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In the last approximately ten years online learning has gained wide acceptance as an alternative form of education that delivers training to every desktop and helps individuals and companies reduce employee travel costs. Beyond thism some companies have also come to believe that E-learning provides them with a competitive edge, and they are incorporating it into their overall business strategies.

Burson-Marsteller Inc., a New York communications and marketing firm with 75 offices and 2,000 employees, has made a considerable investment in both online and classroom training. "Our product is our ideas," says Barbara Smith, chief learning officer for Burson-Marsteller. "If we don't have the best people creating the best product, we can't compete. What I'm after is creating the best people in the industry. E-learning is an option that provides us with a real competitive edge - it helps us maximize our intellectual capital."

Now the vision of ongoing E-learning and skills assessment is communicated to employees as soon as they join a company. "Our basic orientation program is online," says Smith of Burson-Marsteller. "All employees see it and are aware of the company's mission and goals. There are also different skills assessment tests online, which lets them see where they are in their development."

U.S. companies last year spent about $62.5 billion training employees, $3 billion of which was spent on IT-based delivery of training, according to a recent report by WR Hambrecht & Co. and International Data Corp. By 2003, companies are expected to spend $11.5 billion annually on electronically delivered education.

But E-learning is rarely the sole answer for employee-education needs. "We know that this isn't a panacea for everything," says James Sharpe, director of distributed learning for IBM Global Services. "This is not an absolute solution."

Rather, E-learning must be integrated into ongoing training processes at companies and viewed as an adjunct to face-to-face classroom instruction. At Interim Services Inc., a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., staffing company, E-learning won't replace other training initiatives. "Our expectation is that E-learning will complement other development activities," says Perry Borman, Interim Services' director of organizational development.

According to training executives, there are four levels of learning that companies must accommodate if they are to train their employees properly. One is basic knowledge transfer - an imparting of information about an industry, a line of business, or particular processes used within that field. Another is interactive learning, in which the student takes the basic knowledge and applies it to a given scenario in a simulation. Then comes collaborative learning, in which the student takes the information gleaned in the two earlier learning modules and applies it to a project he or she is working on with colleagues. Finally, there's group-level instruction or conferences. "When you do bring your associates together, you should try to get the biggest bang for the buck," Sharpe says. "Basic knowledge transfer should have already occurred. That knowledge should be a prerequisite before you can actually show up at a conference."

Sharpe says many companies don't have properly structured training initiatives. Some send employees off to conferences hoping they'll come away with useful knowledge. By using E-learning to impart basic knowledge, employees can get the most out of group-instruction time and more readily improve job performance with their newfound skills.

Creating a companywide E-learning system is not a simple process of slapping some content on an intranet and licensing a few skills-development courses. Learning initiatives must be closely correlated with a company's overall strategy - and its corporate vision - if they're to succeed.

Proponents say training must be perceived by senior executives as a key operational function, like sales, marketing, and manufacturing. If a company outsources E-learning content creation or infrastructure to a vendor, it can't forget about training as a top business priority. Otherwise, the knowledge level of the employees won't grow and the company won't flourish.

"The first thing we thought of when we began looking at E-learning was, how does this fit into our strategy? What are we trying to accomplish here?" says Interim's Borman, whose company employs 10,000 full-time workers and a legion of temporary employees that serve its client base. "We wanted to build the most competitive workforce in our industry. Ongoing skills development is essential to that."

When devising the companywide E-learning program last year, the staffing company's executives started by determining the skill level for each position within the organization - from clerk to manager to executive - and then developed a skills road map. The road map outlines all the knowledge employees should have to perform their jobs, and successive jobs, within the company.

Interim found that putting the road map together was a lengthy and tedious process, involving the directors of various departments. But once complete, the goal of communicating its vision to employees could begin. "They needed to be shown what skills were important for them to have for their current jobs, as well as the competencies that would be important for future positions they wanted to fill," Borman says.

Management notified Interim employees via E-mail about the company's new training methodology and its intranet, which contains online job descriptions on what Interim calls its Me Inc. training site. The job descriptions there include details about what skills the employee or job applicant should have.

In the early days of E-learning - meaning much of the 1990s - the only widely available offerings focused on developing IT skills. Training for so-called soft skills - management, leadership, writing, and strategic thinking - has emerged within the past few years, but the options are still limited. There are a handful of companies that can provide soft-skills development for a set licensing fee, including About.com, DigitalThink.com, and SkillSoft.com. But a company that has very specific skills requirements, such as a sales program for a new product, must develop its own content or outsource that customization job to one of the E-learning vendors.

But E-learning is rarely the sole answer for employee-education needs. "We know that this isn't a panacea for everything," says James Sharpe, director of distributed learning for IBM Global Services. "This is not an absolute solution." Customized E-learning content requires collaboration among a number of departments. Many large companies already have some sort of training department that spearheads that effort and specializes in understanding what skills are needed companywide.

