Can You Work and eLearn at the Same Time?

Many self-paced eLearning courses have been developed, and deployed by management, with the perfect world in mind: The users will be able to take these courses, right from their workstation computer, during breaks, lunch, slow-times, or even by staying a bit late! Rick Nigol at Breakthough eLearning, does a good job in explaining that eLearning at your desk isn't quite that simple and there are a lot of factors at play. (This is a follow-up to the responses from the question posed by the Masie Center).

As a project manager who has been involved in rolling out eLearning programs in a corporate environment, I think it is very naive to simply make the lessons available to the employees and hope that they find the time. As everyone knows, too often training initiatives get put on the back burner, and if the employees sense that management really isn't behind the initiative, then you can bet the users won't go out of their way to find the time to complete the training. If you expect users to take eLearning at their desks, then there has to be 100% management support to back it up. If the importance is not stressed, then there is no way that users will work through their daily distractions to find the time. Here are some ways that management can support an eLearning imitative:

1. Keep users informed of the eLearning development progress along the way. Let the users know what will be coming and what they will need to do. Also, most importantly, explain how the applicable eLearning training initiative will help them perform better at their jobs.

2. Create a communication, marketing campaign designed to build interest for the users, weeks or even months before the training is rolled out. For example, one client of ours had a promotional day designed to provide information about the rollout. Project managers and SMEs wore specially designed t-shirts and a festival like atmosphere (food and contests) was created to build excitement.

3. Make sure that a certification process, or a passing score, is required to complete the training. If a mandatory element is placed on the eLearning course material, then the users will be more inclined to complete the training.

4. Face facts and don't expect the users to "find" the time to take the training at their desks. Direct supervisors need to think of the training program as a mandatory job function and schedule time for users to complete the training. This may mean having someone else perform an employee's duties while they take the training, or even authorizing overtime so they can take the training.

5. Do what you can so users have an opportunity to take the eLearning at their desks, however, create a secondary option for the users, if their environment just has too many distractions. For example, we had a client that made and entire nearby training room available for the training rollout. This room, and all the computers, were available 24 hours a day as a designated eLearning center. This provided the users with a quite alternative, if learning at their desks just wasn't possible.