Overcoming Objections to eLearning

Did you know that eLearningis around 50 years old? Yes, you read that right. Teaching is one of the first usesthat organizations found for computers: researchers at Stanford Universityexperimented with using computers to teach children math and science back inthe early 1960s. And yet, one of the situations I occasionally encounter isthat, while one department may be starting an eLearning initiative, there is astrong resistance to this “new” model elsewhere within – or maybe throughout –the organization.

Overcoming objectionsis an important part of making any eLearning initiative successful, andluckily, eLearning’s long history gives us plenty of knowledge of how to makeour case. Here are some of the tactics I’ve used in dealing with theseobjections.

Objection: eLearning is too expensive

It’s true that eLearningdevelopment projects can cost a lot of time and money. But you must also takeinto account the amounts saved in efficiency.

Organizations oftenadopt eLearning when they are looking to decrease training costs. This isparticularly true of organizations that have a large or geographicallydispersed workforce. On the other hand, if your organization has very lowturnover, it may not make any economic sense to convert large parts of new hireorientation to eLearning. E-LearningUncovered: From Concept to Execution by Desiree Ward and Diane Elkins hasa unit on this very topic: calculating the costs and benefits of instructor-ledtraining (ILT) vs. eLearning. I’ve found this unit useful because even thoughall of us know how to add columns of numbers in Excel, it’s common for plannersto not take all of the costs of either instructor-led training or eLearning into account.

One of the hidden coststhat’s easy to forget about with ILT is the extra time that it usually takes,compared to eLearning. While every project is different, my company has foundthat on-ground courses that move to eLearning take about half the “seat time”in their eLearning format. Often this is because eLearning designers are moresuccessful at eliminating “nice to know” information, whereas theinstructor-led version of the course may have been created by a SME who, in aneffort to prepare learners for all of the possible scenarios they couldencounter on the job, put everything but the kitchen sink into the course.Depending on how many learners you are designing for, the time efficiencies in eLearningcan be huge. The short story is that sometimes it’s worth it to move aparticular initiative to an electronic format and sometimes it isn’t. Do themath and find out.

So, how to overcome thisobjection: Calculating efficiency is quick and easy, so efficiencyshould definitely be part of your case. Also, if you’re planning to use avendor to create custom eLearning, shop around. There are plenty out there thatwill try to oversell services that you don’t need and which may actuallydetract from the effectiveness of the learning experience. Plenty of otherswill try to convince you that their solution is best simply because that’s theonly thing they do. Beware if it seems you’re getting a cookie-cutter solution.

Having said that,depending on your organization’s needs and budget, you may decide to try someout-of-the-box courses instead. Maybe solutions that you can find on Lynda.com,OpenSesame,or SkillSoftare a good fit. That’s fine! Save your development budget for training that isunique to your organization.

Objection: eLearning isn’t as effective asinstructor-led training

It’s common for peopleto view eLearning as less effective than instructor-led training and you haveto credit those who make this objection; at least they realize that all thecost efficiency in the world won’t matter if the training doesn’t effectivelyinfluence skill acquisition and behavior change. In fact, though, in researchstudies, eLearning stacks up to ILT quite well or even exceeds it in measuresof effectiveness. A good approach, design, execution, andsituation-appropriateness matter far more than whether a trainer is present.

My early softwaretraining days come to mind as a somewhat extreme example. I often had second-and third-shift employees of a large computer manufacturer in my classes. Theircompany had noble intentions in offering them development opportunities;unfortunately, though, the employees couldn’t persuade their internal clocks tochange for a day, any more than they could persuade me to show up at midnightto teach Excel. The constraints of the classroom made sure no learning washappening at all. If the employees had the option of eLearning, they could haveaccessed lessons when they were ready to learn – or at least awake.

How to overcome this objection:Citing research studies is good, but sometimes sharing examples communicatesbetter what eLearning can be … especially to someone whose previousexperience with eLearning has been limited. I’ve found that a great example isworth way more than a thousand words in communicating the difference betweensame ol’ eLearning and an effective and engaging learning experience.

The opposite can alsowork. Sometimes the person who claims that eLearning isn’t effective justdoesn’t like what they’ve seen before. Dig up examples of bad eLearning, reviewit together or in a larger meeting, and talk about what they don’t like. Getthose objections out on the table. Let them be heard, make sure they know youunderstand their objections, and be ready with your great examples so you canbalance out the gripe session and start forming an idea together of what thecompany wants its eLearning to be.

Objection: We don’t have the infrastructure

This is one of thebetter informed of the common objections to eLearning, and I agree thatlaunching any initiative you can’t support will almost definitely backfire. Butthat doesn’t mean that your organization has to have an expensive suite ofdevelopment tools, a LMS, or even an intranet to have eLearning.

Howto overcome this objection: Find tools you can use. They do exist.

