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

9 March 2010

Good morning – it’s a real pleasure to be here.

This is my first speech as Minister of Tertiary Education – I’m going to give you an overview of where we’re coming from, and focus in on one or two areas of particular interest right now.

First I’ll take you through where tertiary sector fits into our wider plan for growth.

The John Key National-led government was elected at the end of 2008 with a clear mandate.  A mandate to secure a brighter future for New Zealand by creating the conditions that allow our country to grow faster so that we can successfully compete in the wider world and afford the sort of first-world services that our people depend on.

We live in very challenging economic times.

As a country we are hauling our way out of a recession that started here before the global financial crisis hit the rest of the world – and came at the end of some pretty anaemic growth before then that was built on large increases in government spending.

The John Key-led government is acutely aware of how important better educational outcomes for our young people are to strengthening our economy for the future.

• The questions we have to continually ask ourselves are:
• Firstly, does our tertiary education sector produce all the skilled people we need for our economic well being?

And secondly, is the sector able to compete internationally for the high quality staff and students we need in order to keep delivering?

As a government we are very keen to ensure that New Zealanders from all educational backgrounds have the right opportunities to gain – at a level that suits them – world-class skills and knowledge to allow them to get ahead in life.

In order to achieve that, we must get the balance right between having much-needed certainty about overall levels of spending, while at the same time freeing up education providers to be able to come up with innovative initiatives and respond to economic and community needs.

As a country we spend about $4 billion each year on tertiary education – including student support.  That’s about 1.6% of GDP.

In Australia it’s 1.1% of GDP and the OECD average is 1.3%.

So alongside comparable countries we certainly aren’t tight in the tertiary area.  That’s a relief because it is highly unlikely that there will be any significant cash injections in the foreseeable future.

That’s just economic reality – additional money simply isn’t available.

Putting on my Associate Finance Ministers’ hat for a second – borrowing even more money as a country than we are already doing to spend even more on tertiary or anything else will simply lead to higher interest rates and higher exchange rates.

This will serve only to choke any benefits we’re trying to get for the higher borrowing.

Therefore, my focus as Minister for Tertiary Education will be on improving the quality of expenditure and getting more bang for the taxpayers’ buck.

That’s what boosting productivity is all about and we’re going to be all about that in tertiary over the next little while.

I’m not talking massive change – just lots questions asked (and answered), research checked, more questions asked.

We need to ensure that we have kicked the tyres on everything we do across the whole tertiary sector to make sure we are getting the best overall results we can.

And of course tertiary education is a diverse sector and one size doesn’t fit all.  That applies to both students and institutions – whether they are universities, wananga, Polytechs, PTEs, ITOs or OTEPS.  (Acronym city)

Our guiding influence is the Tertiary Education Strategy which cabinet signed off on late last year.

That signalled a focus on a number of key areas:

• Increasing the number of young people achieving degrees
• Increasing the success rate of Maori and Pasifika students
• Increasing the number of young people successfully moving from schools to tertiary
• Improving the outcomes of level one to three study
• Improving the educational and financial strength of providers, and strengthening the research outcomes.

To make these improvements within the confines of the money we have, we’re going to have to be pretty tight – as a sector we are going to have to do constant head checks on everything we are doing

We are going to have to make sure we minimise the friction in the system by making our funding approach as simple as we can while achieving the best results;

We are going to have to strengthen our focus on results rather than inputs;

We are going to have to make sure that students get the best information we can give them about what to study and what sort of job they can expect at the end of it;

We are going to have to ensure student support works well, and gives students the right incentives to get ahead;

We are going to have to get our investment in export education working as efficiently as possible; so we stand tall with the other countries we compete with for those international students.

We are going to ensure our skills training is matched to the needs of industry; and industry has fully bought in to the benefits of up-skilling staff.

This will all take time – but I for one am up for it – today’s students are the future of our economy and we can’t afford to get this wrong.

