E-Learning Still Trending Up

Companies continue to adopt technology-based training for employees as expenditures in training and development decreased overall last year. At the same time, the expenditure per employee actually remained stable, because the workforce was smaller.

By Marlene A. Prost

It should surprise no one that more than one-third of all job training in 2009 was done electronically, according to training and development experts.

In a shaky economy in which many companies have cut their training budgets, technology-based training has been a cost-effective alternative to sending employees outside the office for training.

According to the 2010 State of the Industry Report just released by the Alexandria, Va.-based American Society for Training and Development, 37 percent of training hours involved electronic technology in 2009; 28 percent of training was done online, up from 23 percent in 2008.

By comparison, in 2002, only 15 percent of the 304 companies surveyed used electronic technology to deliver formal training.

Meanwhile, live, face-to-face interaction is down to 59 percent, says Pat Galagan, ASTD executive editor. "There is a lot of blended electronic and classroom. It's a general trend."

Despite a total drop in training expenditures, the ASTD says it is encouraged by the continuing high level of investment in job training by U.S. companies, despite the recession.

Companies surveyed invested $126 billion in job training in 2009. While that is a decrease of 6 percent from 2008, the average cost-per-employee remained stable -- increasing very slightly, by 1 percent -- because there was a smaller work force.

In addition, learning expenditures accounted for a slightly larger percentage of corporate revenue and profit.

"The findings ... clearly demonstrate that executives and business leaders know their investments in employee learning and development are keys to survival, recovery and future growth," says ASTD president and CEO Tony Bingham.

Galagan says it's not unusual for training expenditures to "remain stable despite the recession". When the workforce is cut, the employees that remain are doing more and often have to be trained in new areas.

In addition, in bad times, companies often opt to make a "rapid change in direction" or business model, which "requires a change in skills for everybody," she says.

Josh Bersin, president and CEO of Bersin & Associates, says research by his Oakland, Calif.-based consulting firm agrees with the trend toward increased use of technology for learning, noting that between 35 percent to 40 percent of all training hours are now done electronically, with online solutions alone increasing 4 percent to 5 percent in 2010.

Virtual classrooms have replaced much instructor-led classroom training, he says, noting that "everyone has access to the Net. There are so many tools to do virtual classrooms and web collaborations. You can do very effective training online."

Online training can either be self-study or through "online synchronous" communication -- using live, real-time instructor-led training, he says.

"We saw a huge drop [in job-training expenditures] in the last two years. In 2008 and 2009, training expenditures dropped 11 percent in each year. And a lot of that reduction came in halting instructor-led training, canceling travel and a shift to technology-based training," says Bersin.

The firm's Corporate Learning Factbook 2010 surveyed 1,402 training professionals in 2009.

The biggest cuts have been in IT, technology and general professional training, Bersin says. On the other hand, companies rarely touch their leadership-training and sales-training budgets.

Leadership development, which includes training in management, avoiding lawsuits and dealing with problem employees, is especially "dangerous" to cut, he says. "If you do away with it, you're sorry. ... Companies usually pay for it in poor employee relations."

Companies are also using social media for training and development, says Galagan.

"Companies are using, not just wikis, but all kind of social media, like Facebook, or an internal version of their own, to promote interactivity and e-learning from people inside the company," she says.

Another trend, according to the ASTD survey, is spending more for outsourced consultants and workshop providers. Outsourcing accounted for 27 percent of the total e-learning expenditures, up from 22 percent in 2008.

The uptick in outsourcing does not mean in-house layoffs, Galagan says. "To us, this is a sign that are spending again on external suppliers."

At the University Health System in San Antonio, the training budget has been cut this year by 5 percent, says Jacqueline Burandt, administrative director for the organization's Center for Learning Excellence.

"We're not cutting any programs," she says. "We'll be sustaining our own initiative and adding a few. We have to do it efficiently,"

E-learning has been a boon for the University Health System, which has 495 patient beds and 5,000 employees. The effort includes video and audio podcasts to provide ongoing job training, such as extensive continuing education for nurses.

While the health system still offers classroom training, e-learning has solved scheduling problems for an institution where employees work varying shifts and "you just can't close down for a day," she says.

Burandt has also cut costs by instituting a "train-a-trainer" program. Instead of sending all employees off-site for training, about 15 employees receive certification in certain areas and then train others on-site.

Such a system "works better in a 24/7 environment with 20 different sites, where we can't schedule classrooms 9 to 5," Burandt says. "This way each unit has its own training."

Despite its popularity, electronic job training does have a "saturation point," says Bersin.

"Classes are starting to come back," he says. "[E-learning] can't replace everything, but companies have pushed the limit."

For example, virtual learning does not "create a culture," he says. "There is a certain cultural aspect to job training."