Last year employees in the UK spent almost 80% of their formal training time in the classroom. Just 14% of their training hours were delivered online. Compare that with the US, where fully one-third of all training is delivered online. So why is it, in this age of technology, that the British still spend the vast majority of their time in the classroom?
Well, culture plays a big part in the equation.
In my interviews with UK companies, training managers said that employees in the UK are accustomed to "being taught". Social, collaborative, and self-directed learning methods are not as prevalent as they are in the US, both in the workplace as well as in schools and universities.
For their part, UK training organizations are also reluctant to transition to new methods. They are accustomed to a certain way of training delivery and they like being in control of the content.
As a result, UK companies carry on with their familiar methods of "chalk and talk" and employees are generally accepting of this style.
This is starting to change, however. Part of the reason is financial. Classroom training carries an enormous amount of overhead, and with recent budget cutting, many UK organizations are now embracing technology-based training in an effort to reduce costs. One company reported that it used to spend £100 per employee for external Microsoft training classes. Today, it offers e-learning courses on Microsoft applications at one-fifth the cost.
UK employees are also starting to demand different learning formats to better match their personal styles. This is driving UK companies to look at the potential of social learning tools. As one example, BSkyB has been experimenting with Twitter to quickly distribute new product and market updates to its staff. Through these short bursts of information, BSkyB’s sales people and staff have the most current knowledge of what’s happening in the market, giving them a leg up on the competition.
In addition, BT’s Dare2Share platform is a wonderful example of how to improve employee productivity through a learning and knowledge sharing environment. Dare2Share represented a huge cultural shift for BT, which traditionally had taken a controlled, top-down approach to learning.
The transition will be gradual, as is the case with any cultural change, but we expect to see the use of social and technology-based training methods rise in the UK, as they have in the US over the past few years. For more information on UK training delivery and examples of how UK companies are using social and online methods, see our recently published UK Training and Development Factbook.