My three first priorities for action in the short term are:

• Tackling course completion rates – because we’re concerned that, as a consequence of previous ad-hoc policy changes, there are a large number of tertiary programmes, particularly below degree-level, that have course pass rates as low as 30 percent, and that some of these programmes fail to properly equip students for the jobs they seek.
• Ensuring qualifications are meaningful and recognisable – for both students and employers (here and abroad)
• Ensuring Value for money from student support

As a first step, in terms of ensuring our qualifications are meaningful, before I took over the portfolio, Anne asked the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to carry out a targeted review of qualifications.

We currently have around 6,000 qualifications on the books – I can’t believe that all of them are uniquely relevant and accepted by the people we want to recognise them – employers and students.

For example it’s hard to see that, despite the obvious importance of the tourism industry to this country, there needs to be 123 different certificate and diploma qualifications in Tourism studies.  But that’s what we have currently.

This is the first significant look at our qualifications framework for more than a decade.

Since that time there has been an ongoing proliferation of qualifications.  And now we have about 6,000 on the NZ Register of Qualifications- a significant number of which are unused or used only by the provider that set them up.

Finland – which has a population slightly larger (5.3 million) than ours – has about 500 qualifications on offer.

I don’t think we need to get it that low, but 6,000 certainly seems too high for a country of our size.

The goal is to cut out duplication, up the quality and reduce the number of new qualifications being added to the system unnecessarily.

I also want to see tougher pre-assessment of proposed qualifications before these go through the process of being added to the New Zealand Qualifications Framework.

Central to this will be questions about whether or not the qualifications have the support of the industry or the sector they’re set up to support.

I’m also announcing today that tertiary institutions will soon receive some of their current funding based on how well they perform academically by preparing their students for life after study.

In short, starting in two years time, we are planning to move from a system that funds purely on enrolments to one that funds both on enrolments and results.

The performance-linked funding model will provide financial incentives for institutions to continually work to improve the educational performance of their students.

Educational performance will be measured using indicators like successful course completion, qualification completion and student progression.

The details of how each measure is applied for each institution and each type of institution will be worked through by the TEC, the Ministry and myself over the next while.

The proportions of funding linked to performance will be low to start with so everyone has time to adjust, but linking some funding directly to academic performance is on its way.

I’m confident that this approach will encourage institutions to provide more support for their students and achieve better results for individual students and for the country.  Most institutions are doing that now but there is nothing wrong with stretching it a bit further.

So that’s a couple of starters for ten, but there will be more fine-tuning of the system over the coming months as we seek to maximise the return from our country’s investment in tertiary education.

For example, it’s been well-signalled that we’re looking to make some changes around the edges of the current student support package.

New Zealand is unique in that we provide a very considerable amount of our total tertiary spend in assisting students directly in their studies.

If we take into account student allowances and the student loans we lend to students to pay for fees and living costs, we spend a total of 42% of our total tertiary budget on student support.

That makes us a pretty big outlier in the overall scheme of things.

In comparison, Australia spends about 31% of its tertiary budget that way and the OECD average is 19%.

A big reason is the way we handle our student loans.  With the current policy settings, when you take into account interest write-off, bad debts and administration costs, taxpayers are currently writing off about 48 cents in every dollar that is advanced on a student loan.

Given that fact – and we’ve all accepted that this is the policy – we need to be sure that taxpayers’ generosity is not being taken for granted by people who don’t take their tertiary studies seriously, or who show little inclination to transition from tertiary training into work.

Let me be clear that we are committed to the interest free loans scheme but at that sort of cost it can’t be a blank cheque – we need to check that we aren’t setting up any perverse incentives that increases student and taxpayer exposure to debt, without getting a positive education outcome for individual students or for New Zealand.

For example I’d like to see the continued provision of student loans linked to academic progress and I make no apologies for that.

So yes, there will be some fine-tuning of the student loan scheme but hard-working Kiwi students who continue to advance their studies will not notice significant changes.

There is much more to do than the three things I have just mentioned.

Another big focus is to work alongside the Education Minister on the roll out of our Youth Guarantee scheme.

