Dive deep

The company, a full-service air ambulance provider that serves more than 30,000 patients each year, needs to ensure that its employees - nurses, paramedics, respiratory technicians and pilots - are not only current on their mandatory certification training, but also have the opportunity to increase their skills with programs that incorporate industry-wide best practices. Up until a couple years ago, that meant training coordinators assigned to each state had to travel extensively to run face-to-face sessions; in addition, employees sometimes had to travel up to three or four hours - on the company's dime - to attend a class. The situation was costing PHI Air Medical time and money.

Mike Harmon, PHI Air Medical's Manager of Clinical Education Standards, began looking at learning management systems as a possible way to provide web-based training for the company's geographically diverse staff.

Among the elearning software he looked at was Ziiva's Prosperity Corporate LMS, which had the features he needed - SCORM compliant, able to run detailed reports, strong customer support - at a very competitive price. "I was looking for something I could sell to administration," Harmon said. "Not knowing how much we would be able to save from an LMS, cost was a factor."

Since implementing Prosperity - first for medical staff, and then for pilots - PHI Air Medical has saved between $300,000 and $400,000 in training-related costs while increasing employee development opportunities available to its staff. The company also has been able to cut three days from what was once was a two-week, on-site new employee training program in Phoenix, which provides additional ongoing savings.

Harmon now has more than 125 courses available online through Prosperity - 13 recurring courses that employees take annually to maintain certification, 24 more courses specifically for new hires and many more for continuing education.

Harmon is also pleased with Ziiva's reporting capabilities and ability to randomize tests, which makes it easier for the company to maintain its certification from the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Services (CAMTS).

Because of the nature of its business, PHI Air Medical still conducts some site-based training, but the company has been able to maximize the face-to-face sessions by having staff do much of the prep work online. "Adult education in the medical world is scenario-based problem solving," Harmon explained. "We use Ziiva to build base-level knowledge before (the site-based training) so trainers get to spend more time on problem-solving and critical-thinking programs."

The ease and availability of online learning has also allowed the company to provide remedial education for employees who may have previously been fired because it was cost-prohibitive to send them away for individual employee training.

Although Prosperity has its own course-creation program, Harmon was more familiar creating modules using Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Articulate, which Ziiva's learning management system can easily accommodate. He's uploaded a number of new and existing courses that way, as well as some training videos.

Now he's looking at using Prosperity's own tools for expanding the company's online offerings, including higher-level learning, more interactive courses and more. Harmon admits that, as satisfied as he is with Prosperity, he's still only scratching the surface of what it can do.

Overall, employee feedback has been positive.

"Pretty much every course they do has a course evaluation," Harmon said. "We've probably had between 80 and 90 percent approval - fours and fives (on a five-point scale) and even the watercooler talk about it is generally pretty positive."

Things have gone so well, in fact, that PHI Air Medical's parent company replaced the LMS it was using for a larger subsidiary that provides helicopter transport for the offshore oil and gas industry with Ziiva's system. In all, PHI, Inc., has about 2,600 employees.

Down the road, Harmon is looking at making some computer-based training available at a nominal fee to local fire departments and ambulance companies in areas served by PHI Air Medical. The courses can be used by these organizations for employee certification.

When asked what he liked best about Prosperity, Harmon said the price and the ability the software gave him to "advance education opportunities and knowledge level of my staff."

LMS experts, trainers agree on one thing: Usability is key

What is the most important thing to look for in a learning management system?

When we asked a dozen elearning and training professionals this question, we thought it was the kind of query that wouldn't have a simple answer. After all, while everyone has similar needs - employee development, customer education, executive training - they don't have the same needs.

We were flat-out wrong.

Yes, there are plenty of things that people want in an LMS - cost, adaptability, tracking, etc. - but the item at the top of pretty much everyone's list is even more basic: ease of use.

When you think about it, that makes perfect sense. Good training software shouldn't have a large learning curve, or, for that matter, any learning curve. It should be practically invisible. Users should be able to hop right on and begin training without being challenged by a confusing interface. The same goes for trainers: they shouldn't have to jump through hoops to create online training modules or generate the reports and documentation they need.

The director of an elearning consultancy in the United Kingdom summed it up this way: "My life for the last 10 years seems to have been trying to work around illogical LMS functionality that simply isn't user friendly for the learner!"

Our admittedly unscientific survey of professionals on LinkedIn and current Ziiva Prosperity LMS clients was intended to develop a list of starting points for businesses thinking about purchasing an LMS system. While we found a common, overriding theme in usability, we also heard about some other important factors you may want to consider as you conduct your own search for learning management systems.

Here are some of the other key points raised by survey respondents:

• Implementation: How fast can I deploy the system? How much support will I need?

• Security: Does the system allow secure remote login? Does it protect proprietary corporate materials?

• Adaptability: Can the system support various file types such as Flash, streaming video, podcasts, etc.? Can it support classroom elearning, instructor-led training and self-paced web-based training? Can the system be modified to accommodate new or revised learning modules, as well as scaled to organizational growth?

• Cost: What are the startup costs? What are the long-term costs of service fees and licensing?

• Data collection: Can the system retain records and monitor learners' progress at the level you need to document employee completion of safety, ethics/compliance and similar classes?

These items should provide a useful starting point for anyone looking into LMS software, but if you have any other issues you want to add to this list, please add a comment below.

IntegrityFX provides broker services to foreign currency traders around the world. In the off-exchange retail foreign currency (Forex) market, banks, corporations, governments and others entities - including individual retail traders - seek to profit by taking advantage of fluctuations in exchange rates. With average daily volume in the trillions, Forex is one of the world's largest and most liquid financial markets. Individual traders are a small but growing segment of this market.

