47 8.3 Discussion
Factors Influencing Organizations to Offer eLearning
The eLearning industry has seen rapid growth, expanding by 900% since 2000 (Peck, 2024). Contributing to that growth is strong demand from corporations. eLearning is currently used by more than half of Fortune 500 companies (Tooling U|SME, 2024). eLearning developers, such as Tooling U, have consistently expanded their catalogue, now offering over 600 courses. A wide variety of eLearning and the promise of a motivated, capable and inspired workforce makes eLearning an attractive option for many organizations.
Organizations that offer eLearning genuinely seem to have their employees’ best interests in mind. eLearning is an efficient method of delivering standardized training to many people at a relatively low cost (Giannakos et al., 2022). It eliminates the need (and cost) of synchronously travelling to a centralized location while offering flexibility to learners’ schedules (Peck, 2024). Other affordances experienced by organizations implementing eLearning come from using a learning management system (LMS). LMSs can prescribe and track regulatory training, making compliance and record management an automated process. The opportunity for cost avoidance, wide reach, and on-demand conveniences that eLearning offers explains why the industry has flourished in such a short time.
Resistance from Users
Despite the benefits of eLearning seen at the corporate level, this method of training is often met with resistance from the workforce (Wang et al., 2010). Employees report that they do not find eLearning helpful because it does not directly support their work performance (Wang et al., 2010). Additionally, employees experience challenges connecting eLearning content to the learning objectives or to their own goals within the organization (Caudill, 2015).
Adults bring existing knowledge and life experience to the workplace, which prepares them to learn when they encounter challenges. Challenges create organic learning opportunities which drive curiosity and motivate mature learners (Hase, 2009). In contrast, eLearning is a presentation of information that the learner may not be ready to learn or not have a current use for the information (Hase, 2009).
Another hurdle preventing employees from feeling motivated by eLearning is the vast amount of it. As mentioned earlier, eLearning institutions are constantly adding content to their libraries, which employers see as a benefit and eLearning companies use as a selling feature. However, employees can become overwhelmed, confused or disinterested by the volume. Corbeil and Corbeil describe Hermann Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve theory, demonstrating that humans naturally forget much of the superfluous information they receive (2023). This, combined with Miller’s Law (the number of items humans can store in working memory at a time), explains the extraneous load employees feel when engaging with eLearning and why some employees feel they do not benefit from required or prescribed eLearning.
Understanding the Gap
According to Wang et al. (2010), the model for workplace eLearning is adopted from educational settings. The needs and goals of students are inherently different from those in the workplace. When providing instruction to children, educators are also teaching them how to learn and process information. However, with adult learners in the workplace, the focus is on enhancing skills and learning specialized content with tangible applications (Hase, 2009).
A dichotomy exists when eLearning is developed using the theoretical framework of educational settings. In schools, the expectation is that participants are ready to learn and will work when necessary. However, in workplace settings, the expectation is that employees are ready to work and will learn when necessary. If the structure of eLearning is not adjusted to accommodate this shift, workplace eLearning will underserve the needs of employees and, ultimately, the organization.
To further understand the gap between the needs of the organization and the needs of the employee, Morgan McCall, Robert Eichinger and Michael Lombardo’s 70-20-10 framework should be considered (Rothwell, 2023). The framework suggests that 70% of learning should come from on-the-job development, 20% of learning should happen through social interactions, and 10% of learning should be obtained through formal/prescribed training, including eLearning (Rothwell, 2023). When comparing the growth of the eLearning market to the amount of recommended formal workplace training, eLearning appears to be overused and over-relied upon by organizations.