We have interviewed hundreds of participants in learning programs, both online and event-based. Essentially, the question we asked was, “Were you able to apply what you learned in a way that helped you achieve a business outcome or goal?” Perhaps not surprisingly, a large percentage of these employees answered “No.”

However, when we delved deeper to understand what was preventing these learners from attaining and applying this new knowledge to achieve goals, we were surprised to discover that it was not a failure of the technology or the learning program itself. In most cases, learners point to factors outside of the learning program or event as being the most critical barriers to success.

The organizational factors that prevent employees from converting e-Learning into business achievement can be boiled down to five key principles. We call these principles the 5As, and together they make up the 5As Framework:

1) Aligning e-Learning initiatives (the content and purpose of the program, etc.) with individual and organizational goals;

2) Anticipating learning and success from participation in the e-Learning;

3) Forming a learning Alliance of learner with supervisor/boss;

4) Applying learning to achieving business goals; and

5) Being Accountable for business results.

Related posts:

1. DIY – Use e-learning courses to address your skill shortages
2. E-Learning and small business – lessons from the UK and Europe
3. Why not-for-profits should embrace elearning

Elearning can have a transformational impact on small business, not-for-profit and other fragmented groups sharing common interests, challenges or opportunities.

Leaders who champion these approaches, and buy-in from participants, is key – but once people are on-board a widespread and consistent improvement in  performance can occur in a rapid and substantial fashion.

Social networking and related services have taken elearning beyond self-contained training that offered little more than traditional distance learning. It now offers an important level of interaction that brings real people together.

The opportunity for interaction between participants promotes collaboration.  This can lead to superior, and often creative, solutions which can benefit every member. Small business, for example, will only get so far working with local competitors, but can interact freely with similar businesses in other parts of the country. Innovative product or service ideas, marketing approaches, and sources of suppliers can all be freely discussed when businesses are not in direct competition.

The benefits are not solely commercial. I am constantly amazed at how much ‘cash-strapped’ government agenices and not-for-profit groups will spend to get members to centralised training, or to bring training opportunities to geographically spread groups. The travel, accommodation and venue costs alone are often substantial, and the reach limited as a result.

Take a typical sporting organisation for example. They might have national, regional, club and school based administration nationwide from the largest centres to the smallest rural communities. They probably share common issues – perhaps they all seek greater levels of grant funding.

One well designed elearning programme in which the participants learn how to submit winning funding applications would address this need. It would involve many members and be delivered simultaneously nationwide, with valuable collaboration between participants sharing experiences and looking for solutions. This would immediately lift performance across the board, and impact nationwide through many members. An initiative like this could generate thousands of dollars of additional revenue and great benefits as a result.

Complement that with programmes in strategic planning, financial practise, volunteer management, and recruitment and suddenly you have strengthened and advanced the capability of your organisation in a very practical way – further and faster than you ever thought possible.

Put simply, this is about flexibility of time and place. This phrase is often used from the learner’s perspective, but it also applies to the delivery of training. Being able to provide training to a disjointed group spread over thousands of kilometres on a flexible schedule enables you to capture more people, more quickly, and more effectively.

What do you wish your community, organisation or industry did better? Tell us and we will show you how elearning can make it happen!

Related posts:

1. E-learning for organisation and people development
2. Why not-for-profits should embrace elearning
3. Organisation culture and E-learning

http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ict/58148

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Once again we hear the familiar cry of industry lamenting the “skill shortage” that seems to be a constant burden for many New Zealand employers. TVNZ Business reported on Monday:

A recruitment specialist says skills shortages in the job market are expected to again come to the fore next year.

Recruitment company Hays has issued a report on its expectations for 2010.

Managing director Jason Walker says as New Zealand emerges from the economic downturn, the challenge for talent will again rear its head.

He says financial and commercial analysts, and technical IT specialists will be in particular demand.

Walker says employers are looking for experienced workers who have a background in the New Zealand marketplace.

He says many employers are sensing a new optimism in the market and are planning for recruitment in 2010.

