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Maximising Productivity in 21st Century Training

“As every advanced economy becomes global, a nation's most important competitive asset becomes the skills and cumulative learning of its workforce." (Reich, Harvard Business Review). Never before has there been such a focus on human resources in our society, and never before have we so seriously questioned the performance of our learning institutions, training programmes in the workplace and the basic skills required of individuals.

In recent years, corporate strategy for maximising productivity has focused on reducing direct labour costs through downsizing, increased automation and the re-engineering of inefficient processes. As a result of these interventions, individual employees are now required to quickly accomplish tasks that previously required groups of workers and lengthy time periods. These paradigm shifts in organisational structure and function, however, have also had an effect on the amount and quality of information employees must have access to in order to perform effectively.

In many organisations, formal training remains either physically isolated from the workplace - when it is delivered in classrooms and training centres; or severely constrained by the inflexibility of textbooks, video cassettes, and CD-ROMs. These characteristics are not in line with current business training needs arising from the neo-millennium learner, flatter organisations, high-speed communications, rapidly changing information, diffused decision making, and team-based management. Traditional training systems also fail to reflect current knowledge about the importance of self-directed learning, Just-in-Time training, and on-the-job instruction.

The high-performance workplace - where increases in productivity are sustained over time - demands a training system that supports a flexible 'learning' organisation which can respond and adapt quickly to change. New approaches to training have been developed in response to changes in the workforce and the workplace. These methodologies utilise developments in psychological and organisational research to improve upon the effectiveness of instruction and enlarge the range of organisational needs that training systems can address.

Recent research in educational technology has identified several factors that determine the efficiency with which younger employees acquire new skills and knowledge. This research indicates that learning can occur at a greatly accelerated rate as compared with traditional approaches if a training system possesses certain critical characteristics. This is particularly the case when younger employees, the Digital Natives, come already equipped with many 21st Century learning skills through exposure at school and college.

These critical characteristics include:

1. A low-stress learning environment: The first aspect in accelerated learning is stress reduction. People learn more efficiently when they are relaxed and studies have shown that adults are under less stress when permitted to learn independently versus in a group setting. In addition, frequent slight disturbances in classroom environments impede efficiency in the learning process. Individual instruction, where all of the learner's senses can focus on the task at hand, removes this impediment.
2. Multimodal instructional delivery: Instruction that utilises several sensory channels in parallel - such as images, text, and sound - harnesses much more of the cognitive capabilities of the learner than uni-modal delivery. When these modes are combined, a higher retention rate results; although learners retain on average only 20 % of what they hear, simply adding visual elements to the instruction doubles retention rates.
3. Interactivity: Instruction that provides the learner with the ability to interact with the content rather than passively absorb large chunks of information stimulates a more active learner involvement and engagement. Research has shown that learners comprehend much more information when they can practise new skills as they acquire them. They can retain 75% of the new information they are exposed to provided that they both see and hear the information as well as do something with the information when they first encounter it.

When the method of instruction combines these three characteristics, the synergistic results far exceed those of traditional methods. For example, reports indicate that after a two-week period, only 10-20% of the information communicated in a classroom is remembered. When learners individually use computer-based multimedia incorporating sound, high-quality video, and interactivity, retention rates vary from 50 to 95%. Furthermore, training time is frequently half that necessary using traditional approaches. Training systems that possess all three characteristics of accelerated learning enable employees not only to learn more quickly, but also to remember and apply more of what they have learned.

New training strategies that are geared towards quickly solving employees' current performance problems are collectively referred to as Just-in-Time training. Many companies already utilise aspects of Just-in-Time training within their organisations:

1. Computer software applications with built-in 'help' screens provide Just-in-Time support for both novice and experienced users. The ability to perform unfamiliar operations with the software can be acquired while using the software itself.
2. Impromptu information exchanges between employees, such as when one employee asks a more experienced peer for guidance while performing a task, is also an example of informal Just-in-Time training.

New training technologies utilising computer networks can rapidly deliver effective training content directly to the desktop or work environment, and the selection of the training content can be made quickly by employees themselves in response to their individualised needs and the tasks at hand.

These technologies create training systems that can systematically address both Just-in-Time and conventional training within one integrated solution. This can only be achieved by a shift away from the delivery of an automated on-line textbook as is currently the case with on-line corporate learning, to the provision of discrete learning objects, each of no more that 10 minutes duration, with a fixed learning outcome, delivered Just-In-Time to the individual.

Studies have also noted changes in the nature of the workforce:

1. Along with a smaller, post-baby-boom pool of entrants into the workforce, greater numbers of workers are experiencing increasing job shifting throughout their lifetime,
2. Training systems will therefore have to accommodate "a more diverse population of trainees than they have dealt with in the past...many of those entering the workforce, as well as many already in it, will not have the prerequisite skills for the new jobs that they will be required to do".

The key trend associated with these changes in the workforce is that employees will increasingly be life-long learners. The traditional sequence of formal school-based education followed by a predetermined career path is no longer the norm. In its place, adults will iterate cycles of learning and applying skills in response to workplace demands, and continuously develop personal knowledge bases for the duration of their professional lives.

Employers must support this essential life-long learning process with a flexible and powerful training system, as employees will not only increasingly rely on it, they will also increasingly demand it.