapt to the constantly changing environment,” Péter Fehér, Dean for Executive Degree Programmes and Academic Specialisation Postgraduate Training at Corvinus University of Budapest, told Portfolio. The expert also pointed out that many companies have seen the opportunity in the difficult situation. For example, last autumn there was a significant increase in the number of applicants for postgraduate specialisation programmes: according to Fehér, many employers decided to train their employees, as this can be seen as a fringe benefit, and both the company and the employee benefit from it.

 The economic impact of the coronavirus crisis varies between industries and companies and depends on a number of factors. According to Péter Fehér, Dean for Executive Degree Programmes and Academic Specialisation Postgraduate Training at Corvinus University of Budapest, the companies that have been able to recover the fastest are those that have reacted very quickly, not playing the waiting game, but taking action: they have started development, put a strong emphasis on digitalisation, motivated employees rather than laying them off.

What Covid-19 has shown is that no one can sit back and do nothing: not me as a lecturer, but neither can students, employees or employers do so, either,” he said, adding that everything is changing very fast and anyone who wants to stay on their feet has to keep up. Fehér said that no one has ever experienced a crisis like the one we are experiencing now, and that the economic crisis caused by the Coronavirus is of a very different nature from the 2008 global crisis.

Companies need up-to-date, quickly usable knowledge

According to Péter Fehér, one explanation for the increased number of applicants could be that many companies have trained employees as a kind of fringe benefit. At the Corvinus University of Budapest, the proportion of students taking part in postgraduate specialisation programmes has not changed significantly, and in 2020, roughly 50 percent of them still had their workplace financing the cost of their training. According to Fehér:


“The students are practically all professionals of their trade, it’s a strong community of professionals who are looking for solutions to real problems, and they can try out what they have learned in the workplace the following week, and report back on their experiences at the next training session,” the dean explained.

The training period is a minimum of 2 semesters and a maximum of 4 semesters, applicants must have at least a bachelor’s degree or a college or university degree under the former system, and in fact the programme offers a practice-oriented specialisation building on previous studies.

The changes brought about by Covid are markedly present in the course of the training


In autumn 2020, the corporate internal and executive coach training course was launched, with a response of huge interest and excessive applications. According to Fehér, this may be due to the fact that the epidemic situation has very much changed the role of managers, with human resources issues affecting the organisation becoming very decisive.

There was also a strong demand for research and innovation manager/economist training, which may be partly due to the fact that some companies have realised that innovation and development should not be neglected even amidst economic difficulties.

“It has become clear over the past year and a half that a change of perspective is needed. Supply chain management is successful when it works with the latest technologies and appropriate databases, in some cases it is necessary to make decisions based on data, which is not yet the case in many companies, but this needs to be worked on,” said Péter Fehér.

In September, the first international project manager training course will be launched, in partnership with a non-profit organisation, the Project Management Institute, to train project managers who are able to independently manage medium complexity projects in international traditional and virtual environments to meet the challenges of the 21st century.


The tourism and hospitality sector has been hit hard by the Cornavirus epidemic. The tourism development manager/economist course will focus on how to revitalise the sector, what has been learnt from the past year and a half, what could be done differently, and will provide students with modern, marketable and globally applicable knowledge.


Source: Portfolio