(http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/skills-shortages-expected-in-2010-3319505)

Now, more than ever, industry has an opportunity to develop the people they already have in a way that is cost effective, and highly customised. But e-learning also provides an ideal means of addressing specific skill shortages when you do not already have potential candidates on hand

Many skill shortages, both short and long term, are notoriously difficult to address. One of the often cited reasons for this is a lack of interest from potential candidates. This is often not the problem in of itself. Instead it creates a problem for traditional education and training models which require a certain ‘critical mass’ before programmes are sustainable under existing funding mechanisms.

If an industry requires candidates for training and there are a dozen scattered throughout the country, this is not going to be sufficient for any conventional ‘face-to-face’ delivery to be financially viable – a key consideration for ALL education organisations including not-for-profits.

Using an e-learning model for delivery, however, enables those 12 people to be brought together and learn together in a way that is equally effective – even while continuing to gain experience – the other great shortage employers often seek.

Employers who are serious about taking charge of their own future, and proactively addressing the barriers which are preventing profitability and growth without waiting for others to act, should be grabbing e-learning with both hands.

Related posts:

1. 5A Framework converting elearning courses into business results
2. E-Learning and small business – lessons from the UK and Europe
3. E-learning for organisation and people development

Recommended reading, this webpage from the Ministry of Education (New Zealand) summarises key issues and findings from the full report (also available for download). The content is succinct and includes some excellent graphics clearly depicting  the process of elearning industry, elearning as it occurs in large companies, and in small or medium businesses, and a model for examining elearning effectiveness.

This is an excellent summary of key e-learning issues in the New Zealand workplace, but many of these factors have wider relevance. It also glances towards the future and identifies the following future trends:

• Blended: Despite the growing focus in industry on e-learning, traditional approaches continue to remain important. A blended approach, incorporating e-learning with traditional formats, has already been identified by some as the way to proceed. It is envisaged that this will be a significant approach in the future.
• Collaborative: To achieve cost reduction and to increase the quality of elearning resources developed, many organisations will increasingly collaborate with the producers whose goods they sell and with other organisations in the same sector.
• In-House: Increasingly, the benefits of tracking the training undertaken by employees, ensuring all employees are conversant with company policies and compliant with appropriate legislative requirements, is being recognised. This will be monitored by e-administration tools managed by inhouse staff.
• Mobile: Mobile technologies (such as phones, PDAs and cameras) are readily available and enable information to be accessed remotely and for data transfer from those “on-site” back to the central office and conversely for the central office to provide advice or training to those “on-site”. A number of firms indicated in this study that the use of mobile technologies was a key component of future e-learning offering

This page summarises one of the most current and useful current reviews of e-learning in the New Zealand workplace: Using e-Learning to build workforce capability: A review of activities

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“When planning for a year, plant corn.

When planning for a decade, plant trees.

When planning for life, train and educate people.” Chinese proverb: Guanzi (c. 645BC)

When planning for e-life, empower trainers and learners to engage in e-life.

The small business community in the UK and Europe is a growth sector and collectively the largest employer. European governments and the European Commission have been keen to develop a range of programmes to support this community as many small businesses are vulnerable to market pressures, ‘red tape’ and often suffer from lack of resources and effective business infrastructure. As engine of the European economy their skill assets and continuous up-skilling will be key to economic competitiveness and prosperity, particularly in the context of the knowledge economy. To training and learning providers the small business community represents a potentially huge market, yet one which is difficult to tap into. As a community of dispersed learners VLEs or elearning generally could provide important tools to help engage these potential learners.

Concepts and methodologies of elearning will have to take into account the needs of the small business environment and its learners in order to achieve a wider learning application. A learner driven pedagogy rather than a product driven one could be experienced as the real challenge as it may confront equal opportunities and the democratisation of learning environments, be it blended learning approaches or others.

A) When talking about learning it will be useful to describe learning and elearning to provide a better basis for analysis. What forms of learning takes place involving small businesses?

B) Before assessing how small businesses can be engaged in elearning one has to assess how they can be engaged in learning. What are the conditions under which small businesses engage in learning?

C) When talking about learning in small businesses it is appropriate to describe the wider context as this should inform the business decisions of those wishing to provide learning products and services to small businesses. What is the political and economic context?

Small businesses can be defined as having between 1 and 50 employees and are financially independent, that is it is not owned by a larger company.

