Skills and Strategies Next Generation E-Learning SPONSORED BY: What do high performers do? Make more learning programs available as e-learning. Use e-learning to develop mid level and frontline leaders. Use e-learning to develop high-potential employees. WHITEPAPER
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Skills and Strategies
Next GenerationE-Learning
SPONSORED BY:
What do high performers do?Make more learning programs available as e-learning.
Use e-learning to develop mid level and frontline leaders.
Use e-learning to develop high-potential employees.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to ATD Research, 1640 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22314.
ORDERING INFORMATION Research reports published by ATD can be purchased by visiting ATD’s website at www.td.org/research or by calling 800.628.2783 or 703.683.8100.
ATD Product Code: 791706-WPe-ISBN: 978-1-947308-08-4Publication Date: September 2017
ATD EDITORIAL STAFF Manager, ATD Research: Maria HoManager, ATD Press: Melissa JonesResearch Analyst: Megan ColeJunior Research Analyst: Shauna RobinsonInterior Design: John BodyCover Design: Tony JulienProduction Manager: Marjy Jones
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A NOTE FROM OUR SPONSOR
A Note From GoAnimate
Technology advancements are driving every aspect of business, and e-learning is no exception. Driven by an always-
on, mobile culture, learners today have an instant-gratification mindset and are easily distracted by notifications from
emails, text messages, and even fitness trackers. For instructional designers and other e-learning pros, this means
every second counts when fighting for attention, focus, and retention. How do you focus attention away from everyday
distractions and deliver engaging content?
At GoAnimate, we believe video is the answer.
There’s a mountain of evidence that video is an impressive catalyst for engagement in training and e-learning. Studies
have shown that adding video to your content can improve the ability to remember concepts and details, with effects
that even increase over time. Plus, your audience prefers video over static content like slide decks or PDFs—it’s simply
more interesting.
Concise, animated videos are the perfect way to convey internal organization updates or change and transformation
objectives. They’re efficient for employee onboarding, microlearning, or whatever information you believe requires more
of a human touch. Video is a great way to enhance information that has to be delivered as text or to explain a series of
steps that your learners will need to revisit repeatedly. It’s also far less expensive than in-person delivery, especially for
a distributed workforce serviced by a small training team.
So, the next time you’re struggling for ways to connect with the instant-gratification generation, try video. Your audience
may be able to resist the distractions just long enough to learn something.
A NOTE FROM OUR SPONSOR
4 NEXT GENERATION E-LEARNING: Skills and Strategies
About GoAnimate
GoAnimate is a technology company with offices in the United States, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Founded in 2007, the
company has built a cloud-based, do-it-yourself animated video creation platform that has won recognition and honors
from around the world. With more than 8.5 million registered users, GoAnimate has helped Fortune 500 companies,
SMBs, and individuals make more than 22 million videos, and it continues to redefine and lead the DIY animation industry.
When it comes to preparing training and specific learning scenarios intended to address the competencies of your
employees, you want your content to resonate and be remembered. You need more than just the same-old static delivery
using PowerPoint, email, or PDF. GoAnimate provides a platform to take anything and transform it into captivating media
that will truly boost employee engagement and retention.
At GoAnimate, we don’t put a limit on the pace or amount you can create. This means you can adapt to the specific
requirements of your organization and produce what you need, when and how you need it. You can also share your asset
library and videos easily with your team for hands-on collaboration.
With hundreds of ready-made templates, thousands of movements, and tens of thousands of assets to choose from,
GoAnimate helps even novice users quickly and easily create amazing animated videos. Choose a template and some
pre-animated assets, add a voice-over, insert a background soundtrack, and voilà—you have a professional-quality
animated video to engage your learners.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For years, talent development professionals have relied on e-learning to reach employees—especially those scattered
across geographies and time zones—with consistent and flexible training. Affordability, self-pacing, just-in-time access,
and other benefits make e-learning an effective and popular option in the blended learning portfolios favored by most
organizational talent development functions.
