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No More Teachers, No More Books...
"It's been very popular," says Blue Cross/Blue Shield's Philip Zoller. The company anticipates lower administrative costs and more-effective employees thanks to the new training method. The old corporate dog-and-pony show is going digital. As more and more training experts are beginning to realize, a combination of factors is pushing business away from traditional classroom education, toward a cluster of new technologies known as computer-based training (CBT).
The biggest single factor has been the falling cost of CBT production. Thanks to advances in authoring software, and a growing cadre of skilled programmers, the cost of creating CBT programs has dropped from an average of $150,000 or more per hour of training in the early 1980s down to as little as $1,000, according to some experts. That's putting computer-based training within reach of even the smallest companies. But businesses are discovering a host of other benefits from CBT:
It often takes far less productive work time than traditional classroom training. For example, a big computer-based training program at Jacksonville's CSX Transportation reduced time spent in training and away from work by up to 50% compared to classroom training, according to a company study. "The [training] industry is changing in the same way the business place has changed," says Dick Brewer, vice president of Simms Industries Inc. of Columbia, Maryland, a CBT and performance-support software developer. "There's just not the time to train anymore. And by the time you do train someone, their job has changed."
CBT travel expenses. For companies that have lots of remote locations, that's making CBT especially attractive. "Organizations that have very definite, small, dispersed groups of people are realizing that CBT is the way to deliver," says Juan Gutierrez, senior vice president of Tampa's Kaset International, one of the nation's best-known classroom training providers.
Studies show that CBT often produces greater interest among students and higher retention rates than does traditional training. That's partly because computer-based training tends to be more focused, more interactive and more patient than are human instructors. Also, it's cooler. In fact, for a generation of workers virtually raised by video screens, slick new CBT products often can connect better than classroom instructors. "It's really become almost a juggling act for us to balance the education and entertainment," says Tim Klasson, vice president for corporate development at InfoSource Inc. of Winter Park, a nationally known producer of computer-based training. "Edu-tainment has become a term we deal with."
And here's the kicker: Increasingly, CBT is allowing workers to gain or refresh their knowledge at the moment it's needed, a concept known as "just-in-time" training. In fact, computer-based training is beginning to shade into an even newer phenomenon known as "performance support," which allows a computer program to tell a worker what to do at the moment the task must be performed, and not before. Says Richard McMahon, president of AMT Learning Solutions Inc., a Panama City company that makes highly regarded computer training software: "We find a lot of people will go through a 30-minute lesson and get to the point where they need to use the training and can't remember it. Training in general is going away from lesson-based courses and more toward just-in-time training."
Value Rent-A-Car based in Boca Raton was so impressed by CBT that officials decided to make it the cornerstone of a major cultural restructuring. Shifting to CBT not only will save money but also will help accomplish the company's new goal of becoming known for providing the industry's best customer service, executives believe.
Previously, new hires were put behind the sales counter with little or no instruction for the first few weeks, explains Steve Jensen, Value's training development manager. That contributed to a perception that training didn't matter. Soon, CBT will become mandatory for all employees, including managers and executives.
"With this program it's total consistency," Jensen says. "It becomes standard operating procedure. That's the biggest advantage."
The old two-week classroom training course that new hires eventually received also was too expensive, Jensen says, particularly for a high-turnover industry like the rental-car business. The new CBT course will take four days, combining computer and on-the-job instruction.
Despite up-front costs as high as $500,000, Value officials estimate their new computerized training program will pay for itself within a year. In fact, studies generally indicate that CBT can pay for itself within a few years, according to an ROI (Return on Investment) report by Brandon Hall, the editor of Multimedia Training Newsletter in Sunnyvale, Calif.
To be sure, more companies still are employing the traditional categories of instructor-led training, including lectures and videotaped instruction. But a recent survey in Minneapolis-based Training magazine suggests that about half of American businesses with more than 100 employees already are using computer-based training. And the growth in training clearly is coming at the high-tech end. Another 1995 survey of 1,909 trainers by Training's sister company, Lakewood Research, showed that more than 80% were expected to increase use of CD-ROM technology, 80.5% to increase use of the Internet, and two-thirds to increase use of company computer networks.
By contrast, only 9% of trainers expected to increase traditional lectures, and 40% use of videotapes.
For companies like Tampa's Kaset, which provides classroom training in customer service for some of America's largest corporations, the trend is noteworthy. Officials at Kaset doubt CBT will produce big changes immediately for their business; some types of training still are best done in a group atmosphere. But Kaset recently added a CD-ROM version of its training course. "I think looking 10-15 years ahead, delivering content outside the classroom will become a larger and larger part of our business," says Gutierrez.
What's even more exciting to proponents is the leap forward they sense in computer-based training among smaller and low-tech businesses - particularly within the huge hospitality and food industries. "Even in the restaurant industry, people are realizing they're going to have to jump on board with some of this stuff," says Dan Murphy, education and training coordinator for the Florida Restaurant Association. He's helping to evaluate several new software training packages, and the association also has its own interactive instructional CD-ROMs.
Says Brewer of Simms Industries: "Just as the Internet has become this grand democratizer - an immense town meeting - computer-based training is becoming more and more something within the reach of the common person."
For now, most interest among smaller businesses is confined to so-called "off-the-shelf" programming. "I don't see them [small businesses] developing their own" for the time being, says Klasson of InfoSource. Where is this shelf? It can be found in business-supply and software stores. Vendors like InfoSource and Panama City's AMT Learning Solutions provide titles on topics ranging from word-processing to spreadsheets. Gainesville's LearnIT Corp. produces a popular new training package for Microsoft's Windows 95. While computer use remains the biggest subject for CBT, it's also becoming more available for other pursuits. According to the 1996 Computer-Based Training Report, data processing and information systems were taught by 44% of respondents. Other topics taught by at least 20% included non-data-processing technical skills, management skills, safety and customer education. (The report was published by SB Communications, Hingham, Mass.)
InfoSource of Winter Park was rated No. 1 nationally in customer satisfaction in the survey. Other frequently mentioned vendors were: NETG of Naperville, Ill.; CBT Systems of South San Francisco; Microsoft of Redmond, Wash.; DPEC of Nashville, Tenn.; Individual Software of Pleasanton, Calif.; Macromedia of San Francisco; SRA Technology of Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.; and Anderson Soft-Teach of Los Gatos, Calif. For larger businesses, in-house authoring of training is becoming a reality. Among the best-known authoring systems: Authorware from Macromedia; IconAuthor and CBT Express from AimTech of Nashua, N.H.; Toolbook from Asymetrix of Bellevue, Wash.; and Quest Net+ and Designer's Edge from Allen Communication of Salt Lake City. A word of caution: Make sure your choice of authoring systems includes the new novice-friendly template packages - essentially, pre-made screens that can be used without much alteration.
Many companies that have tried authoring their own CBT have learned that producing ground-up programming still takes a while. "There is a long learning curve to use the software," admits Gelsys Cardenes in customer service training at Florida Power & Light. But the results are well worth it, she says. "Everyone who looks at it says, ?Wow, this is the way they should learn.'"