Many small businesses engage in formal learning activities because of legal requirements, links to supply chains, new products, machinery or processes, customer demand, standards. Most of them don’t include learning in their business planning, should the latter exist. However, all small businesses engage in some kind of informal ad hoc learning activities and if a learning provider wishes to engage with small businesses than he needs to address one or both scenarios.

From research assessing the possibilities of engaging small business in HE learning environments (Uwe Derksen, Leonardo project Euromanager report, 2001) we know

· the majority of small business managers perform a ‘hands on’ role (93%);

· their primary learning methods are informal, experiential and/or through peer groups (88%);

· academic/professional qualifications are not valued highly (68%) as their relevance is a primary issue;

· issues such as limited time and resources, and short-termism within small businesses contribute to the lack of overall formal planning, including staff develop planning, and the poor take-up of training;

· identified barriers to learning include lack of perceived benefits and lack of appropriate training solutions targeted at small businesses;

· management training is a recognised need within small businesses as a means to improve effectiveness (65%) and/or to expand the business (66%), in particular into European markets (58%);

· access to the internet has increased rapidly (76%);

· cultural issues and preconceptions inhibit the relationship between small businesses and HEIs.

During our work with small businesses we also noticed through a process of formative evaluation that many small business managers and employees required

· extensive pedagogical support and guidance (learning how to learn, particularly independently);

· a learner’s and business needs assessment;

· support in basic and key skills; especially report writing (expressing ideas and concepts) and ICT skills (using the internet as resource and working and communicating in an virtual environment);

· the use of peer groups and “fellow champions” to facilitate learning, translate academic learning concept and provide additional transfer of experiential business knowledge and information.

· a “long” acclimatisation period into an academic learning environment;

· “gate-keepers” to build up trust and mutual understanding between the learner and the training provider;

· in the beginning applicable and relevant knowledge that can be used in the business almost instantly;

· the provision of additional access to resources useful to the business (e.g. unlimited access to the internet at the campus and learning centres) and information provided by guest speakers (real or virtual);

· regular face-to-face meetings;

· the use of peer-group language and cultural values;

· a blend between online and “traditional” learning and formal and informal learning, work based and college-based;

· personal tutors;

· learning content and methodologies that were structured around the business and less around subject areas (i.e. the business is the practical extension of the learner, this is particularly the case with owner managers)

· a flexible learner centred curriculum;

· negotiated learning: the solutions to problems are explored in partnership with the tutor/lecturer and peer group members;

· a learning situation that was a local social experience and process;

· general business support as added value;

· a demonstration of tangible benefits;

· to be valued for their aims and ideas: (the business often being the extension of their personality and life);

· to build capacity to learn and learn to learn, this would include the capacity of the business itself as the development of the learner effects the relationship with his or her colleagues in the business testing their own expertise and knowledge.

Some of these findings have been borne out by other research: “Professor Ian Draffan, Head of e-Learning Services at UfI, highlighted the importance of developing a sense of community amongst online learners. To achieve the UfI ideal of flexible, ‘roll-on, roll-off’ access for learners and to add value to the learning experience, creating tutor groups in stable learning communities are key to retaining learners by active tutoring”.

And “if the benefits of technology are to be realised in terms of improved learner motivation, achievement and retention, as well as widening access to non-traditional learners, then effective learner support strategies must be at centre stage. Research shows that the quality of support for learners is key to their recruitment, retention and achievement, particularly for those non-traditional learners who may lack motivation and experience of learning.

To underpin online provision in the ‘roll-on, roll-off’ model envisaged by the University for Industry, learner support is even more important: to overcome isolation, provide personal feedback, help with technical problems, and permit the social interactions so important to effective adult learning” (Marchmont Observatory, December 2000).

If one accepts that many small businesses don’t have a formal learning culture than it is understandable that the introduction to a learning environment can be an initial daunting experience. Building self-confidence and empowering the learner are key to creating an appropriate learning environment.

In terms of the elearning and small businesses the challenge is the ability to support an environment of “blended learning “ where “blended” means the support for formal and informal learning, to facilitate the exchange of practical information and knowledge, peer group and negotiated learning, on- and off-line learning, empowerment to contribute to ones own learning environment and to challenge existing provisions. The tendency was to move away from consumer-orientated and supply-led learning environment towards a democratically orientated and need-based learning environment.