Despite speculation in industry media and other sources that e-learning is in decline, Next Generation E-Learning: Skills
and Strategies (hereafter, the Study)—the latest research by ATD (the Association for Talent Development) and the
Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp)—found the practice thriving in nearly 90 percent of organizations. Further,
talent development leaders and practitioners say they anticipate not only continued growth, but also exciting changes
for e-learning ahead.
Market-leading companies are enthusiastic users of e-learning, enabling online access to most of the assets in their
learning portfolios. Those high-performance organizations also report greater success than their lower-performing
counterparts in using e-learning as a means of effectively reaching, engaging, and developing high-potential employees.
Another area in which top companies are making differentiating strides in e-learning is leadership development. The
Study found strong correlations to better market performance and greater overall learning effectiveness when e-learning
was incorporated in development programs, but only for specific levels of organizational leaders.
ATD and i4cp examined the use of e-learning in recent years and identified influences on talent development leaders’
choices about the ways they leverage e-learning. Considerations about content, design tools, and the types of training
for which talent development professionals recommend e-learning were also explored to help these leaders and their
teams make strong, data-driven decisions that are likely to support more effective e-learning use.
Like other business initiatives, e-learning exists within the context of volatile markets and rapidly changing
organizational environments, which means that it must be a dynamic learning methodology. Talent development leaders
predict that in the coming years the use of e-learning will become more extensive. They also expect e-learning to take
on new characteristics, including greater levels of personalization, more interactivity, expanded use of videos, and an
increased focus on content presented as microlearning.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Talent development leaders expect e-learning to take on new characteristics in the future, including greater levels
of personalization, more interactivity, expanded use of videos, and an increased focus on content presented as
microlearning.
“We already have a broader view of e-learning,” says Dan Lovely, former chief learning officer of global insurance firm
AIG. “It can be microlearning, video content, articles, whitepapers, book abstracts, and other learning assets. Increasingly,
I think we’ll look at e-learning to be even more multifaceted, and to be able to be much more effective at delivering
learning that’s personalized to the individual. As this is evolving, I see us actually redefining what e-learning is.”
6 NEXT GENERATION E-LEARNING: Skills and Strategies
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WHITEPAPER
More than half a century after the first computer-based training program was introduced, the arrival of personal
computing and widespread access to the Internet fueled the growth of e-learning as an organizational training
tool. Now, the evolution of the technologies that enable its design and delivery continue to gain speed, and talent
development professionals are seeing traditional e-learning undergo many changes. Yet it remains a valued tool in
most learning portfolios, and talent development leaders anticipate more growth for e-learning in the years ahead.
Currently, e-learning is a popular choice for conveying need-to-know information, especially compliance training, and as
a component of orientation and onboarding programs. Talent development professionals also rate e-learning particularly
effective in industry-specific and technical training areas.
However, like other talent development leaders, Dan Lovely sees changes ahead. “I think we’ll see [e-learning] become
a much more personalized type of learning. Adaptive learning technologies will enable us to offer customized user
experiences, which will really help maximize individuals’ learning. I think it will make e-learning far more versatile and
effective than it’s been in the past.”
Exploring the State of E-Learning
When ATD and i4cp explored the current and projected future state of e-learning, the Study used this definition:
E-learning is asynchronous, structured, self-paced learning that is delivered electroni-
cally. E-learning may include pre-recorded lecture content and video, visuals, and/or
text, knowledge quizzes, simulations, games, and other interactive elements.
Next Generation E-Learning: Skills and Strategies is
based on the responses of 546 talent development
leaders worldwide to a 2017 survey. Most of those
participants represented large organizations (workforces
of 1,000 or more), and companies were about evenly split,
with 51 percent national in structure and the remainder
multinational or global.
The quantitative survey results were augmented with qualitative perspectives gained through interviews with talent
development leaders working in commercial and nonprofit settings.
talent development professionals participated in the survey
546
INTRODUCTION
8 NEXT GENERATION E-LEARNING: Skills and Strategies
Key Findings
E-Learning in Use:
� In high-performance organizations, the portion of talent development assets available as e-learning
was consistently higher, and it’s growing. Over the past five years, the percentage of top companies that
made most of their learning portfolios accessible by e-learning tripled. The figure is predicted to double again
(to 52 percent) by 2022. As e-learning availability increases over time, correlations to market performance and
learning effectiveness also rise.
