Training & Development - The challenges associated with introducing e-learning within organisations

Benjamin (1994), as citied by Salmon (2000:11), 4further qualified these benefits for the e-learner as being unlocked from shackles or fixed and rigid schedules and from physical limitations. E-learning was still underrated as according to the Economist Global Executive (2003) 5elearning still remained greatly under-utilised, despite its potential and some success. Reeves & Hedberg (2003) believe that most learning environments remained mired in outmoded educational methods. Reeves feel that the effectiveness of technology in any learning environment depends upon the degree that it supports appropriate ‘pedagogical’ dimensions. McPherson & Nunes, 2004 argue that although e-learning is a great idea many educators will find it difficult as they are experts in their fields who lack experience in online teaching.

Many forum focus took an inclusive definition of e-learning as “delivery of training and education via networked interactivity and a range of other knowledge collection and distribution technologies” (Fry, 2000) although some saw only Internet delivery as “e” learning (Bibby, 2000) and others preferred to speak widely of “distance education” that uses a wide range of device independent technologies (Lance, 2000). There are other many challenges identified, when introducing e-learning in an organisation. All companies should do a full learning gap analysis assessment before introducing e-learning into the company as the view supported by the DfES 2004 states that “before it is decided whether e-learning is a suitable approach, a business case needs to be established and the genuine learning needs of e-learners within the institution need to be identified”. Many companies make mistakes when introducing e-learning, HRD online listed the common mistakes companies make when introducing e-learning:

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Here are some of the main points over the challenges of introducing e-learning within organisations and ways to overcome them:

1. Change in corporate culture,
2. Motivating employees towards e-learning
3. Management problems
4. Internal/External recruitment of project manager

Changing in the corporate culture is the biggest challenge in the whole process of introducing e-learning. This is because most companies put their employees through a conference centre for training. Majority of employees don’t welcome change but change is encouraged for the betterment of the company as 1‘the way we do things around here’ must be implemented for the company’s improvement. The first problem (HRD online states is that) when introducing elearning in 2most organisations the elearning process is not well understood. 

To start with an ‘e-learning culture’ must be established as Connor states that 3an e-learning culture is a learning culture where leaders at all levels are enthusiastically engaging one another through available technologies to learn and prosper in an increasingly turbulent world. The aim would be to stop employees going to the conference centres explain to them the benefits of online raining/learning. The benefits are such as how e-learning gives more training to more people for a fraction of the cost and time of other methods and how it is now a known fact that 4e-learning saves time, money, resources, and it delivers measurable, tangible results.  Instant access to information is one of the best factors for e-learning. 

Connor shows how important it is for an e-learning culture to be established and explains how to do it:

http://agelesslearner.com/intros/elc.html

Connor explains how difficult it is to change culture but states that starting from the third level is best as one of the challenges of explaining an organizational culture is to infer this third level, the underlying values and operating principles, which Chris Argyris calls the organization’s “theories in use.” If leaders within an organization publicly espouse one thing and model another, their actions speak louder than their words.

(P Wilson, 2005, p323)

This diagram shows some a perspective of Wilson (2005) of the layers that are associated with e-learning, and it is considered important to discuss some of the most important issues starting with the broadest level.

The organisation must motivate the employees in order for them to understand why e-learning is important, because people fear the unknown. The key to success is moving knowledge from the people who have it to the people who need it. E-learning gives the learner the power to do exactly that but even then there are many who prefer to come to training sessions rather than sit at home trying to learn. Motivation can decrease for some employees don’t understand how to use computers and feel that the company cares less for them that’s why they are cutting costs and using the cheapest method of training. There is still the question of those who are not computer literate and they will oppose any sort of relation with computers as those employees who are used to being trained by professional coaches will not be comfortable by having a computer system training them. Examples of past success will help to motivate as Cisco Systems commented that in general its personnel were all happy to accept e-learning on the Internet because they tended to come to the organisation with a technological bent (Gill, 2000).

