VideoThe rush is on. Like everything else related to the Internet, online employee education is sweeping across Corporate America. Executives and employees alike are tuning in to intranets and the Internet to update their skills and acquire new ones from the comfort of their own offices. And companies are producing better- educated workforces at a fraction of the price of traditional training programs.
Or are they?
There's no denying that online learning-- classes or materials delivered via Internet or intranet--is one of the fastest-growing areas of employee education. According to International Data Corp., in Framingham, Massachusetts, the total market for online corporate education is expected to jump from $234 million, in 1997, to $7.1 billion by 2002. And 77 percent of organizations expect to embrace training via company intranets by 2001, according to the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD); another 63 percent will use the Internet.
There's also no denying the method's many benefits. Courses are available anytime, not on a set schedule. Employee training travel costs disappear, training times are often shorter, and some studies indicate that students retain more of what they learn using technology-based training. In addition, while upfront costs are generally higher than for face-to-face training, classes are infinitely scalable at minimal extra charge.
But companies that adopt online education are recognizing that "tech-based training and Web- based training are not necessarily sufficient education cure-alls," says Mark Van Buren, director of research for ASTD. The medium's limitations--lack of direct human interaction, high class-attrition rates, and difficulty in finding high-quality content--often reduce its value and cost-effectiveness.
Cheap, Not Easy
The main attraction of online education, however, is clear: it saves big bucks. Almost three years ago, Al Gordon, program manager at Siemens Virtual University, at Siemens Information and Communication Networks Inc., faced a daunting task: train 600 high-level engineers on data/voice convergence technology, do it as quickly as possible, and keep engineers updated on new developments. If he went the typical route--face-to-face classes, delivered at special training locations--Gordon estimated it would take three years and more than $4 million in travel and lost productivity time to train all 600 people. And that didn't include the cost of the training itself.
The online option, on the other hand, involved around $75,000 for hardware and special server software (plus an additional charge of $1,500 for 100 classroom seats) to create interactive, online classes delivered via the company's intranet. "The $4 million we saved was just low-hanging fruit. Over time, it's evolved beyond being cost-effective. It also does the job," says Gordon.
Today, Siemens's voice/data integration course is one of 64 online classes offered to 7,500 Siemens employees. But implementing their widespread use has meant educating supervisors, as well. "It's a cultural change for managers to understand that instead of sending employees out of the office two to three times a year to learn certain skills, we can keep them at their desks and teach them the skills," says Gordon. "But it's a two-way street; we have to let them have time to work on these lessons." To gain management support, Gordon invited supervisors to take classes to see the benefits firsthand.
Still, Siemens's experience illustrates one of the biggest challenges of online training. Because the method is self-paced and easily accessed, it lacks a sense of urgency. Students often "don't get around to it"; there is no classroom from which to be visibly absent; or students are interrupted by managers who see the training as less important than "real work." Little wonder that the online dropout rate is substantial--some say as high as 50 percent.
The biggest impediment, however, is the impersonality of the technology itself. "Our first generation of training classes was purely self-paced, page-turning, online classes," says John Mallin, leader of corporate learning and development at Owens Corning, in Toledo, who organized the company's online program in 1997. "But we soon realized that just because the classes were there and available didn't mean our learners would gravitate to them and embrace them. They were well designed, but they lacked the human touch that people are used to."
As a result, the company integrated face-to- face components in its online courses. Now, many of its 25 online classes include real- time assignments, such as interviewing managers. Other classes encourage students to gather offline to discuss such lessons as first-time leadership, change management, and new-employee orientation.
At Siemens, a desire to maintain a human touch inspired the company's highly interactive online classes. Delivered using Lotus LearningSpace technology (similar products include Microsoft Corp.'s NetMeeting and Centra Software's Symposium), the classes mix live presentations with interactive technology that lets teachers give demonstrations on students' screens, and lets students "raise their hands" to ask questions in real time. The classes, ranging from basic LAN/WAN technology to call-center training, include asynchronous components that allow Web-based training, as well as E-mail collaboration.
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