Implementing E-Learning

Spending Does Not Equal Learning

Despite the promise of e-learning, some corporations are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into it and receiving little in return. For some, e-learning has become a reprise of the debacle last decade when truckloads of training CD-ROMs made their way from suppliers to training departments to dumpsters, untouched by learners’ hands.

E-learning may become the best productivity booster of all time, but, in many cases, e-learning has not lived up to its promises (table 1-1). If employees don’t participate, they receive no benefit. If e-learning fails to significantly change their behavior and their on-the-job performance, the organization doesn’t benefit.

Table 1-1. Promises and realities of e-learning.

Promise ...