The Evolution of Corporate Training

Traditional corporate classroom training has always been a staple of employee training and education, but the volume and sophistication of technological advances starting in the 1970s have led to impressive improvements in the way employers educate their workers, allowing for Web- and computer-based study to quickly replace “brick and mortar” classrooms at many workplaces.

In 2001, 76 per cent of all corporate training and education transpired in formal classrooms. Only 11.5 per cent of company training was completely technology-based. Since then, the annual decrease in classroom training has averaged 2.48 per cent each year.

Along with technological advances, there are other legitimate reasons for the disappearance of classroom training:

• Increasing costs of travel and attendance off-site.  As senior executives navigate through the deep recession, cost control is much more prominent. Attending off-site corporate education programs has become more costly than many organizations wish to support. Rising fuel costs have generated higher travel costs, and when added to seminar attendance costs, educational expenses can take a large bite out of a company’s budget during recessionary cost containment.
  
  
• Lost workplace time with smaller staff.  No one, including management, happily endorses downsizing, layoffs or job elimination, but down economies often necessitate severe employee cutbacks. The recent recession has caused many organizations to operate with reduced staff levels in order to survive. Hours in formal classroom settings, while useful, also put extra strain on reduced staff levels.
  
  
• Ease of getting information online.  Formerly, communicating knowledge was more effective using packaged learning programs. Unless employees were given time off during the workday to attend formal college-level classes or spend hours doing research at the library, access to high level information and knowledge was difficult. The incredible volume of training available via the Web has eliminated this concern.
  
  
• Questions of education relevance.  As technological changes and improvements appear at a rapid rate, pre-packaged training courses are sometimes out-of-date before they are ready for distribution. This is not the fault of the company releasing the training programs; it is simply a result of today’s amazing speed of technological advancements.
  
  
• Responsibility for learning is transferring from teacher to employee.  Much like the dramatic transfer of responsibility from teacher to student that occurs from high school to college, the task of gaining additional expertise is shifting from employer to employee in the workplace. The combination of the wonderful information available online and the corporate “need for speed” has fuelled this transfer of responsibility.
  
  
• Learning has become an ongoing event.  The influence of global markets, even on smaller companies, the consistent evolution of technology, the ever-increasing volume of government regulations, and the increasing creativity of the competition has made ongoing learning a necessity. To keep up, learning must now continue on a consistent basis.
  
  
• Younger workforce is highly tech competent.  As the aging workforce is replaced by younger employees, the average level of “tech competency” increases. It is therefore easier to introduce what formerly were “non-traditional” training programs for this younger workforce, as they are as adept at using web-based technology as they are at eating and sleeping.

As employers and employees learn to accomplish more with less, the decline in corporate classroom training has become a necessary step. But you now have the opportunity to constantly learn, integrate new skills into your role immediately, and gain new knowledge 24/7 – giving you the opportunity to learn more than ever possible before.

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