HRM textbook

260 PART 3 TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
its own online (intranet) offerings or from the hundreds of online training vendors on the
Web. For example, the employer might arrange with www.puresafety. com to let its
employees take one or more occupational safety courses from those puresafety.com offers.
LEARNING PORTALS The second approach is to arrange with an online training
vendor to make its courses available via the employer s intranet-based learning portal.
A learning portal is a section of an employer s Web site that offers employees online
access to many or all of the training courses they need to succeed at their jobs. Most
often, the employer contracts with applications service providers (ASPs). A Google
search for e-learning companies reveals many vendors such as SkillSoft, Plateau
Systems, and Employment Law Learning Technologies. When employees go to their
firm s learning portal, they actually access the menu of training courses that the ASP
offers for the employer.
Improving Productivity Through HRIS
Learning Management Systems
Learning management systems (LMS) are special software tools that support
Internet training by helping employers identify training needs, and in scheduling,
delivering, assessing, and managing the online training itself. For example, General
Motors uses an LMS to help its dealers in Africa and the Middle East deliver
training. The Internet-based LMS includes a course catalog, supervisor approved
self-enrollment, and pre- and post-course tests. The system then automatically
schedules the individual s training.73 Blackboard and WebCT are two familiar
college-oriented learning management systems.
The movement today is toward integrating the e-learning system with the
company s enterprisewide information systems. In that way, for instance, employers
automatically update skills inventory and succession plans as employees complete
their training.74
USING INTERNET-BASED LEARNING Whether to use e-learning often comes
down to efficiency. Web learning doesn t necessarily teach faster or better. In one
review of the evidence, Web-based instruction was a bit more effective than classroom
instruction for teaching memory of facts and principles, and Web-based
instruction and classroom instruction were equally effective for teaching information
about how to perform a task or action. 75 But of course, the need to teach large
numbers of students remotely, or to enable students to study at their leisure, often
makes e-learning so much more efficient that the small differences in Web-based
versus classroom learning become somewhat meaningless. 76
In practice, many employers opt for blended learning. Here, the trainees make
use of several delivery methods (such as manuals, in-class lectures, self-guided
e-learning programs, and Web-based seminars or webinars ) to learn the material. 77
Intuit (which makes software such as TurboTax) uses instructor-led classroom training
for bringing in new distributors and getting them up to speed. Then they use their
virtual classroom systems to provide additional training, for monthly meetings with
distributors, and for short classes on special software features. 78
Mobile Learning
Mobile learning (or on-demand learning ) means delivering learning content on
demand via mobile devices like cell phones, laptops, and iPads, wherever and whenever
the learner has the time and desire to access it. 79 For example, using dominKnow s
(www.dominknow.com) iPod touch and iPhone-optimized Touch Learning Center
Portal, trainees can log in and take full online courses. 80
Employers use mobile learning to deliver corporate training and downloads on
everything from how to close an important sales deal to optimizing organizational
change to learning business Spanish . . . You can be . . . riding your bike while listening
to the training program. 81 Capital One purchased 3,000 iPods for trainees who had