This acknowledges that academic study isn’t for all young people and aims to deliver a range of alternative educational pathways for 16 and 17 year olds in tertiary education.

For the Youth Guarantee, we will be looking for a wide geographical spread, good community support and high-performing tertiary education providers to give students the best outcomes.

You’ll hear more about this in the coming months.

So that’s a quick overview of where we’re at with tertiary education – an area we see as critical to lifting living standards and delivering a brighter future for all New Zealanders.

By necessity of time this is a broad brush picture – I look forward to getting into more of the detail with the sector, students and employers over the coming months.

My observation so far is that we have a dedicated and passionate tertiary education sector that is determined to prepare all of our tertiary students for the challenges of tomorrow.

I don’t see radical change on the cards.  What we need is a continued evolution to a more effective and efficient tertiary system that makes the very best use of the $4 billion we taxpayers contribute to it.

I know there are a number of other issues that you’re interested in so I’m happy to take any questions.

From: http://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/speech+wellington+chamber+commerce+4

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From the Education Counts website of the New Zealand Ministry of Education:

This report was commissioned by the Ministry and undertaken by Massey University in collaboration with the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand and Otago Polytechnic.

The report provides a framework of the diverse e-Learner profiles found throughout the tertiary sector, taking into account:

• Demographics.
• Learning orientations (learning styles).
• Readiness for e-Learning, and;
• Experience of and attitudes to e-Learning.

It identified structural trends in the tertiary student body in recent years and changes in the students themselves in terms of attitudes, approaches to study, needs and aspirations.

Author: Lynn M Jeffrey, Clare Atkins, Axel Laurs, Samuel Mann
Date Published: October 2006
Released on Education Counts: 16 November 2009

View the Executive Summary online: http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ict/57985

Download the full report (.pdf): E-Learner Profiles: Identifying Trends and diversity in student needs, orientations and aspirations

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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.

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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.

Questions Senior Executives Ask About eLearning Specifics (.pdf)

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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 culture is also hinted at when this brief case study mentions internal branding for example.

The Nestlé training team has gone one step further to ensure that continual learning is a central part of the organisation’s culture. After discussion with, and agreement from their managers, employees have no restrictions on what courses they are able to take, i.e. someone in a production job could take the MCSE or Oracle certification. By opening up learning in this way, every member of staff, from factory workers to top level management, is given the opportunity to further their personal and professional development. From the outset, the supplier’s services team has worked hand-in-hand with Nestlé, from designing the right solution to meet its specific needs, to customising the learning interface to match Nestlé’s internal branding.

The Nestlé training team has gone one step further to ensure that continual learning is a central part of

the organisation’s culture. After discussion with, and agreement from their managers, employees have

no restrictions on what courses they are able to take, i.e. someone in a production job could take the

MCSE or Oracle certification. By opening up learning in this way, every member of staff, from factory

workers to top level management, is given the opportunity to further their personal and professional

development.

From the outset, the supplier’s services team has worked hand-in-hand with Nestlé, from designing the

right solution to meet its specific needs, to customising the learning interface to match Nestlé’s internal

branding.

Nestle upskills global workforce (pdf)

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Organisation culture consists of three central components:

1. Myths: about how the organisation began, difficulties that were overcome, colourful figures and monumental events.
2. Ideology: the unified set of beliefs which explain and legitimise the organisation.
3. Values: which tell people what is important, and how to behave. Values provide meaning and standards.

In an organisation with a strong culture, key values are intensely and widely shared. The stronger the culture is, the greater the influence it has on the behaviour of an organisation.[i]

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.

Because the strength of a culture is built upon consistency, elearning can be a useful way to reinforce and shape culture. It is particularly effective when used to induct and train employees new to the organisation. Well designed elearning programmes for new staff can deliberately and convincingly shape their thinking and teach the legends of the organisations history to ensure continuity in the way culture is learned and applied across the organisation.

