Executives today know that business depends on well-skilled and knowledgeable employees who make the right decisions, work effectively and efficiently, and keep their skills up-to-date. Especially in today’s economy, executives want to make successful financial investments when deciding what methods to use to keep staff well trained. Therefore, they demand to know the data and case studies that support new learning approaches like eLearning. This document addresses five key questions that senior executives ask about eLearning benefits and challenges.

In this very succinct download, key lessons from Nestles experience upskilling its global workforce using elearning are described. The importance of learning as an integral part of organisation culture is identified, and the link between elearning and culture is also hinted at when this brief case study mentions internal branding for example.

In customised elearning programmes, good instructional design will consider and reflect the culture of the organisation. It should tell the myths, speak to the ideology and advocate key values of the organisation. It should be integrated into design from the very early stages.

The relationship between organisation culture and learning is a critical one. The same considerations extend to elearning specifically. In the New Zealand context elearning is still a relatively new phenomenon. Many organisations, and their people, will not have had widespread exposure to elearning provision. This places even greater importance on understanding how organisation culture and elearning depend upon, strengthen and influence each other.

Learning is critical to organisation and people development in any organisation. 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

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.

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. 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 document looks at e-learning from a business manager’s perspective, describes some of the ways it can improve your bottom line, and builds a compelling business case for the adoption and implementation of e-learning in your organisation.