The Power of E-Performance - consider employee preferences - Statistical Data Included

Training & Development, August, 2001 by John W. Cone, Dana G. Robinson

Technology was an integral part of the recent Olympic games in Sydney. Consider the swimming corn petition. Experts predicted that the innovative design of the pool and new high-tech swimwear would help swimmers shatter records. Those predictions proved true. A huge number of Olympic and world records were broken, and dozens of contestants achieved their personal best.

For true performance change.

Yet, despite the fact that all competitors were in the same pool and the swimwear manufacturer made the new suits available to anyone who wanted them, there were no eight-way ties in any heat. That's because there's a great deal more to performance and success than just technology. Achieving performance success in the Olympic games is a complex combination of many factors, including an athlete's inherent ability; his or her coaching and training, and the practice tools and equipment.

The lesson:

Technology alone can't produce outstanding performance.

The same is true of the technology used in the training and development profession. Whether it's online learning, e-learning, distance education--whatever you choose to call it-technology--enabled learning solutions are integral to most training departments these days. Many experts estimate that the portion of total learning that's technology-enabled is 12 percent. That delivery channel is, however, expected to grow significantly in the next few years. According to a study by Boston-based Forum Corporation, the percentage of companies that provide e-learning will double in the next two years. Members of ASTD's Benchmarking Forum say that by 2002, e-learning solutions will account for 18 percent of the training in their organizations. There's evidence that an increasing portion of training budgets is being allocated to the purchase of hardware and education programs to be delivered through technology. In fact, there has been a 66 percent increase in those expenditures over the past five years, according to E- L earning, by Marc Rosenberg (McGraw-Hill,) 2000). Books on page 82 of this issue Wall Street analysts view corporate e-learning as one of the fastest growing markets in the education industry. Though the predicted demise of the classroom is premature, it's evident that a sea change is occurring in the training industry: Structured learning experiences offered through technology will increase.

So what's the problem? Our experience indicates there are actually two problems:

Problem 1: Poorly designed e-learning. In our view, much of what's touted as technology-enabled learning is poorly designed. Too often, traditional courseware is repurposed--a euphemism for raking text from the instructor and participant guides and putting it online. What you get is the same old stuff delivered via a new channel and called e-learning. You lose the benefits of the incredible power of new technology. In such cases, limited learning occurs and on-the-job performance change is nearly impossible. To some extent, that's to be expected in any field in its infancy. We're heartened by the efforts of ASTD to develop quality standards and by the number of providers who have recognized this problem and committed to address it. It's the second problem with e-learning that we think poses the greatest risk to obtaining good results.

Problem 2: Insufficient focus. To ensure performance change following an e-learning experience, you must focus on the entire work environment system. Statistics regarding traditional training show that, in general, less than 30 percent of what is learned is actually applied on the job. Does that mean the training was ineffective? Not necessarily. Recall the swimming example from the Olympics: Performance resulted from multiple factors. The same is true for performance of people in organizations. Successful performance happens because people have the necessary skills and a supportive work environment. Learning by itself, no matter what the quality or method, rarely changes performance.

That's a lesson we should have learned from the years when traditional training was the primary option. The rush to e-learning poses a real danger that we are repeating the same mistake--reliance on a single learning solution to change performance. Only this time, the solution is of the e variety.

How did we draw that conclusion? Growing evidence suggests that electronic-mediated options result in an equal or higher level of skill and knowledge acquisition over traditional instruction. However, there are also strong indicators that the actual transfer of acquired skills is still occurring at 30 percent or less. The Measurement and Evaluation Consortium--a group dedicated to networking, sharing best practices, setting industry standards, and creating cutting-edge strategies for the training and HR fields and business in general--recently launched a project to measure the impact of e-learning on business. Lotus-IBM, MediaOne, and Microsoft are the leads, and the consortium includes Cisco, Dell, Intel, Verizon, Accenture, and many more. That project was begun, they tell us, because the little research that exists has failed to demonstrate significant improvements in performance results over traditional methods of training.