Interestingly the questions that need to be answered by businesses when engaging in learning and elearning: Which competencies do our staff need in order to ensure continued success in the market place?, What kind of knowledge do we require for such success?, How can the internet be utilised to access relevant learning content?, How do and can we need to organise work based learning?, Which partners and programmes are available? and Which media competencies do our staff require? (see Web Based Training in Kleinen und Mittleren Unternehmen, 2001), also need to be addressed by the learning providers themselves.

“Give a man a fish and you can feed her for a day. Give a man a fishing rod and teach her how to fish, and you can feed her until the fishing rod breaks. Teach a man to fish, and then how to make a fishing rod from locally available materials, then she will eat for as long as there are fish to be caught. Organise the man and her neighbours into a common property resource management scheme and they will be able to fish at sustainable levels. Support them in organising themselves, and they will be able to decide if they wish to earn their livelihood by fishing, or by some other means”

could translate into

“Give a man some learning content and she will learn for a day. Give a man the source of learning content and teach her how to work with it together with some learning provisions and she will be able to benefit from it as long as it remains relevant. Teach a man how to access learning content and learning provisions generally, then how to find appropriate resources relevant to her need, and she will benefit as long as the resources are available. Organise the man and her neighbours into a managed learning network and they will be able to learn at sustainable levels. Support them in organising themselves, and they will be able to decide which learning environment and which learning content is most appropriate”.

© Uwe Derksen 2004

SOURCE: http://www.solt.info/forum_posts.asp?TID=6

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2. 5A Framework converting elearning courses into business results
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This brief research report looks at e-learning in small and medium enterprises in Canada to provide an overview which hints at some key factors in utilising this effectively.

Facing pressures from an increasingly competitive business environment, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are called upon to implement strategies that are enabled and supported by information technologies and e-business applications in order to compete with others’ organizations.

One of these applications is e-Learning, whose aim is to enable the continuous assimilation of knowledge and skills by managers and employees, and thus support organisational training and development efforts through the use of the Internet and Web technologies.

Though this report was published in 2004, the findings are pertinent, particularly in New Zealand where SME adoption of e-learning is lagging behind the North American experience.

The report also outlines very succinctly some of the perceived advantages of elearning – both in theory and in the experience of the SME’s which participated in the research.

Meeting the training needs of SME’s: Is e-learning the solution?

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Learning is critical to organisation and people development in any sector. Elearning provides improved and innovative ways to contribute to this vital function. This is a broad and complicated subject, but let’s consider it in simple terms and link elearning with organisation development in plain english.

Thorn and Mackey proposed the following checklist for developing people and organisations: 

1. Examine very critically the current roles and skill sets within your team.
2. Identify the overall direction of your organisation. What are its mission or  vision, values and  business objectives? 
3. Have standards of performance been set?  How are these standards being measured? 
4. Hw are people being encouraged to develop these standards? 
5. What learning processes are in place?
6. What are the blockages? What is stopping the organisation from developing? 
7. Who are the competitors? What role does their HR/OD/L&D/Training function perform? 
8. Network with other training professionals. Find out how different organisations are approaching their current business issues. 
9. Meet with other functions in your organisation. Identify what they want from HR/OD/L&D/Training. Put yourself in their shoes. How well are you meeting their needs? 
10. Identify the important measures, for example: speed of response, quality of advice, trainer knowledge, creativity and innovation, will work in partnership, value for money when  benchmarked. 
11. Critically evaluate the performance of your HR/OD/L&D/Training. 
12. Set standards and establish an ongoing method of measuring the achievement of standards. 
13. Constantly update within the function, encourage visits, secondmentsm and the exchange of information. 
14. Work towards training excellence, to be the organisation that acts as a benchmark for others. 
15. Ask yourself and your team, ‘How effective are we as a business partner?’

You will see that this list bundles together a range of topics including business case, return on investment, benchmarking, needs analysis and the like, but  we’ll keep it simple by linking each of those points to e-learning ideas and applications. 

1. Examine very critically the current roles and skill sets within your team.

Use elearning to develop the skills and capability of your management to analyse skill sets. Elearning providers can conduct this examination for you and customise solutions. Collaborative elearning can be used to enable effective self evalaution.

