FEATURE INSIGHT
Jerome Smail, freelance journalist, explores the evolving e-learning and e-assessment revolution with insight from industry luminaries Evolution / revolution
A well-trained workforce is an is it more important than in payroll, where workers are dealing with black-and-white right and wrong answers, with no grey areas or margin for error. However, both the training and assessment of employees bring various challenges – particularly when it comes to logistics and cost. Face-to-face workplace learning requires a significant amount of time and effort to schedule and organise; what’s more, it can be an unknown quantity in terms of return on investment. But as with every area of work – and, indeed, life – the digital revolution has spawned a new way of doing things: e-learning and e-assessment. “Utilising technology to deliver and assess training and development can play a key part in helping companies deliver on their people strategies and can deliver much wider benefits than traditional training methods alone,” explains Sue Andrews, business and human resources (HR) consultant for KIS Finance. While the use of technology has been around for some years now, we are now seeing ‘smart organisations’ increasing the use of integrated learning platforms, which “open up a whole new experience to their staff”, says Andrews. This, she adds, offers much more than just an alternative form essential component for success in all areas of business but nowhere
of training delivery. At its most effective, interactive
improving employee engagement and increasing the ability of participants to transfer learning back into the workplace. “The programme has brought about significant cost saving in the delivery of training and has improved learning outcomes. It has also led to an improvement in the key financial metrics of the restaurants.” The cost savings can be made in various ways. Sam Warnes, managing director of e-learning solutions provider EDLounge, explains: “E-learning has the advantage of saving time and money for employers. It eliminates the need to bring in a trainer, providing for their travel expenses, refreshments, materials and venue rentals. “Additionally,” he notes, “e-learning is available 24/7. This not only means that not all staff will be away from their desks at once to engage in face-to-face training, but also that they can do it at their leisure, whether that be first thing in the morning when they arrive at the office, or in the evening at home after they’ve put their children to bed.” Pete Daykin, digital learning designer at Sky Betting and Gaming, emphasises that the cost savings go beyond logistics. “It is very easy to develop a standardised learning induction to quickly and cheaply upskill new employees to a business,” he says. “It is also agile and easier to scale
e-learning can better engage staff in their training experience in a way that’s in sync with today’s digital society. Similarly, used to its full potential and with imagination, e-assessment can provide evidence of both skills and cognitive-based learning. It can also help identify gaps in knowledge and provide tools and links to the worker to support their ongoing development. ...new way of doing things: e-learning and e-assessment The standout advantage of e-learning that will appeal to many organisations, however, is that of cost. A high-profile example is the reported £5m McDonald’s saved over two years with its business controls e-learning programme. The fast-food giant also claims it saw a 10% growth in sales as a result of the training (https://bit.ly/29PzGET). Mark Reilly, head of global learning content design at McDonald’s, comments: “The e-learning approach to development has genuinely improved the learning outcome for our participants. Our internal staff satisfaction survey has shown increases in all the training categories,
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | September 2018 | Issue 43 48
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