E-Learning: Not Just For E-Normous Companies Anymore - distance education

HR Magazine, May, 2001 by Kathryn Tyler

Small and medium-sized companies can save time and money by moving training onto desktops.

Two years ago, Walker and Associates--a Welcome, N.C., telecommunications equipment distributor with just under 300 employees--got a new president who encouraged training and development. He spearheaded a move toward online training by forming a partnership with GeoLearning Inc., a web-based training solutions and learning management system provider in West Des Moines, Iowa.

Together, they created the Walker Institute of Training and Development, an online corporate university that offered dozens of courses from GeoLearning's library. "We wanted to make sure we were addressing the learning needs of our salespeople our in the field," says Randy Turner, director of corporate learning and development at Walker and Associates. "We wanted to give them learning opportunities that didn't tie them down to a classroom."

Walker and Associates is one of the few small companies that have taken the plunge into online training, also known as "e-learning." In 1999, corporations spent $500 million on e-learning--and are expected to spend $7 billion by 2002, according to Brandon Hall, Ph.D., lead researcher and CEO of brandon-hall.com, an e-learning information and advisory firm in Sunnyvale, Calif. But little of that money is being spent by small companies.

"Small businesses are often overlooked. Most of the services are designed for big companies," says Hall.

However, some providers are starting to pay attention to smaller firms, which is good news because elearning can be especially beneficial to smaller organizations.

E-Learning Benefits for Smailer Firms The cost and convenience of e-learning recently led the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce to create an online learning center for its 2,200 members-most of whom have fewer than 100 employees. "We saw a decline in attendance at our educational programs, while there was not a decline in expressed desire for learning opportunities," says Meridian Napoli, the Chamber's small business manager. "E-learning meets that educational need at a more convenient time than instructor-led seminars."

Proponents also point out that elearning can save significant money in travel costs-which can be especially important for small companies with far-flung offices. For example, instead of flying a dozen salespeople to a product seminar in Chicago, you can have them plug in their laptops from hotel rooms around the country and download the information at their convenience.

E-learning also cuts down on opportunity cost-a boon for companies with smaller staffs and limited staff redundancy. "Traditional training is very expensive, especially in a small company where it is difficult to take everyone away from day-to-day responsibilities," points out Ellen willen, director of marketing for Quelsys, an e-learning firm in Norwalk, Conn.

Smaller companies with limited budgets also will appreciate the fact that e-learning can avoid wasting pre cious training dollars on lost tuition and fees due to last-minute cancellations. As one HR professional put it: "With classroom training, you're paying for 20 people whether 20 or 10 show up. With e-learning, when you're using it, you pay for it; when you're not, you don't."

Companies that don't have the staff to serve as software experts also can use e-learning as a continuous, on-demand resource. For example, many employees at Walker and Associates use online courses as a reference tool. "If they need to learn Microsoft Word, they can access it on an as-needed basis," says Turner, who adds that "people are using it as an online resource.

Willen says, "In most e-learning systems you can go back and access pieces of information" or job aids for a year after completion of the course.

Perhaps most importantly, with e-learning, "a small organization that couldn't afford to have its own training department can" still offer a variety of training courses, says Frank Russell, president and CEO of GeoLearning. "E-learning helps small organizations act like bigger ones."

A Time for Change

So far, many small companies have missed out on one of the biggest advantages of e-learning: being able to deliver highly customized information to their workforces. That's because, until recently, custom-designed courses have been cost-prohibitive for most small companies. E-learning providers say the cost to design customized courses ranges from $20,000 to $100,000 per course hour, or "seat hour," as it is often called.

However, some application service providers, or ASPs (for information on ASPs, see "E-learning Basics" on page 84), recently have launched streamlined custom-design options. Instead of building courses from scratch, trainers can build online courses using templates.

For example, GeoLearning offers an e-learning solution "that can be up and running in about 30 days," says Russell. "You can learn how to use the authoring software in less than an hour and can create online content, surveys, tests, etc."