I. Page (2005), How to buy successful e-Learning:

Employees will fear something they don’t know about much so the company can motivate employees by showing them the benefits of e-learning such as cost-Effectiveness / Efficient use of funds as funds are put directly into training nothing else (Horton 2001); measurement is made easier as the output can be measured, because certain functions allow the computer to report on individual employee’s performance as unlike traditional forms of business training, measuring completion rates is an excellent way to assess whether delegates found e-Learning relevant (Page 2005) and this feedback is important to be able to implement the system (Harrison 1998). Convenient accessibility is important as e-learning allows employees to access the information anytime they want as long as they have a computer and the internet and this also allows flexibility so employees can learn in their own pace as e-learning can also be  customised (Fry 2000). E-learning can also improve collaboration and interactivity as timid employees may find technology an easy way to ‘break the ice’ and talk to those they couldn’t before. E-learning also allows variety as certain courses are out of reach from employees but with e-learning variety is at their finger tips.

I. Page (2005), How to buy successful e-Learning:

Management problems may arise when introducing e-learning. This is because of many reasons but there are three main reasons. The first reasons are because IT managers (usually big companies have IT managers) may not feel comfortable running this new system as they may not want to change the way they work form day to day. The second reason would be fear of employee accelerating further and taking their jobs as It is understandable that many employers are reluctant to provide staff training that may provide the individual with accreditation and the opportunity to move in higher positions in another company but many managers/owners of SME’s have difficulties to accept the added value of further qualification of employees to the company in general (Scheuermann & Reich, 2002). Finally internal/external recruitment may arise conflicts within an organisation for the position of project manager

(Please refer to internal/external recruitment of project manager next page)

(computer.howstuffworks.com/elearning3.htm)

The recruitment of the role of project manager externally may cause problems because there would be managers within the company who feel they can handle general training without having to hire someone new. Recruiting internally would also cause problems because if someone is picked to be the project manager then other would generate conflict asking why they weren’t picked instead (or jealousy) as DfES states that “an appropriately skilled person must be appointed to take control of all key aspects of an e-learning project.”

It is difficult to introduce e-learning to a company because there are employee who now understand the benefits of having e-learning but they also fear that they will miss out other elements (please review below).

• Cutting social interaction out of the equation - Many fear that e-learning causes social problems as the face-to-face human interaction with a teacher has been removed from the process, argues RS Peters (a philosopher of education). However, these human interactions can be encouraged through video conferencing.

• E-learner or isolated learner? - There is also the feeling of isolation experienced by distance learners because although there are discussion forums and other computer-based communication but this is still ‘virtual’ and lacks ‘real’ interaction (Wenger 2000). Organisations can fix this if they have weekly meetings/gatherings to discuss progress and this will give distance learners a chance to interact.

• Cost-effective? - The topic of e-leaning being cost-effective can be debateable because it does technically save any organisation money on training but web and software development in particular can be expensive (Lassey 1998) as can someone hired to create materials for the training topic to be put on the net as software needs to be purchased and then someone has to create information from data to be in the e-learning course and this is also time-consuming.

In summary e-learning has definite benefits over traditional classroom training, while the most obvious are the flexibility and the cost savings from not having to travel or spend excess time away from work. Traditional approaches to training the corporate workforce are time-consuming and excruciatingly slow (Lassey 1998). Old style trickle-down training with its one-style-fits-all approach simply cannot keep the pace. There are also others that might not be so obvious. Howard Block, PhD, and Brandon Dobell, in a Banc of America report titled ‘The e-Bang Theory’, adds a few more e-Learning benefits that are more technical or managerial in nature. (Please refer to the appendix to 1.1 for this theory)

Conclusions & Recommendations

In conclusion it is clear that e-learning has more advantages than disadvantages as the statistics previously presented on pages 11 & 10 shows this.  The biggest problem with e-learning is employees who are new to it don’t understand what e-learning is, so they jump to conclusions of their employer trying to cut costs on the quality of training with this cheap source. Employer’s need to make sure they don’t think this as that view is only one sided. Employers need to create presentations and bring external people I to educate employees on the benefits e-learning brings to an organisation and it will make learning easier and better specially towards the employee. It is important to show employees that this method of training benefits the employees more than then employer as they main benefit is saving company funds on other expensive training that not as good as e-learning. Finally e-learning is a vast growing method of training it just needs to be understood more for it to be accepted.

