Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Learning & developmentTraining methods

Learning moves out of the classroom

by Personnel Today 16 May 2006
by Personnel Today 16 May 2006

Classroom-based training is outmoded and ineffective for some employers. Does this spell the end of the training room, asks Anna Hipkiss?

It is an open secret that too often classroom training does not work. It is like taking a recreational drug: trainers and trainees experience a brief high, but that soon fades – and for many there is little of value to take back to the workplace.

Many companies are finally waking up to this and, having questioned its effectiveness, are finding ways to replace the classroom.
John Phillips, head of learning and development at financial services company Experian, believes there is a huge misconception about how we learn. “From the age of five to 21, we reinforce the classroom method of learning,” he explains. “A large percentage of the population is conditioned to be educated purely by attendance. But today, the training room is just one way to acquire learning, not the only way.”

Love to learn

It is a view that is widespread. The 2006 learning and development survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reported that just 17% of organisations found formal training sessions were the best way to learn.

Two-fifths said on-the-job training was the most effective learning method, with just 1% plumping for e-learning and 13% for coaching and mentoring.

Why is classroom-based training in decline? There is a marked switch from employees being the passive recipients of training to the proactive learners, according to learning and development professionals.

People learn in many ways, they say, so classroom training is no longer central to this process. Consequently, many employers now focus on helping individuals to find their own learning style and use the learning methods that best suit them.

Malcolm Tulloch, head of organisation development for natural gas specialist BG Group, says: “Learning to learn is a subject people are experimenting with more and more.” BG runs an initiative called the flexible management programme, which orients people to their own learning style and guides their development.

Employers are also beginning to realise that experiential learning – learning by doing, reflection and real-world application – has a far greater value than simply sitting in a classroom.

“It used to be easy to take people away [on a course] for three or four days. Now it is difficult, even for a day, at senior level,” says Tulloch. “Recognising the importance of experiential learning is vital.”

Nicola Wicks, head of training and development at Mothercare, agrees. “You can’t train the old way – set up a workshop and everybody comes along – you have to find something more practical. We take a pragmatic approach. Our methodology is different and we really focus on learning through actions rather than theory,” she says.

What’s more, the predictions in the late 1990s that e-learning would replace classroom-based learning have not been realised. E-learning is just one of the options available to organisations.

Get stuck in

Experiential learning is about far more than on-the-job training. When the learner is active, expects to have a coach and a mentor, and is working to a structured development plan, the value is far greater.

Now, the portfolio of training available to staff can include not just classroom courses but also structured projects or secondments.

Rather than spending all of their time producing busy training schedules and lists of courses, progressive learning and development departments now have time to structure the real-world projects, which make a lasting difference to performance.

At insurance company Zurich, for example, staff are offered several learning options. Paul Tuck, its head of talent, learning and development, encourages coaching, individual ownership of training programmes, and lots of learning options – of which a training course is just one. “We do lots of project assignments,” he explains.

No longer the centre stage of workplace learning, the classroom must now take its place as just one of a host of learning options for employees.

Anna Hipkiss is a consultant and coach to HR and learning and development professionals.

Case study: IBM

Computer giant IBM has placed experiential learning at the centre of its employee development strategy.

“Business is moving much faster now. It’s difficult to get people for even a half-day session. So we move learning to the workplace, rather than the learner going to the classroom,” explains Mia Vanstraelen, director of IBM Learning.

The company uses a system of blended learning, involving e-learning, coaching and learning labs and workshops for real teams. It supplies staff with information in advance so that they can attend a ‘high performance group session’, which might be a two- to four-hour workshop about a current business issue. Follow-up might then take the form of individual or group coaching.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

“It is a highly business-centric approach,” says Vanstraelen. “We ask our internal customers: ‘What is your timetable?’ We no longer issue a course schedule, we fit around them.”

This month in Training & Coaching Today

One thing training should be is memorable – for the right reasons. We look at how to address this issue by making training stick.

Personnel Today’s sister publication, Training & Coaching Today, is a monthly magazine dedicated to keeping you on top of training issues. To subscribe, go to www.personneltoday.com/StaticPages/TrainingMagazine.htm, or call 01444 445566. Out 16 May

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Internal relations: How well do HR and payroll really get on?
next post
Bank of New York to administer BA’s pension payments

You may also like

Skills shortfall in construction threatens housing target

4 Jul 2025

Data skills gap getting in way of AI...

3 Jul 2025

Employers bemoan Gen Z’s lack of ‘work readiness’...

24 Jun 2025

Employees want more upskilling and apprenticeships to narrow...

20 Jun 2025

AI is here. Your workforce should be ready.

18 Jun 2025

Multiverse to open up 15,000 apprenticeships

9 Jun 2025

Education secretary sets out priorities for Skills England

2 Jun 2025

Investing in skills when budgets are tight

12 May 2025

Leading with honest feedback: A responsibility in recruitment

24 Apr 2025

High-level apprenticeship spend doubles in five years

16 Apr 2025

  • Empower and engage for the future: A revolution in talent development (webinar) WEBINAR | As organisations strive...Read more
  • Empowering working parents and productivity during the summer holidays SPONSORED | Businesses play a...Read more
  • AI is here. Your workforce should be ready. SPONSORED | From content creation...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+