Though it’s far from mytop-choice authoring tool, you canuse PowerPoint to create good eLearning. Or you can code in straight-up HMTL.You can record audio (if you need it) with free tools like Audacity.You can record screencasts – and host them free – with Screenror Jing/Screencast.com.

If you want LMSfunctionality, you can outsource. For easy solutions, look up Kineo’s Totara, Moodlerooms’s Joule,Trivantis’ Coursemill, or Litmos,or … . There are lots of well-reputed, LMS solutions on the market now, andcompared to the cost of supporting your own internally, they’re worth checkingout.

If bandwidth or supportfor audio, video, and Flash are a concern, remember that eLearning doesn’t haveto include multimedia to be effective. Don’t include bells and whistles solelybecause of a previous notion of what eLearning is. Do design and write well, berespectful of your audience’s time, and make the final product appealing andeasy to use.

Objection: We’ve tried eLearning before…

A prior history withbad eLearning is difficult to overcome. Previous courses may have been hard touse, irrelevant, targeted inappropriately, unattractive, or just boring.Stakeholders may turn to it again (usually to cut costs), but that doesn’t meanemployees will embrace it.

How to overcome this objection:There’s nothing like good work to show employees that this eLearning will bedifferent. Your first courses out of the gate should be awesome, or yourattempt to start an eLearning initiative will likely crash and burn like theones before it. Don’t skimp on analysis, good writing, interaction design,graphic design, and usability testing.

But even so, how willpeople know how great your work is if they never see it? Here are a few ways tospread the word:

• Create something small, great, and easy toshare. Embed a link and encourage people to send it to others. If your LMSrequires a sign-in and other steps to get to the course, host it outside of theLMS. Yeah, you heard me. The idea is for it to go viral or at least to getshared, so you need to lower the barriers to people taking the course.
• Do an eLearning course that is mandatory for asmany employees as possible. Compliance training is a prime target here. Do compliancetraining in a fun, memorable way, and everyone in the organization will thankyou and be interested in what else you’re capable of.
• Create a marketing campaign around your course.Full-scale promotional materials can be effective, but so can writing hintsabout what’s coming on all of the conference room whiteboards. Then try tolaunch to as many people as possible – perhaps through a link on theorganization’s intranet or in an internal organization blog.

Objection: eLearning will eliminate trainers’ jobs

This can be one of thehardest objections to deal with – especially when that may in fact be part ofthe reason the organization is exploring eLearning. What I’ve found, though, isthat often organizations are interested in moving trainers to other areas –possibly including eLearning development – or in reducing their trainingdepartments through attrition rather than layoffs or firing. Unfortunately,though, sometimes they haven’t communicated this plan well to the trainingstaff beforehand.

How to overcome this objection:Adopting eLearning is rarely a cut-and-dried matter of transferring allclassroom courses to online versions. Organizations often go for a blendedapproach to leverage the advantages of each training method. Share some ways inwhich eLearning projects can make the in-classroom task easier. A few ideas:

• Performance-based pre-assessments can identifywhich learners qualify to take particular classes and which learners can evenskip classes. Result: Classes have learners who are all at the appropriatelevel of skills and knowledge … a dream for a trainer.
• Pre-work can give learners a base level ofknowledge before coming to class so that trainers spend less time teachingboring topics like terminology. And if the trainers also do a short review ofthose topics in class, learners get a bonus in retention.
• In-class or between-class practice exercises anddrills can help learners cement information and skills, and if you can report theiranalytics back to the trainers, they can help hone in on gaps in knowledge.
• Performance-based post-assessments can determinewhether learners achieved the goals of the training.
• Follow-up activities can keep skills sharp andinformation easy to recall.

All of the above can beperformed without leveraging eLearning, but eLearning makes all of them easierto measure, more consistent, and even automatic – in short, eLearning can makethese great training practices more effective and more likely to get done. And that’s all without doing any instruction via computer.

And that’s not the end of objections, of course

The resistance outlinedin this article isn’t necessarily just for the traditional desktop courses thatwe have come to associate with the word eLearning … it could be for mLearning,electronic performance support, virtual live classrooms, or pretty much anymethod in which computers are used to support learning and performance.

In each case, if themethod you’re trying to bring to the organization is suitable for the need,there will be a reason it’s suitable: there will be payoffs in terms ofefficiency, effectiveness, scalability, consistency, or some combination ofthese. And that’s probably the biggest key to overcoming objections: Make sure what you’re selling actuallysolves a problem or leverages an opportunity for the organization. If itdoesn’t, the organization is right to object to your plan.

Finally, be prepared tokeep selling your initiative within the organization, probably for a few yearsafter the first course has launched. Adopting eLearning is a cultural change aswell as a technological one, and all of the changes required to make itaccepted and expected can take time.

What other objectionshave you seen within organizations? How have you overcome them?