2. Identify the overall direction of your organisation.What are its mission or vision, values and business objectives?

Use elearning to develop the ability to do this and learn how to develop this strategic alignment. Induction through elearning can ensure that all staff understand and apply these critical elements of your business. Elearning can be crafted to be consistent with and therefore contribute directly to vision, mission, values and business objectives.

3. Have standards of performance been set? How are these standards being measured?

Develop people management skills through elearning and better understand performance management techniques. Collaboratively develop effective responses to performance issues by working together on challenging scenarios and team tasks in elearning programmes.

4. How are people being encouraged to develop these standards?

Elearning helps develop skills in collaboration. E-learning programmes can encourage development of real-world appraoches to achieveing results and meeting other perofrmance standards. This can occur through developing both managers and the personnel they lead.

5. What learning processes are in place?

Learning processes need to fully integrate elearning for maximum efficacy. Contracting in elearning expertise can ensure best practise appraoches are fully integrated from strategy through to implementation in practise. E-learning also offers learning processes that differ considerabley from conventional appraoches, and can add considerable benefits while reducing costs. Innovative approaches are able to be explored as a result.

6.What are the blockages? What is stopping the organisation from developing?

Use elearning to develop the ability of your organisation to identify and elininate bloackges to development. Elearning is also an ideal way to embed a culture throughout the organisation which will encourage development. Elearning can also reduce development limitations through lower cost, greater flexibility and more pertinent training provision.

7. Who are the competitors? What role does their HR/OD/L&D/Training function perform?

Pay particular attention to  your competitors use of technology. Look for elearning use both in-house and contracted in expertise, be aware of web 2.0 elements, informal learning and personal learning environments. There can be a lot going on without it being readily apparent if you restrict yourself to analysing conventional functions.

8. Network with other training professionals. Find out how different organisations are approaching their current business issues.

Participate in elearning with personnel from other organisations that are not direct competitors, but perhaps providing the same product or service in geographic locations other than your own. Champion elearning in your industry and create opportunities through collaborative online programmes to learn from others. Elearning scenarios designed around current business issues let’s you share the expertise of others and foster effective solutions.

9. Meet with other functions in your organisation. Identify what they want from HR/OD/L&D/Training. Put yourself in their shoes. How well are you meeting their needs?

Best practise elearning will help to ensure those needs are better met. Sound instructional design prinicples will keep learning opportunities on target. E-learning also enables flexible and rapid responses which provide a service more responsive to the needs of other functions in your organisation.

10. Identify the important measures, for example: speed of response, quality of advice, trainer knowledge, creativity and innovation, will work in partnership, value for money when benchmarked.

Recognise that e-learning which is designed and delivered to a high standard will almost always perform better than conventional training against all these measures and any others which have been identified as important.

11. Critically evaluate the performance of your HR/OD/L&D/Training.

Best practise appraoches to elearning pplace considerable emphasis on evaluation of programme design and delivery and improvement based on that evaluation. Where existing performance is lacking elearning can often provide the solution to your problems.

12. Set standards and establish an ongoing method of measuring the achievement of standards.

Many elearning systems integrate standard setting and ways of measuring achievement of identified standards through technology. Integrating elearning with your organisation development strategy ensures that appropriate standards are set and achieved. E-learning can ehance your ability to meet existing standards.

13. Constantly update within the function, encourage visits, secondmentsm and the exchange of information.

The advantages of elearning align well with this consideration. The integration of collaborative interaction within programme design, the ability to deliver over distance, and the ease with which elearning can be updated all contribute directly to this aspect.

14. Work towards training excellence, to be the organisation that acts as a benchmark for others.

In the current environment signs of excellence include adoption of best practise elearning and innovative design and delivery techniques. If e-learning has become standard in your part of the world then cutting edge approaches and specialised expertise help establish leadership. If e-learning is new in your sector , then widespread use of elearning will establish you as a leader in your field.

15. Ask yourself and your team, ‘How effective are we as a business partner?’

Your effectiveness is likely ot be directly tied to your efective use of e-learning. Development through participation in elearning will also add to the effectiveness of your team.

In conclusion, elearning has a role to play in all aspects of developing your organisation. Embrace the opportunities it provides to build capability. By bringing in a elearning specialist you can start on this immediately – the sooner you start, the sooner you reap the rewards!