� Scattered workforces drove e-learning adoption in the past, but influences are shifting. The need
to deliver training to geographically dispersed learners was the top motivator driving organizations to adopt
e-learning over the past five years. However, greater availability of technologies that support e-learning and
increasing demand for just-in-time learning to aid organizational agility are expected to be more important
drivers of e-learning in the future than learners’ geographic locations.
Talent Development Effectiveness Is Goal-Driven
Every ATD and i4cp research collaboration includes ATD’s gauge of talent development functions—the Talent
Development Effectiveness Index (TDEI). The index provides a snapshot of six key aspects of talent development
effectiveness, and is constructed by averaging survey participants’ self-reported effectiveness in those areas (Figure 1).
FIGURE 1: TALENT DEVELOPMENT FUNCTIONS DRIVE LEARNING AND BUSINESS GOALSTo what extent do you agree with these statements about your organization?
46%
41%
39%
35%
24%
29%
The talent development function helps meet our learning and development goals.
The talent development function helps meet our organization’s business goals.
We deliver learning effectively.
We deliver learning efficiently
The talent development function applies newer technologies to solve business problems.
The talent development function applies new learning techniques and technologies to help meet our learning
and development goals.
Percent of respondents indicating high or very high extent.
9
In ATD and i4cp studies over the past several years, the response patterns reflected by the TDEI have remained
consistent. The strongest ratings reflect talent development functions’ support for achieving goals—in learning and in
the business overall. Mid-range ratings emerge for efficiency and effectiveness of learning delivery, while the lowest
ratings suggest talent development functions still need to up their game when it comes to leveraging the latest learning
technologies and techniques effectively.
High Performance and Learning Effectiveness Go Hand in Hand
Research conducted by i4cp focuses on uncovering the practices that distinguish high-performance organizations—
those that consistently lead the competition in revenue growth, market share, profitability, and customer satisfaction
over time.
To identify those top companies, the Study used i4cp’s Market Performance Index (MPI), averaging respondents’ reported
levels of organizational achievement. Findings from the MPI are also consistent with past ATD/i4cp studies, confirming
that high-performance organizations also report significantly greater levels of effectiveness in all six talent development
activities addressed in the TDEI (Figure 2).
Higher Performers Lower Performers
FIGURE 2: TALENT DEVELOPMENT EFFECTIVENESS FOR HIGHER AND LOWER MARKET PERFORMERS To what extent do you agree with these statements?
The talent development function helps meet our learning and development goals.
The talent development function helps meet our organization’s business goals.
We deliver learning effectively.
We deliver learning efficiently.
The talent development function stays on the cutting edge of new learning techniques and technologies to
help meet our learning and development goals.
The talent development function applies newer technologies to solve business problems.
61%35%
56%22%
51%27%
40%22%
47%20%
35%20%
Percent of respondents indicating high or very high extent.
INTRODUCTION
10 NEXT GENERATION E-LEARNING: Skills and Strategies
Analyzing survey findings through the lenses of the TDEI and MPI makes it possible to identify talent development
practices that are strongly correlated to those indices. For talent development leaders and practitioners challenged
to make wise investments with limited budgets, those relationships point to the activities and approaches that are
associated with better outcomes for the talent development function and for the broader business.
A Note on Correlations
This report includes data from correlation analysis, which measures the strength and direction of the relationship
between two variables. The closer a correlation is to +1 (-1), the stronger the positive (negative) relationship
between the two variables. Correlations do not imply a cause-and-effect relationship between the variables
involved. Rather, when a correlation between two variables is found to be statistically significant, it means that
the measured relationship is not coincidental. Statistical significance is represented by p-values. For instance,
a correlation with p < 0.05 implies a less than 5 percent probability that the measured correlation is a result of
chance. A correlation with p < 0.01, which represents the majority of correlations reported in this Study, shows a
99 percent confidence that these results represent a statistical relationship.