My recommendations towards T&D practitioners on the subject on e-learning would be the following four points:

1. The development of training sessions or workshops should be considered training employees in depth in Information Technology and make sure the workforce are fully literate so they have the basic teachings and knowledge of e-learning n support.

2. Keep a diverse learning structure to make the learning less monotonous and increase moral and motivation up; to make sure the employees don’t get bored or find the work repetitive.

3. Provide practical worked examples with on hands approach by training getting them and get them involved more so they have that pre-experience to develop their knowledge.

4. Provide incentives/appraisals or other incentive based ideas to keep the motivation of the workforce driven so they can work towards something, will increase competition, thus productivity and efficiency.

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Appendix

1.1 Howard Block, PhD, and Brandon Dobell’s added theory

1.2

1.3

HRD Online

Bibliography / References

Journals

Alexander, S (2000), "Higher education markets and providers", in Fry, K (Eds), The Business of E-Learning, Bringing your Organization in the Knowledge E-conomy, University of Technology, Sydney,

Bibby, G (2000), "The consulting perspective", in Fry, K (Eds), The Business of E-Learning, Bringing your Association in the Knowledge E-conomy, University of Technology, Sydney,

Fry, K (2000), "Forum focus and overview", in Fry, K (Eds),The Business of E-Learning: Bringing your Organisation in the Knowledge E-conomy, Telcam Group, University of Technology, Sydney, .

Lance, D (2000), "Venture capital viewpoints and e-learning futures", in Fry, K (Eds), The Business of E-learning: Bringing your Organization in the Knowledge E-conomy, University of Technology, Sydney,

Page I., How to buy successful e-Learning: top tips for training buyers, 2005 Development and Learning in Organizations, Volume: 19 Issue: 6 Page: 13 - 15  

Emerald Group Publishing Limited          

Wenger, E (2000), "Communities of practice and social learning systems", Organization, Sage, Vol. 7 No.2, pp.225-46.

Books

Block, H, Dobell, B (1999), The e-Bang Theory, Bank of America,

Horton, W. (2001), "Leading e-learning", American Society for Training and Development,

Lassey P (1998), Developing a learning organisation, Kogan Page Publishing

Harrison, R. (1998), Employee Development, CIPD Publishing

Raelin, J. (2000), Work-based Learning: The New Frontier of Management Development, Prentice Hall, New York, NY,  

These theorists:

Kefalas & Kargidis (1999),

Nunes & Fowell (1996),

Eisenstadt & Vincent (1998)

Benjamin (1994), as citied by Salmon (2000:11),

Reeves & Hedberg (2003)

Economist Global Executive (2003)

McPherson & Nunes, 2004

Were extracted from:

Wilson J. P (2005), Human Resource Development – Learning & Training for individuals & organisations, Kogan Page Publishing

Web Sites

The DfES consultation

document Towards a

Unified e-Learning

Strategy can be found on

the DfES website,

www.dfes.gov.uk and

ATL’s response at

www.atl.org.uk

http://www.askatl.org.uk/atl_en/images/E-learning_tcm2-23349.pdf

http://www.arborsafety.com/products.htm

Connor

http://agelesslearner.com/intros/elc.html  

R. Peter’s view against E-learning

http://www.blinkbits.com/blinks/e-learning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisational_culture#Deal_and_Kennedy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-learning

http://www.hrdonline.co.uk/article_elearning1.htm

http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter74/chambers74.htm

UK’s largest e-learning provider

http://www.wiredsussex.com/Directory/company.asp?c=Epic