Education and knowledge management
e-Learning
Many countries now have e-learning as a centrepiece of their vision for the future. Many companies also see e-learning as one of the future planks of business. There are many arguments about what properly constitutes e-learning and I do not want to get into that debate here. Let's take a very broad definition that allows our customers or employees to learn something through any form of electronic transmission. This includes files delivered over the Internet, or by CD or DVD. The customer or employee has access to the resources he or she needs to solve some problem or be the catalyst for some great idea and this access is enabled electronically.
Now that the initial tech-boom has come and gone, followed by the inevitable tech-bust, countries and companies are forecasting growth in expenditure on e-learning at over 25% over the next 5 years.
Customers (or employees or citizens) want information about our products and services when they want it, not when we want to supply it. They are quite happy to reach into our files to learn about makes, models, pricing, service, known problems, how to operate things, how to maximise the benefits of a particular machine or system and so on.
This learning can take place alone or in the company of others. The groups can be constructed formally or can be ad hoc. More and more I am noticing a tendency to be informed when visiting a website, that there are 10 other people accessing the same information and 4 of them are willing to be contacted, at the click of a mouse button.
How can you use e-learning in your company to meet the current and future needs of your customers or employees? How can you use this e-learning to build loyalty? If you can't find the way, you can be sure your competitor will.
Knowledge Management Systems
These are the systems that capture the tacit knowledge that is stored in the heads of the employees. If the new employee can quickly learn what is in the head of the “old hand” he or she will become productive far more quickly. How can this be achieved?
The best I ever saw from the perspective of the staff willingly participating was at a company that used the Intranet for their whole of business approach. This company was geographically diverse and about 90% of staff members had a PC or laptop and the remaining 10% had reasonably ready access, so they were well set up technologically.
The Mission statement was online and was linked to Goals and Objectives. These in turn were linked to the Organisation Chart. The Org Chart had position titles and the names of the incumbents. The positions were linked to the Position Descriptions, the names to contact and business address details. Within the Position Descriptions, one could easily move to the next level up or down, to view the skill sets demanded in those positions.
The Goals and Objectives were also linked to the Policies and Procedures. Every manual was linked into the P&P and all related Policies were cross linked. All forms and templates were linked back into the Procedures. The company had rid itself almost entirely of paper-based manuals, forms, applications, etc. Staff members were able to enter online, any Action Requests or suggestions. These were stored in a database and could be accessed by anyone. The search engine was easy to use and informative.
The staff loved it and were only too willing in almost all cases to offer up what they knew, how they did things more efficiently, any changed processes and so on. Staff members were also willing to seek clarification, advice and training.
The system was completely transparent and was embraced by all. It was owned by everyone, although one person was responsible for making the changes to the system.
This system was frequently mentioned in employee satisfaction surveys as one of the reasons the employee was happy with the company. The company had a very small staff turnover in an industry with quite high churn.
The Education business
I ran a training business once where our product was quite expensive, in fact the most expensive in the market place. Our customers paid for computer training out of their own pockets. The majority of our competitors gave the product away for free. That is a very tough market in which to operate. But we not only survived but made on average, over 30% return on sales. How did we do it? We made a point of determining exactly what our clients and people like them, wanted. We determined how they wanted to receive the training, when they wanted it, the flexibility they wanted, what degree of human contact they wanted versus technology-driven contact and we made every effort to surpass their requirements.
As a result we ran a high margin, low volume business very successfully. We surveyed our students on commencement and on conclusion and at the end of every quarter during their time with us. The surveys were voluntary. The commencement survey was included in with all the enrolment forms and other paperwork. It had a response rate of 100%. Students completed it as a matter of course.
Initially we ran the quarterly surveys as paper-based. We had an average response rate of around 12%. Ultimately we moved to an electronic form and increased the participation rate to around 60%.
The exit survey was usually done in the month or so after course completion. This was generally done as a hard copy form, but the trend was to online response. This survey had the lowest response rate.
We also employed a company to run surveys for us. We felt that it was important to gain independent feedback. This survey was run annually and included a mixture of those who had dropped out of courses, those who had graduated, as well as those continuing. The responses given to the independent surveyor tended to be more extreme, that is, the spread of alternatives was more widely used. On the internal surveys, there was a greater tendency to bunch the responses around the central categories. The response rate was around 40% with no significant difference between the categories, although the continuing students usually responded at a slightly higher rate.
Each of the surveys looked at different aspects of our business. The entry survey looked at the hopes and aspirations of the new students and their expectations of us. The quarterly surveys looked at a snapshot of key services provided (an idea I got from Graeme McMahon in his Ansett days). The exit survey looked at how we had performed overall and sought suggestions for improvement.
We also collected data on the different subjects the students studied. At the end of each student workbook there was a subject evaluation. The completion rate of these evaluations ran at about 12%.
We gathered all this data and worked as hard as we could to produce the environment that the students wanted. To make sure that the environment suited their needs, was flexible to accommodate a variety of needs and that the opportunities to learn suited a variety of learning styles. The result was that we were successful and profitable.
How do you measure loyalty in this type of business? We decided that there were two major measurements. The first was the rate at which the students remained enrolled and were not lost to a much cheaper (or free) competitor. The second was referral business. Towards the end of my time there, we were looking at a growing interest in an alumni and further training beyond the initial training as indicators.
In every business, you need to try to determine the indicators of loyalty, then measure systematically and observe the trend data.
Last but not least, we knew exactly how many people dropped out of courses. We followed up on the drop-outs, trying to determine what went wrong and trying to get them to return to study. Often we were successful and this saved us many thousands and thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
One of the most important things a business can do is to survey their customers or their employees. It is no use doing it once, it has to be done regularly with little or no change to the structure and questions. This gives you the opportunity to watch trends emerge and also to see the results of specific actions.