Monthly Archives: October 2009

Getting engaged

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An independent survey launched by HR, payroll and talent management solutions provider, MidlandHR, has identified the contributory factors to employee engagement – which 92% of respondents said is key to organisational performance. The study, Investigating Employee Engagement and Predictive Analytics, surveyed over 100 business leaders in UK public, private and charity sectors. Of the 19 aspects that could potentially affect employee engagement, the top three were said to be: relationship with team/peers (95%), relationship with line manager (94%) and recognition of achievement (93%). By comparison, the bottom three were: flexible working hours (82%), good pay (79%) and flexible benefits (62%).

Commenting on the research, MidlandHR’s research director, Dr Leslie Bowie, said: “Throwing money at a problem will not necessarily make it better. Contrary to popular belief, employees are not driven by money alone. So, to improve relationships, organisations should look at workforce planning methods such as implementing regular appraisals. As the survey highlights, these can improve employee engagement and have a significant and sustained impact on the retention of top performers and, therefore, the bottom line.”

Comment: All this is sound stuff. As we keep being told – but still don’t seem to believe – money isn’t everything (otherwise we’d all be bankers).

Trainers, know your place!

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IMC (UK) Learning Ltd has revealed research (http://www.im-c.de/uploads/media/IMC-research-SMB-barriers-to-training.pdf) that looks at the barriers organisations encounter when providing training/ learning. It also reveals attitudes towards adopting e-learning tools, as well as organisations’ current use of new and emerging technologies for training. The research shows that 83% of respondents agree that enabling employees to learn is very important and say their organisations have defined training systems in place. Some 32%, however, agree that employees have little, if any, time for organised learning as they are too busy working for the survival of the business.

 

Other findings are:

  • 75% of respondents’ organisations use or plan to use e-learning tools; while 14% stated that they do not use or plan to use them.
  • Externally hosted learning management systems (LMS) (21%) and virtual classroom applications (21%) are used significantly less by respondents’ organisations than self hosted LMS (41%), authoring tools (41%), off-the-shelf e-learning content (38%) and discussion forums (45%).
  • 42% of respondents highlighted indirect costs of training, such as time off work to train, as a large barrier to increasing training in their organisations; while 30% pointed to the disruption of work patterns.
  • Switching from classroom to online learning where appropriate is seen as important for improving training provision by 43% of respondents.
  • 46% of respondents believe that online learning helps organisations reduce the overall cost per head of training employees, while 42% agree that online learning introduces flexible learning practices without the loss of employee productivity. Some 42% also believe that appropriate off-the-shelf e-learning content is hard to find.
  • 36% of respondents from large organisations agree that employees are too busy working for the survival of the business for organised learning, compared with 14% and 38% from medium-sized and small organisations.
  • Significantly fewer small and medium-sized organisations (60% and 77% respectively) use or plan to use e-learning tools than their large (92%) counterparts.

 

Comment: So, people believe that training/ learning is a good thing but business survival comes first. E-learning is a good option, especially if it can be done with minimum disruption to actual work, but appropriate generic e-learning is hard to find. This is further confirmation that yet another generation of trainers and training technologists have failed to convince those who run the business world that training/ learning has a direct impact on business competitiveness and results. The research merely affirms that old business maxim: ‘Trainers, know your place!’

Social media scandal

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Some 35% UK organisations believe that the impact of social media is now just as, or more important than traditional media, according to a study carried out by PR consultancy, Portfolio Communications. Despite this, around 90% of organisations are
not allocating a budget to a dedicated social media programme – though 31% say they plan to do so within the next six months.

Portfolio’s Jonathan Bawden, commented: “This highlights the problem of how organisations are going to fund social media programmes without ‘stealing’ budget from other areas, such as traditional PR and advertising campaigns. Already, we have
come across organisations that have appointed social media programme managers without any budget to support them. Not only does this illustrate weak leadership in the ‘we have to do something to tackle social media, but don’t quite know what’ mould, it also encourages budget-holding PR, advertising and other marketing departments to defend their empires. Such a position can be create ‘silos’ that work against the integration of expertise and resources that organisations need to generate competitive advantage as they – and the wider economy – fight to come out of recession.”

The study also found that just 29% of organisations currently make use of external blogs, and only 25% make use of Twitter, despite the major benefits these media can deliver at relatively low cost.

Bawden continued: “While it takes considerable effort and is time-consuming for an organisation to run its own blog, it is possible to make use of this powerful social medium by contributing to relevant ‘external’ blogs – that is, blogs run by others. Indeed, the majority of bloggers welcome such contributions as they can add significant value and credibility.

“The same is true for other social media tools. Generating the information to make a corporate Twitter account worth following can be surprisingly time-consuming, even if generating the actual tweets themselves is not. However, it is possible to contribute to social media by pointing to research, market reports, case studies and opinion pieces that can add significant value to a debate while taking remarkably little time to execute.”

Further details of the study are available at: http://www.portfoliocomms.com/downloads.html

 

Comment: Absolutely!

Exclusive club for e-learning

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Whether or not the UK is coming out of recession, it seems that employee training is still ripe for budget cuts. Recent research, commissioned by the e-learning and content provider, IMC (UK) Learning Ltd, shows:

 

  • 42% of UK organisations cite the indirect cost of training, such as time off work to attend courses, as the biggest barrier to increasing training provision.
  • 32% say that employees in their organisations are too busy working for the survival of the business for organised learning.
  • 43% say switching from classroom to online learning is important for improving training in their organisation.
  • Only 31% of respondents from small and 45% from medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) believe that online learning can help to reduce the overall cost per head of training.
  • Only 43% of respondents from small and 55% from medium-sized organisations believe that online learning introduces flexibility, reducing loss of productivity from training staff.

