Monthly Archives: September 2007

Oi! HR professionals! Know your place!

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Human resources professionals need to know their limitations, according to the former Granada chief executive and business troubleshooter Sir Gerry Robinson, and ex- BBC director general Greg Dyke. Speaking at the CIPD’s conference in Harrogate in September, they said that HR’s role was to make things happen.

 

Robinson, who confessed he was not a fan of HR, is reported to have said: “There is a tendency for it to try to do more. There is no power in the function itself other than what it can achieve through the line manager.”

 

Dyke said HR needed to know what it could or could not do, adding: “HR can’t change culture without the chief executive.”

Comment:  Maybe HR still has an image problem if that’s what CEOs really think of it. I know a good PR company that might be able to help – but the problem is that HR professionals don’t know they need help.

Good game – and no need to pay

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The Institute of Digital Learning at the University of Wales, Newport, has launched a number of free interactive games that help people explore topics such as disability, age diversity, racial equality and homelessness. These games are contained within the ‘Addressing Barriers: Enhancing Services’ series of Equality and Diversity toolkits, which incorporate expert video tutorials alongside interactive ‘Bytesize Basics’ serious games.

For further information visit: http://equal.newport.ac.uk

Comment:  For years the UK’s e-learning producers have been complaining that overseas (usually Indian) companies can undercut them because of the much lower labour rates in theses countries. However, this move by the University of Wales, Newport, rather takes the wind out of the whingers’ sails. Not even e-learning producers in Argentina – said to be currently the cheapest source of e-learning programming code in the world – can produce e-learning materials for less than free.

Moving target

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Mobile learning (m-learning) is moving beyond the innovation stage to full implementation in all sectors of the economy, according to the results of a survey of the members throughout the world of the US-based eLearning Guild (eLG). Apparently:

  • 44.8% of respondents expect to do more m-learning in the next 12 months.
  • The US and Canada lag behind other countries in terms of implementation of, and plans for, m-learning.
  • Of those who have implemented m-learning and have measured its ROI, 88% report a positive ROI.
  • Those who have implemented m-learning report a 52% improvement in user performance and an 83% increase in making learning available to users.

Comment:  Research findings fall into one of two categories: ‘Why did they waste money revealing the obvious?’ and ‘Wow, is that really true?’ Sadly, more research findings tend to fall into the former category. This includes the eLG survey:

  • The uptake of any ‘new’ technology is always set to increase – at least initially (after which, by definition, it stops being ‘new technology’).
  • All but the most unthinking George Bush supporter would now suggest that the US is at the forefront of the application of learning technologies.
  • It takes a brave person to confess that using new technology has produced a negative ROI, with reductions in user performance as a result of undergoing the learning.

When credibility and jobs are at stake, who needs truth?