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E-Learning in Use
When a company’s locations stretch across the United States and around the world—from England to Lithuania to
New Zealand—flexibility in organizational learning is a must-have capability. That’s the case at Intermedix, a global
provider of technology-enabled services designed to help drive performance in healthcare and safety industries.
Intermedix has more than 2,500 employees around the world, and has had 28 acquisitions in the past decade.
“In expanding companies like Intermedix, there’s a strong business case for e-learning,” says Eric Hahn, director of
learning and development. “E-learning can be used across multiple—especially distant—locations to deliver learning
of a consistent quality and with a consistent message. It also enables measurement, tracking, and reporting of learning
activities and outcomes. I see it as a means of providing good training and service to our employees, while also having
an impact on performance for the organization.”
In recent years, Hahn and other talent development
leaders have seen significant growth in the use of
e-learning as a stand-alone development method, but
perhaps more importantly, it has become a valuable
component of a wider blended learning approach.
Driving that growth in e-learning are factors as diverse
as business locations, evolution in enabling technologies, and changes in employees’ training needs and learning-
consumption patterns. Today, nearly 90 percent of organizations offer at least some e-learning options (Figure 3).
Yes
No
Don’t Know
FIGURE 3: MOST USE E-LEARNINGIs any portion of your organization’s talent development (learning and development) portfolio currently delivered as e-learning, either exclusively or as an option?
88%
11%
1%
of participants’ organizations use e-learning
88%
INTRODUCTION
12 CULTURE AND CHANGE: Protecting and Shaping Culture During Transitions
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
E-learning has been a reliable component in learning portfolios for years, and talent development professionals who
took part in the Study project its continued robust presence in the near future. Although more view it as an effective
delivery mechanism, e-learning has also emerged as having unique capabilities in building knowledge and skills not as
readily acquired in traditional live settings. When applied to training for mid- and lower-level leaders, e-learning is a
performance-building next practice that top companies are using to strengthen leadership pipelines.
E-learning, which has undergone many changes in its evolution to date, will continue to add new capabilities
and discard outmoded ones in the years ahead as influences acting on its use change in tandem with market and
organizational priorities and with learner preferences. Talent development professionals predict exciting new elements
that range from personalization enhanced by artificial intelligence to social, interactive, and experiential components
that promise ever more engaging and responsive development for employees and leaders alike.
Recommendations for Talent Development
ATD and i4cp suggest the following actions to optimize effectiveness of e-learning use and to support better individual
and organizational outcomes:
Deliberately and thoughtfully expand e-learning to support performance.
Talent development professionals in market-leading organizations have acted on the benefits e-learning offers by
making greater portions of their overall portfolios e-learning accessible. As the proportion of e-learning in those
portfolios grows, so do correlations to market performance and learning effectiveness. For talent development, those
links suggest that upping the percentage of assets available as e-learning offers the opportunity to expand learning
options while providing support for performance as well.
Increasing that portfolio presence by deliberately developing e-learning to address specific needs and evolving
organizational capabilities can strengthen the outcomes achieved exponentially. For example, purposefully designing
e-learning that capitalizes on new organizational technologies (such as mobile networks) to deliver just-in-time
performance support to employees when and where they execute their job duties is a powerful combination. It aids
adoption of new technologies within the company, supports more efficient and effective execution of work, and
leverages learning to drive greater organizational agility.
1313
Organizations need to:
� Carefully plan how to expand e-learning to maximize both individual and organizational performance.
� Consider how e-learning expansion can be constructed to accomplish multiple purposes.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
14 NEXT GENERATION E-LEARNING: Skills and Strategies
REFERENCES
Ellis, R. 2016. “Does a Slowdown in Self-Paced E-Learning Signal Growth for Other Learning Technologies?”
ATD Learning and Development (blog), January 11. www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/Learning-Technologies-Blog/2016/01/