For these reasons, using the standard public offerings of independent training organisations for developing staff can sometimes be contrary to maintaining a powerful internal culture,  or at least be off less value than a customised solution that meets training needs and is fully consistent with the core culture of the employer.

Sometimes culture is being considered not as something to be maintained and strengthened, but instead as something to be created, shifted or changed.

Handling change is not easy. People fell uncomfortable when shifted from the status quo, negativity grows very easily and there is often tremendous resistance. Taking risks, or looking at the organisation from a different perspective can be exciting, but people will need extra support to help them reach their potential. [ii]

Often a conscious shift in culture is being implemented by key change agents and needs to be sold to the wider ‘community’ within the organisation. Sound decisions by champions of change are often carefully considered and meaningful, but rational decisions mean little to others unless they fully understand the reasons behind them.

Elearning can be an effective way to bring people on board and promote a desired change. Organisation theories can be taught, advantages can be understood, new knowledge can be acquired and essential skills developed. Perhaps most importantly, ideas that make sense in principle can be applied to ‘real life’ scenarios so people grow to believe in the change being advocated.

Finally, elearning itself can be a manifestation of a healthy and vibrant culture. If your organisation values innovation, best practise, learning, competitiveness or quality, e-learning should definitely be part of the mix!

[ii] Everything you ever needed to know about training, Thorne and Mackey,  p184, 2007.

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Elearning provides a cost effective solution to some key issues affecting many not-for-profit organisations.

One example is how to successfully manage volunteers. Many community based organisations rely heavily on volunteers at some level. This might be people on the ground delivering service, or at governance level providing oversight as committee members or trustees.

Challenges can arise from the fact that volunteers typically come from diverse backgrounds and present with a range of skills and experience.

In these circumstance elearning can assist by:

• providing a consistent and cost-effective way to induct new volunteers to your organisation.
• educating your volunteers about the issues or cause your organisation addresses.
• teaching volunteers about internal policies and procedures unique to your organisation.
• addressing risk-management needs by ensuring your people understand health and safety and other compliance matters.
• training in governance and management skills such as strategic and business planning, financial management, or fundraising methods.
• teaching skills specific to your sector like managing sports teams, recognising abuse, or advocacy skills.

By developing your people you build the capacity of your organisation and achieve better results. You also improve consistency of delivery across member organisations at national, regional and local level. You can harness the power of having all workers on message and moving in the same direction.

Perhaps most importantly you can achieve consistently high standards of performance over time. As your people naturally come and go, this consistency allows efforts to build incrementally on the work that has gone before. The effectiveness of your organisation is then not tied to a rollercoaster of strengths and weaknesses of individual people. This is a common issue in many not-for-profits which do not enjoy paid administrators or management.

Finally it demonstrates that you recognise and value the work of your people across the organisation, by investing in their ability. This can aid morale, recruitment and retention.

All of this helps you achieve your goals, and can be achieved for a fraction of the cost of traditional training and development approaches in the not-for-profit sector, especially if your organisation and affiliate bodies operate from a variety of locations.

If you would like to know more about how elearning can greatly enhance your not-for-profit organisation please contact us.

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These reports form part of the initial outputs from the project, managed by the Ministry of Education, the Department of Labour and Statistics New Zealand.

Information about the EOTE project, the data it uses, and other publications from this project can be found on the Statistics New Zealand website.

What do students earn after their tertiary education? This report looks at the group of nearly 30,000 young domestic students who last enrolled in a tertiary education provider in 2003, and examines the influence of their tertiary education on their earnings in the first year following study and three years post-study. Author: David Scott, Ministry of Education and Statistics New Zealand

Does workplace-based industry training improve earnings? This report examines the labour market outcomes of employees who left industry training during 2003–05, by comparing earnings and employment post training with earnings and employment prior to and during training. Author: Sarah Crichton, Department of Labour and Statistics New Zealand

Accessing these reports: These reports are available on the Statistics New Zealand website in pdf format. You can access the reports by clicking on the link in the headings. These report are only published electronically.

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