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Training Trendwatch: Industry Poll Results on Economic & Generational Trends in Learning
March 11, 2009
By Emma King
Training 2009 Conference and Expo attendees weighed in with their opinions on economic and generational trends in learning during several polls conducted by Meridia Audience Response's audience responders prior to the keynote speeches. The audience participants spanned four generations, with a predominate attendance of Baby Boomers born 1946-1964 (56 percent) and Gen Xers born 1965-1980 (37 percent), with representation of Traditionalists born before 1945 (5 percent) and Gen Yers born 1981-2000 (2 percent). Data was collected from 92 percent of attendees.
Key Findings
There is an old theory that training is among the first things cut during hard times. With the world in a global recession, we wanted to understand how participants feel their organization sees training. Some 41 percent see training as a direct contributor to retaining maximum productivity and profitability (and 35 percent of audience members are still reporting training budgets of $1 million or more), and 36 percent say that attitudes haven't changed. However, 23 percent report that training is one of first places to make budget cuts.
When queried about their company's financial health, 32 percent expect single-digit growth in their companies' health in the next 36 months, while 27 percent project growth in double digits.
Industry Trends
Analysts' researcher blogs and reports demonstrate that companies have started to change their training program priorities and are using budgets to move toward informal learning, collaborative activities, and other less-costly training methods. Companies with lower budgets are looking to introduce social media and levels of performance support, enabling them to capitalize on training materials already developed and re-utilize existing materials when re-purposed for other training mediums.
Validation of this trend was implied in the audience's indication of their preferred training style: Some 48 percent want to receive training at the moment of need vs. training that may not apply at that time, and 25 percent wish to use collaboration tools to ask a question and receive a correct response.
Training Check-Up
In this current economic environment, industry specialists are talking about the need to rethink your training initiatives and the way you run your training department. But before you start reorganizing staff, have you thought about doing a "health check" of your existing systems?
If we think about the traditional annual physical exam, we carry it out as we maintain our personal health. Our doctors give us a physical and aid our health by suggesting preventive or corrective care. This, in turn, helps you focus on remediation of any negative findings and solutions to maintain or increase health. The same can be said regarding your learning initiative, delivery mechanisms, end-user learning requirements, and retention scales.
Enterprise e-learning technologies can be complex. Often it is difficult to know if you have utilized the best tools in the marketplace, or the best technology infrastructure to host/deliver or manage your learning environments. It is essential that you review what you have before investing in another tool.
As a consultant, it is frustrating to see approximately 65 percent of clients only utilize a fraction of the features and functionality a particular tool can offer. Often this is due to time constraints of projects and tight deadlines, meaning that the cutting-edge features that were fought for at procurement were overlooked just to get the job done. In turn, the rich ROI promise they sought when deciding to purchase the tool brought no return.
It is crucial to review training after a major rollout. Training needs to be evaluated for its ability to train and educate your end users. All too often, training goals are missed, training becomes too verbose, and end users don’t reach their return on information. And despite investing lots of dollars in training programs, their return on investment is way off target.
Does this sound all too familiar? Here are five key items that should be considered when doing a Learning Initiative Health Check:
1. Review existing training programs: Review the length of courses and the content, and analyze feedback forms from classroom training. Are they meeting the needs of all your staff?
2. Review the software portfolio: Have you utilized the software to its full potential to meet ROI? Have you utilized the true capacities of the product you purchased?
3. Experience the courses: Take a subset of the courses to evaluate retention levels of existing material.
4. Analyze the network infrastructure: If end users find the systems difficult to understand, or systems are slow to load or inaccessible due to bandwidth issues, your training initiative will not succeed.
5. Evaluate feedback: Review feedback from your trainees. Ensure they are retaining information.
Recession = Review. Learn more about how to carry out your own learning content Health Check at www.meridiaars.com/healthcheck and rethink how your training budget dollars from 2007/2008 can be re-utilized in 2009.
Emma King is chief learning strategist for Meridia Audience Response Systems. Visit www.meridiaars.com for more information.
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