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Singapore, 31 July 2002
Online training lets companies provide more employee instruction for less money |
In the United States, e-learning, growing in popularity among businesses that want to provide more training for more employees, got a big boost in the past year. The slowing economy caused more companies to turn to E-learning systems and courses as a way to keep down training costs. And the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, which resulted in a significant decline in business travel, made the prospect of taking lessons in the office or at home more appealing.
Those factors should add up to a booming business. Research firm International Data Corp. estimates that the E-learning market in the United States will grow from $2.3 billion last year to $14.7 billion by 2004. Worldwide, the overall e-learning market is expected to hit $23 billion by 2004.
"It's a cold, hard fact that E-learning saves money," says Mike Brennan, International Data Corp.'s E-learning analyst.
"Change management and proactive marketing [to employees] are critical to a successful E-learning initiative," says Susan Guest, the former VP of learning and development at American General Inc., a Houston subsidiary of insurance company American International Group Inc.
Several years ago, Ms Guest was given the task of shifting the majority of American General's career training from the classroom to the Internet for more than 7,500 employees. While it's relatively simple to develop an E-learning infrastructure and offer online courses, she says, her biggest challenge was to change a corporate culture that placed a premium on classroom training with peer interaction.
To enable buy-in into the idea, Ms Guest gave more than 60 demonstrations--each with more than 50 attendees--to make the program familiar to employees. Along with her training team, she also printed brochures and provided support at the company's computer labs to help educate employees and train them on the new system.
Employee training is a high priority at the financial-services and insurance firm. Executives say that offering extensive career-development opportunities gives the company a strong competitive advantage while also improving employee satisfaction. That's why American General was providing training at eight learning centres in its offices around the country that offered computer labs and small libraries of business materials.
However, the content offered in the courses wasn't uniform, and many employees couldn't find the time to visit the learning centres. Company management concluded that the system was inadequate and decided to shift the focus and budget to an Internet-based curriculum.
The shift was a natural one as almost all of their employees had personal computers on their desktops and especially the IT folks wanted access to E-learning from home for flexibility.
After getting the green light from management in 1999, it was time to start blazing new territory. The company's training team analysed products and services from several vendors and selected a learning-management system, supplementing it with online courses from NETg, SkillSoft, SmartForce, and other industry-specific content vendors.
Like many companies investing in E-learning systems, American General faced some technology integration issues. The team had to integrate the learning-management system with a content-creation system and with the online courses the various content vendors offered.
Two years later, the payoff was clear: American General's Virtual Learning Center offers more than 500 Web-based courses, plus assorted instructor-led courses. More than half of corporate training is completed online, up from a quarter in 2000. And costs have dropped. The company has reduced by 20% the overall amount it spends on training. It costs $10 per person to provide an online training course, compared with $65 for a classroom course.
From various measurements done, employees were pleased with a positive increase in the employee perception of having growing and learning opportunities at American General.
For more information on short courses such as NETg or MindLeaders that will enhance employee productivity while maintaining lifelong learning, please click here.
(Written with information from an article by Elisabeth Goodridge)
About Informatics Group
The Informatics Group, established in 1983, is a multinational corporation providing training and educational services in information technology and business management. Through its international franchising program and strategic acquisitions, Informatics presently has a global network of more than 450 centres spanning 42 countries.
The company presently offers five franchise products: Informatics Computer School, Thames Business School, CAL Computer Training Centre, Cambridge Child Development Centre and RACC. For more information, please visit http://www.informaticsgroup.com.
About PurpleTrain.com
PurpleTrain.com is the e-learning service provider which offers a one-stop service for business and IT education programmes, corporate training courses and education-related services. By combining innovative technology with world-class training content, PurpleTrain.com offers companies and individuals a high value, quality and effective online training solution. Over 1000 online courses are available, offering PhDs, masters, degrees, diplomas and certificates in business and IT programmes. Its e-community now stands at over 55,000 users.
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