” Our staff don’t like e-learning. They prefer face to face training.”

Well, if you have been known to utter these very words then I have great news for you. If you’re concerned about what people write on your training evaluation forms then here’s a suggestion. It’s a new training course that will virtually guarantee that you’ll see a dramatic improvement in feedback from your users. You’ll have learners banging your door down wanting to get on the course. It’s pretty straightforward, all you do is fly them somewhere exotic, with drinks and snacks on tap and an industry leading expert in the subject of their choice will train them. Groups will be small -it will be one to one coaching so they will be working at their own pace in a non threatening environment.

Think they’ll like it?    

Sadly, it’s going to be expensive. And not very practical. There’s no economies of scale if lots of people want the same course and it won’t be very kind to the environment. You can’t revisit the learning if you drank a little too much beer before the session either. But hey, you can’t have everything.

Flow Learning supplies a diagnostic tool on Learning Methods. Users answer various questions about themselves and how they like to learn. The results are aggregated and there’s some graphs and reports that help to establish the trends in your organisation. What’s fascinating is how clients use this and how the results change over time. Here are a couple of examples:

• A council client used it to help build a business case for elearning. Many of the reports coming back showed people preferred other learning methods but all the positive elearning results were counted and that’s how many licences they bought when a new product range was launched.

• Another client in the travel industry used it at early stages of their e-learning project and then annually thereafter. There was a strong preference for classroom training in the early days but now they are a few years down the line and people are used to elearning.  85% stated that e-learning was their preferred learning method in last year’s survey.

If e-learning is new for your organisation or hasn’t worked well in the past consider what you want to achieve and how you will communicate it’s unique benefits. Also think about how you can make the transition easier on learners by using a blended learning approach. You could project some content in a classroom setting for instance, just like you would with powerpoint, and questions within the course could be used to stimulate group discussion. A hands-on practice workshop and coaching sessions could be combined with an e-learning programme. Think of how well this could work for a topic like presentation skills.

Any thoughts? Care to share? What do you see as the main benefits of elearning within your organisation? Answers on a postcard please (or on the comments section.)

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net