At Learning Technologies 2009 in London, my friend Laura Overton announced the results of the third in a series of reports by Towards Maturity on the use of learning technologies in the workplace.
Three hundred UK companies took part in a survey that focused on building the business case for eLearning. Over the past three years, the focus has shifted from delivering training to delivering business results.
Creating learning solutions that both attract employees and making the company appear progressive to the outside world have become major drivers of eLearning. Most companies report their learning has become more flexible and easily accessible. Over the next two years, companies plan to spend more on eLearning and less on traditional training. Half of them view the tumultous economy as an opportunity to do more with less.
Lots of content is delivered over the web, but online access to experts, online collaboration, and online communities of practice are slow to catch on. Podcasts and video conferencing are becoming more popular, while IM and chat are less so.
Now that IT infrastructure is in place and set-up costs have plummeted, people have become the top barrier to change. They are held back by reluctance to adopt new technology, lack of know-how, and inability to implement and manage eLearning. This is where it gets ugly. 40% don’t think they have what it takes to take advantage of new learning technologies. Fewer than 1 in 5 companies use tech to support collaboration; most use only text-based eLearning. Less than half report that eLearning is easy for staff to even find. At best one in four survey line managers about results. A third do not set targets for eLearning accomplishment; only a quarter apply business metrics.
Here’s what to do to turn the situation around:
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