Knowledge Resource Centre

Blended Learning for Success

Johanna Ejbye

Blended learning has become an important strategy in learning today, but it is crucial to tailor the approach to the company culture.

Over recent years, the business world has hit the e-learning highway at astonishing speeds. According to a report by Ambient Insight (1), the global market for e-learning products and services was worth approximately $17bn in 2007, 15% of which can be attributed to Europe. This total is forecast to rise to $50bn by 2010. Based on such a high rate of growth, one would think that e-learning is the future of training and development.

A recent tendency, however, is that organisations around the world are starting to realise that e-learning on its own is not enough. They realise that they need to blend both formal and informal learning methods and base their ROI on changes in knowledge, attitude, skills and performance.

This article introduces the concept of blended learning and outlines why organisations need to adopt a new and innovative strategy in training and management development.

The ethos

Blended learning is based on one fundamental principle: ensuring that all learning is always completely linked back to improving the performance of the organisation and its people. The key word of this principle is learning. Organisations need to focus on enabling their employees to acquire new knowledge and, most importantly, make sure they understand how to use this knowledge in their day to day jobs.

The approach

If organisations are not just to pick up on the term blended learning, but also the ethos, the focus must be on how people best retain knowledge. According to Capital Works LLC, a global equity investment company based in USA, over 50% of learning is achieved by on the job experience together with interaction with co-workers and team members. LLC also state that only 10% of learning is achieved via formal training methods such as class-based training. Therefore, organisations must cultivate and grow an atmosphere where all training programmes/projects are developed to create learning which:
 

• reaches out into the workplace
• supports informal sharing of knowledge
• encourages collaborative training methods such as coaching, mentoring, e-learning as well as more formal methods such as class-based training
• allows work place practice opportunities and ability for feedback
• allows participants to control what they learn, how they learn, and when they learn