 

Dr Dirk Thissen, managing director at IMC (UK) Learning Ltd, commented: “These results highlight that the issue of training is broader than simply the direct cost of training courses. A large number of organisations are involved in e-learning in one form or another (75%), and this seems set to grow as pressure to maintain productivity rises.

 

“The lack of understanding of the benefits that e-learning can provide SMEs, when it comes to the overall cost of training and flexibility, is both surprising and worrying – particularly in the current economic climate. In a market showing early signs of recovery, it is more important than ever for SMEs to have an appropriately skilled workforce, while maintaining staff productivity, in order to survive and grow.”

 

For a copy of the research: ‘Barriers to training and learning provision in UK organisations – and how to overcome them’. Is the face of training changing?’, email jonathan.bawden@portfoliocomms.com or call 0207 240 6959.

 

Comment: Like all research, this study provides causes for both optimism and pessimism. On the one hand, 75% of organisations are using e-learning – which should gladden the hearts of e-learning providers and Towards Maturity’s Laura Overton – but SMEs are still not convinced about e-learning’s value. This has been true since the early days of computer based training, despite periodic Government-inspired projects and propaganda to encourage SMEs to espouse e-learning.

 

Maybe we should now face reality: SMEs – which, admittedly play a key role in our economy – will never wholeheartedly embrace e-learning, despite anyone’s best endeavours and all the theoretical advantages that should accrue to them if they did so.

 

E-learning is for large employers. As such, it’s a fairly exclusive club – and one which is likely to become more exclusive in both the current and likely future economic conditions. Let’s embrace and even celebrate that exclusivity, rather than try to flog an SME horse that, if not dead, is still only barely alive to e-learning.

Learning providers are shown where the money is

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During the current recession, three in ten adults who are working or looking for work have paid to learn new skills in their own time to help them get new jobs or keep their current one.

 

This is revealed in a new poll by elemense, the recruitment processing outsourcing company. The survey also found that the 35-44 age range (38%) and 18-24 year olds (34%) were most likely to self-fund skills development to make their job or prospects more secure. Workers in Scotland (36%) were most likely to pay to gain new skills, followed by those in the Midlands (33%), the North, South West and Wales (30% each) and, finally, the South East (26%).

 

Comment: The survey suggests that many of the people who are most likely to spend their own money and time on skills development were not of working age during the last recession. This might indicate a change in the culture of the workforce, with workers taking more personal responsibility for their career now the concept of a job for life has gone.

 

From the point of view of the UK’s learning providers, they’re obviously now looking for Scots or Midlanders aged 35 to 44 or 18 to 24. Happy hunting!

Telling it like it should be

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Cutting back too far on staffing during the recession could leave businesses lagging behind when the upturn arrives, believes Andrew Hardaker, managing director of recruitment specialists, ATA Selection. He says that many businesses are looking at ways of saving money – and, with employees often being the most expensive
overhead, staff cutbacks seem inevitable.

His view appears to be supported by the most recent quarterly CBI Industrial Trends Survey for the manufacturing sector which showed that, in the last quarter, 47% of firms reduced their headcount. Only six per cent increased their employee levels. In the UK since December 2007, 4.4m jobs have been lost, and the unemployment
rate is currently 7.6%.

But cutting too deep could be a false economy, argues Hardaker. Getting rid of too many members of staff and, in particular, making key employees redundant, could make growth difficult and slow when the market improves.

Companies which make fewer job cuts during the recession won’t experience the lag between recruitment and return on investment. The winners when the market becomes more buoyant will be those companies that can balance between making cuts that enable them to survive the downturn and maintaining their talent pool at a level that will enable them to capitalise on the inevitable, eventual upturn, he says.

In his view, managing a workforce through the recession involves trimming away only non-key staff; developing a consistent approach to employee retention; communicating the business’ vision to employees; recognising and meeting employees’ career development aspirations through learning and development activities, and breeding employee loyalty.

 

Comment: There’s nothing controversial there. With all the credibility of a professional with a vested interest, Hardaker has given some generally accepted good advice. The problem is – as today’s jobless could testify – is that the real world is always a special case and all the theory in the world doesn’t stand up in the hard light of reality. It’s still a nice idea though. Pass me my rose-tinted spectacles…

The Oxford Union debates e-learning

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That august debating institution The Oxford Union – no less – focused its attention on the world of e-learning on 30th September when it debated the motion that ‘this house believes that the e-learning of today is essential for the important skills of tomorrow’.

 

The motion was lost, after learning experts from industry and academia had engaged in a debate at least encouraged, if not sponsored, by the well known e-learning developer, Epic.

 

According to Niall Sclater, of the Open University: “It became clear during the debate that people had widely differing views of what constituted e-learning, depending on their current position and experience…

 

“My feeling was that the totality of e-learning today is not a good example of where we need to be going in the future, despite many inspired examples of good practice. Supporting the motion therefore showed complacency and a lack of reality about the huge job we still have to do before learners are experiencing satisfying learning experiences online with ubiquitous high quality interactive content and opportunities to engage effectively with other learners and teachers online.”

 

Championing the motion, Karuna Sanghvi commented: “The e-learning explosion is still to happen. The internet may have spread faster but has less impact in terms of retention value. E-learning, on the other hand, allows users to keep content, repeat learning and retain learning. Many parts of the world will choose e-learning for tomorrow’s essential skills and use the internet to supplement e-learning.”

 

Comment: Not having attended the debate, I can’t express an opinion but I applaud those who championed the cause of e-learning to the point where it not only came to the attention of The Oxford Union but also became a topic for debate. Traditionally, it has been only a short step from being a member of The Oxford Union to the corridors of power. If only e-learning could make a similar speedy transition.