The ELearning Fieldbook [Electronic resources] : Implementation Lessons and Case Studies from Companies that are Making eLearning Work نسخه متنی

Introduction

Why Did They Choose an e-Learning Solution?

Most companies provide new employees a short orientation within the first two days of employment, typically delivered by the human resources department. This orientation generally focuses on the completion of paperwork, a tour of the facilities, and a review of the benefits package. Depending largely on a person’s role, this orientation may be as short as two hours or as long as two days. This is usually followed by one-on-one training with a manager or co-worker in specific job tasks.

However, as companies experience periods of rapid expansion and contraction, they have found that this approach can be inadequate to their needs. Increasingly, they must quickly bring new employees up to full productivity, while in some cases meeting government regulation requirements. In addition, company’s want to ensure in the new hire’s mind that they made the right choice in selecting this employer, and that their ability to excel in their job is assured by on-going training and development.

Employing an e-learning solution addresses a number of challenges in new hire training:

Access can be provided to the learning whether the size of new hire group is one or two in an office, or a few hundred

Job-skill training allows the new employee to become productive faster

The number of facilitators to deliver the training is not a limiting factor

Errors during on-the-job trail period can be reduced

Consistent delivery of content regardless of employee location can be assured

New content can be quickly updated and distributed

This chapter presents four company case examples where e-learning provided a platform for training new hires and for assuring a quality result. They include: Black & Decker Corporation, a leading manufacturer and marketer of power tools and accessories, hardware, and home improvement products; American Skandia, a financial services company offering a wide range of products including variable annuities and mutual funds; Cingular Wireless, a provider of wireless voice and data communications; and Prudential Financial, an insurance and financial services company.

These organizations, for a variety of business reasons, chose to revamp their entire new hire orientation approach, each employing a blended model to deliver just-in-time learning combined with hands-on application and coaching or mentoring.

Engaging New Workers from Day One through e-Learning

One of the important drivers in the move into e-learning solutions was the need to provide adequate, engaging learning from the first day of employment, regardless of the number of employees joining the company on any given day or in any place. At Black & Decker in the past, a new hire received a binder and several weeks later attended a classroom session, many times never having looked at the binder. Now, when a person joins they immediately receive a welcome packet with their user ID and access instructions to the Black & Decker University Learning Portal where they find and begin their training program. The immediacy of the e-learning is augmented with on-the-job coaching by their manager. This learning is engaging, complete, and provides the skills for learners to do their jobs well.

Cingular Wireless offers new hires a similar immediate immersion into the culture and goals of the company through an e-learning approach. The first day, new hires are welcomed by the people in their location and then given a tour of the workplace. Next, they are coached through logging onto the Web site called Joining the Team to begin their e-learning about the company, their development opportunities, and benefits. There they also engage in nine compliance courses and can return and refer to the content as often as they need to.

New Hire e-Learning Simulation Coaching to Achieve Higher Job Performance

In situations where job performance is an immediate concern, e-learning simulations combined with mentoring and coaching provide a safe environment to learn, be assessed, and receive feedback on performance. Prudential Financial’s new hire orientation for Call Center employees is delivered in a seven-week blended program that gives many opportunities to practice transactions and master the information. Through online simulations and instructions, new hires learn about products, processes transactions, procedures, and systems, finally receiving live calls targeted at their current learning level. Using this approach, Prudential has been able to reduce call handle time by teaching best practices to new hires through simulations and feedback.

The American Skandia new hire program also combines e-learning with coaching to achieve higher performance in the required NASD Series 6 license examination. New hires formerly achieved an average 60 percent pass rate on the exam, below the national average. Using a blended model of e-learning with online practice exams and coaching, these new hires now average a 90 percent pass rate on the examination and are better equipped to assist customers adequately with the over 100 financial products American Skandia offers.

All of the case companies have found many unexpected benefits from their blended model orientation programs. The availability of the Web-based learning is used as an attractive recruitment tool. In addition, the frequency that ‘graduates’ return to the learning to review and refresh their knowledge has been noted. Finally, all find that the use of e-learning to support new hire orientation allows easy and inexpensive upgrading and revisions of content as the company changes and grows.