Reference: Thorne K, and Mackey, D. Everything you needed to know about training, Kogan Page Ltd, 2007.

Related posts:

1. Transform with elearning: What do you wish your community, organisation or industry did better?
2. E-Learning and small business – lessons from the UK and Europe
3. Linking organisation culture and e-learning

An investigation of the enablers and barriers to industry uptake of e-learning: Small business
The Benchmarking and Research business activity of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework has released An investigation of the enablers and barriers to industry uptake of e-learning: Small business which examines the current status of e-learning in small business, barriers to the increased use of e-learning solutions and the potential for increased uptake of e-learning by small businesses.
> Download the 2007 Small Business Final Report (PDF 889 KB, 27 pages)
> Download the 2007 Small Business Executive Summary (PDF 196 KB, 5 pages)
> Download the 2007 Small Business Case Studies (PDF 253 KB, 127 pages)
> Benchmarking and Research webpage
> Download the Big opportunities for small business media release, dated 30 April 2008 (PDF 67KB)

An investigation of the enablers and barriers to industry uptake of e-learning:

Related posts:

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2. Download: Meeting the training needs of SME’s: Is e-learning the solution?
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The emergence of elearning as a tool for business is not complete until it is fully accessible for small and medium sized businesses in New Zealand. There are over 350,000 SME’s in New Zealand, making up 99% of all business and employing about 60% of the workforce. [i]

 Unfortunately customised elearning solutions have typically been too expensive to be fully utilised by smaller operations. One of the often cited benefits of elearning is the cost savings it offers but these comments tend to be directed at the ‘delivery’ aspect of the process and used to justify the prohibitive cost of the design process.

In the United States, which is further along the elearning adoption curve than New Zealand, this need was being recognised as far back as 2001:

“Some providers are starting to pay attention to smaller firms, which is good news because elearning can be especially beneficial to smaller organizations”[ii]

One way this was beginning to be addressed was through a collaborative approach that shared costs:

“The cost and convenience of e-learning recently led the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce to create an online learning center for its 2,200 members-most of whom have fewer than 100 employees. “We saw a decline in attendance at our educational programs, while there was not a decline in expressed desire for learning opportunities,” says Meridian Napoli, the Chamber’s small business manager. “E-learning meets that educational need at a more convenient time than instructor-led seminars.”[iii]

Eight years later, one wonders how long it will be before an enlightened Chamber of Commerce in New Zealand recognises this opportunity to make training immediately more accessible. Anyone working for a Chamber of Commerce member is likely to have experienced the frustration of not being able to find the time to attend what are often excellent training opportunities.

Of course there is no reason why small business can not take it upon itself to collaborate in this way. There are a number of ways that design and delivery of elearning can be accomplished which are highly affordable for even the smallest business.

This is vitally important because not only are SME’s a huge portion of the business sector, but they also stand to benefit the most from elearning. All the reasons that elearning has been adopted by major corporates tend to amplified in the small business context.

In small and medium sized enterprise:

• Cost margins tend to be tighter and so cost savings such as those offered by elearning are more critical;
• Staff numbers are limited and it is difficult to take people away from day-to-day responsibilities, and doing so adds considerable opportunity cost;
• There is greater benefit from the ‘cost per participant’ approach to elearning which saves financial losses from the fixed cost nature of workshops – whether conducted for 3 or 30 people;
• There is no in-house training department so the benefits of a range of training options normally enjoyed by larger organisations are of greater value;
• Being able to use existing resources (computers and internet access) is more important;

These are just a few of many examples.

It is unfortunate that in the short history of elearning as we understand it now, those with the most to gain have had the least opportunity to do. Prohibitive costs have undermined the reach of elearning, and creative business models to improve access for smaller organisations have not been adequately explored.

If you would like to know more about how creative approaches can lift your staff training and development to another level, please contact us.

[i] http://sme-centre.massey.ac.nz/

[ii]http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_5_46/ai_74829361/

[iii] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_5_46/ai_74829361/

Related posts:

1. DIY – Use e-learning courses to address your skill shortages
2. E-Learning and small business – lessons from the UK and Europe
3. Transform with elearning: What do you wish your community, organisation or industry did better?