Stock markets are shaky and a financial crisis seems inevitable. What does that mean for e-learning or learning 2.0? Will the training department be seen as a critical business function and will online collaboration skills be viewed as essential for maintaining a flexible learning organisation? Or will training and education be seen as luxuries in a time of belt-tightening, layoffs and uncertain markets?
I think that it will be difficult for training and education to be heard above the clamour for scarce resources and investments. Much of the e-learning market is still courses online and it’s hard to give a direct measure of value per course in times when each dollar is counted. Just think, what are the perceived business costs if a course is canceled or put on hold? Learning-related initiatives will need to have clear long and short-term value so that executives will not be able to ignore them. Whether you’re a vendor or inside an organisation, are you ready?
On the other hand, creating performance support tools can be a much more obvious business case. If you’re not in the performance improvement field, you may have to be soon.
You’ve hit the nail on the head with your reference to performance support. I wear the instructional design hat for a retail company and I can say that I have shifted my focus from creating courses to creating job aids and other performance support tools. Currently I am working on a Wiki rather than focusing on designing some new course.
As the purse strings tighten, corporations will be looking for low cost solutions that pack a punch and performance support is the answer. This really strikes a chord with me as I just finished “Job Aids & Performance Support” by Alison Rosset this morning. It’s a good read for those interested in this topic.
In the academic arena, learning for the sake of adding to the fund of knowledge is the norm. In the corporate world, where the bottom line is king, I would hazard to say that any learning that does not directly support performance is pointless.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a living, breathing example of the former, which is why my manager constantly refers to me as “a bloody academic”. But, unless I can prove to him that this university course, that book, the other conference are going to add value to his cost centre, it’s at my own cost and on my own time.