First Things First

According to AstD, more than 40 percent of the American work force performs at the low end of government literacy measurements and cannot keep up with technological advances and skills required in the workplace. To address this, more and more companies are integrating e-learning into training programs and finding new ways to reach out to their global workforce.

Tech Resource Group (TRG) in Raleigh, N.C., has been providing comprehensive learning solutions since 1993. These learning solutions are designed to help businesses deploy knowledge across the extended enterprise of employees, customers, distributors and other business partners. TRG clients include Microsoft, GlaxoSmithKline, Nortel and Palm.

In 1998 Microsoft implemented a customized version of Siebel Systems software designed to integrate sales, marketing and support. After initial training for 15,000 sales representatives in 65 countries, Microsoft was not satisfied with the utilization rate and decided to revamp its Web-based training. Microsoft chose TRG to assess the current program, review the needs of the field and modify where necessary. TRG developed Web-based training appropriate for use worldwide, which concluded with a test. If the sales representative passed, he or she would be automatically linked to a site to download the Siebel program. If not, then it's back to class. According to TRG, utilization rates of the Siebel tools have increased significantly and TRG's role at Microsoft is expanding.

Tommy Re, TRG's chief sales officer says, "e-learning is becoming much more accepted for a lot of reasons. We've heard things like 'I just can't afford to bring my salespeople together for three more days of CRM training.' We also see speed-to-market issues that tend to be more related to product knowledge and we've been doing more and more training and e-learning there.

"People wait too long to decide training strategy," Re adds. "We recommend that people think about training in advance or while they're considering what application they'll use so that we can be involved in the process. We've been much more successful with our clients when we've been involved from an earlier stage," he says. "We have suggested to clients that they push the rollout when there's not enough time for training because sometimes folks think that training's magic, but there's a lot of work that goes into it, a lot of discovery, and a lot of collaboration with the client to make sure everything comes off perfectly. End user adoption is often the deciding factor in the real, true value of this tool to the organization."

Hall echoes this when asked to identify the biggest mistake people make in e-learning: "Jumping in too fast without building a strategy and gaining support of all stakeholders. If the people you build it for aren't going to use it, what's the use?"

"You have to have the house in order," Re says. "Very often folks think they are ready to go and then all of the sudden we've got changes in the interface, some process changes, for example. The credibility factor is so important. For an instructor-led or Web-based training event, credibility is the most important thing. If our instructors do not have exactly what the end user is seeing, then that affects the credibility and that's something we try to avoid at all costs...."