Rather, E-learning must be integrated into ongoing training processes at companies and viewed as an adjunct to face-to-face classroom instruction. At Interim Services Inc., a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., staffing company, E-learning won't replace other training initiatives. "Our expectation is that E-learning will complement other development activities," says Perry Borman, Interim Services' director of organizational development. Burson-Marsteller has a five-person training department that has traveled to company offices around the world for the past two years, conducting one-or two-day seminars on skills development. But the company's skills experts are now being deployed to develop online curriculum in each of the disciplines that the company finds important for its employees, Smith says. "We're packaging for the E-learning program the key skills that people have to have, including media relations, writing, strategy, and presentation."

according to training executives, there are four levels of learning that companies must accommodate if they are to train their employees properly. One is basic knowledge transfer - an imparting of information about an industry, a line of business, or particular processes used within that field. Another is interactive learning, in which the student takes the basic knowledge and applies it to a given scenario in a simulation. Then comes collaborative learning, in which the student takes the information gleaned in the two earlier learning modules and applies it to a project he or she is working on with colleagues. Finally, there's group-level instruction or conferences. "When you do bring your associates together, you should try to get the biggest bang for the buck," Sharpe says. "Basic knowledge transfer should have already occurred. That knowledge should be a prerequisite before you can actually show up at a conference."he training personnel worked closely with the company's Web-design and graphics department, and consulted with its IT department. Because the company was already using the Lotus Notes and Domino-based intranet for internal communications, it used those technologies to deliver its curriculum when it launched the E-learning initiative in January.

Sharpe says many companies don't have properly structured training initiatives. Some send employees off to conferences hoping they'll come away with useful knowledge. By using E-learning to impart basic knowledge, employees can get the most out of group-instruction time and more readily improve job performance with their newfound skills. Some of the courses are already available, while others are in development, including those on perception management and integrated marketing communications. Courses have been designed to be intuitive and interactive, and use simple animation tools to convey the learning message. One course the company developed was called Fun with Finance. "This is an online training course that's about how to do basic finances. It's entertaining and informative. It's the model for what we're doing with the other skills courses," Smith says.

Creating a companywide E-learning system is not a simple process of slapping some content on an intranet and licensing a few skills-development courses. Learning initiatives must be closely correlated with a company's overall strategy - and its corporate vision - if they're to succeed. The company's graphics design department - not IT - helped link the Lotus Notes program to the company's E-learning databases through middleware. But with the competitive pressures facing businesses these days, developing E-learning systems outside of the IT department may not be all that unusual, says IBM's Sharpe. "If an E-learning initiative comes from a particular line of business, IT and human resources may not even be involved," he says. "Departments may be looking for someone to help develop the content, and even possibly host it, and then go away in six months."

Proponents say training must be perceived by senior executives as a key operational function, like sales, marketing, and manufacturing. If a company outsources E-learning content creation or infrastructure to a vendor, it can't forget about training as a top business priority. Otherwise, the knowledge level of the employees won't grow and the company won't flourish. Installing E-learning systems and creating or licensing the content is a huge managerial task. But there's another challenge that executives have before them: getting employees to buy in to the E-learning initiatives.

"The first thing we thought of when we began looking at E-learning was, how does this fit into our strategy? What are we trying to accomplish here?" says Interim's Borman, whose company employs 10,000 full-time workers and a legion of temporary employees that serve its client base. "We wanted to build the most competitive workforce in our industry. Ongoing skills development is essential to that."hat's not always easy, says David Wertheim, business manager for Hewlett-Packard Education Services, which produces training content for both HP and its customers. "Sometimes employees are reluctant to give up the perks - to give up the travel to the conference in San Francisco, which they planned to take their family to and turn into a mini-vacation," Wertheim says. Companies, conversely, often view those savings as a huge benefit. IBM last year saved $200 million by reducing travel expenses for educational seminars through E-learning projects, Sharpe says.

When devising the companywide E-learning program last year, the staffing company's executives started by determining the skill level for each position within the organization - from clerk to manager to executive - and then developed a skills road map. The road map outlines all the knowledge employees should have to perform their jobs, and successive jobs, within the company. Getting employees to actually attend scheduled online classes can be a chore as well, says David Daines, director of employee and organizational development at NuSkin Enterprises Inc., a Provo, Utah, toiletries company. "That's why making the classes available 24-by-7 is important," he says. "Employees can fit them into their own schedules."

Interim found that putting the road map together was a lengthy and tedious process, involving the directors of various departments. But once complete, the goal of communicating its vision to employees could begin. "They needed to be shown what skills were important for them to have for their current jobs, as well as the competencies that would be important for future positions they wanted to fill," Borman says. Companies also need to consider cultural issues, particularly if they have global operations. "In some countries, learning is expert-based, and people may feel as if they have learned nothing if they haven't met with the expert on a particular issue," says Smith of Burson-Marsteller. "That's why a blended approach - traditional learning and E-learning - is very effective."

Management notified Interim employees via E-mail about the company's new training methodology and its intranet, which contains online job descriptions on what Interim calls its Me Inc. training site. The job descriptions there include details about what skills the employee or job applicant should have-learning - once viewed as impractical for the development of many skills - appears to be moving past the early adopter stage. What's on tap is for more companies to integrate E-learning into their traditional training programs and explore ways to use it to improve bottom-line performance.

"I think the early adoptive phase is over," IBM's Sharpe says. "The seriousness with which many companies are treating E-learning indicates that this isn't a maturing market - it has matured. And in the coming years, you'll see broad-based business skills E-learning eclipse IT skills E-learning, which today has the lion's share of users.

E-learning is one way to be smarter than the competition".

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This article adapted from a story by Gene Koprowski that originally appeared in InformationWeek,
28 August, 2000 

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