To give its Forex retail traders the knowledge and confidence to succeed, IntegrityFX created an Education & Training Center powered by Ziiva's Prosperity Learning Management System.

"Our Education & Training Center serves a niche market and the education that has historically been made available has been both expensive and poorly developed for one reason or another," said Patterson, who oversees the development, implementation and dissemination of the curriculum via computer-based training, webinar presentations and in-class lecture. "Thus, our greatest challenge is to market our training in a way that makes clear that our curriculum has superior quality in content, quantity and delivery."

To meet this challenge, he turned to Ziiva for an enterprise LMS.

Having used other learning management systems over the years at several colleges and universities, Patterson knew what he wanted: the ability to import e-learning content, robust data collection technology for learner tracking, reasonable ease of use for course management and contact management, customizable reporting features, a feature-rich exam management suite and a reasonable cost.

He found those things with Prosperity.

"Their customer service is excellent and their staff is knowledgeable about the products and services they sell. In addition, the cost of their LMS with its large assortment of stock features was very reasonable," said Patterson, who singled out Prosperity's course-management features as a big plus.

IntegrityFX currently offers a half-dozen Web-based training courses such as "Introduction to Forex," "Technical Analysis" and "Risk Management." The curriculum was recognized with the 2009 Best Forex Education Provider Award at the ME Forex Expo in Dubai.

"All feedback has been generally positive," from students taking and/or evaluating the courses, Patrick said. "However, almost everyone has said that the sheer volume of reading is daunting, and they have recommended more audio/visual elements - we are currently working a new multimedia version."

In addition, Patterson said IntegritryFX plans to incorporate instructor-led webinar scheduling and training into the Prosperity LMS.

While courses currently deal with foreign currency exchange, IntegrityFX has a number of other curriculum programs in development including spot gold, spot oil and "contracts for difference" trading. Down the road, Patterson said he sees value in not only using Prosperity for customer training, but also for employee training.

Patterson, who set up the courses himself, said he appreciated Ziiva's willingness to let IntegrityFX customize the interface, but noted that customer support was readily available as needed.

Overall, Patterson has been very happy with his experience.

"Their staff is approachable, knowledgeable, and prompt," Patterson said. "That has not been my experience with other LMS vendors."

Measure for the right fit

A recent post Amit Gautam on the Upside Learning blog looked at Five Ways to Use an LMS for Effective Learning Measurement. Admittedly, this isn't an easy exercise, since, as Gautam points out, "Learning Measurement is a very challenging exercise and not one that can be executed easily or quickly with some calculator. The best way (but probably the most difficult one) to measure learning is to measure for the right business indicators like sales figures, productivity measures, defect ratios etc."

We agree with that assessment, and also agree that measurement needs to be part of the process from the beginning - or even before the beginning, that is, when you first start looking for a learning management system vendor.

 Training lessons from India

Part of the secret of India's business success is workforce training, entrepreneur-turned-academic Vivek Wadhwa writes TechCrunch. In his post, "Why America Needs to Start Re-educating Its Workforce Again," he notes, "Workforce education increases productivity, decreases turnover, and leads to greater corporate growth. I was myself surprised to see this correlation when I researched the secrets of the success of Indian industry."

Wadhwa's post of pretty detailed - and persuasive - but if you want to learn more, you can download the report published by his team from Harvard and Duke, "How the Disciple Became the Guru," which looks at the employee development practices of 24 of India's top companies.

Pitfalls to effective learning

The reality of employee training doesn't always (or often) meet its promise, writes UK-based learning and performance consultant Charles Jennings on his blog, but he offers some suggestions for businesses hoping to change that by explaining the Five Barriers to Effective Learning in Organisations.

‘Awesome' elearning tips

The eLearning Brothers (Shawn and Andrew Scivally) put together their "Top 10 Do's to Create Awesome eLearning" for a presentation at this year's Learning Solutions Conference. Even without hearing the actual presentation, the 55-page .pdf gives you the gist of their Do's, which include dead-on suggestions about style, text, graphics and much more.

Last-minute checkup

Over at the Rapid e-Learning Blog, Tom Kuhlman offers "10 Things to Consider Before Your E-Learning Course Goes Live."

All the tips make sense, but our favorite is "Is your course too sexy for its body?" (i.e. don't go so far out of the box that the learner can't follow you.)

The buzz on corporate learning and elearning tools only gets bigger, so if you don't have time to track down all the relevant news yourself, stop on by and we'll pass along what we found. Your suggestions are always welcome, of course, so please post a comment if there's anything you want to share.

This isn't a brand new idea, but even two years ago it was still somewhat of a novelty.

According to Rick Nigol, blogging on BreakthrougheLearning.com in 2008, it was an "aha moment" for him when, on a consulting gig, he heard a pair of vice-presidents explaining how eLearning software would help them meet their strategic focus of becoming an environmentally sustainable company.

These days ­- despite recessionary pressures (and possibly, in some cases, as a result of them) - the idea of sustainability continues to grow.

What in it for you?

Here are some green benefits of using an LMS for computer-based training:

Stay home: eLearning is available anywhere you have employees, so travel and lodging costs associated with training - and their resulting environmental impact - are no longer an issue.

Save paper (and ink, and energy): Who needs handouts - which often need to be updated multiple times during a product rollout or large-scale training effort - when you can keep everyone on the same (virtual) page with an easy-to-update LMS? Going this route means using less energy to produce and distribute training manuals and other documentation, as well as less waste.

Green culture: Beyond using an LMS for your regular training and employee development needs, consider creating some green training modules to give your employees practical ways to reduce the company's carbon footprint in their daily activities.

Carbon offsets: If you want your business to be as carbon neutral as possible - whether out of environmental concern or simply as a pragmatic marketing decision - there are several calculators and companies out there that can help you understand what you need to do and certify the results. No matter how intense you want this effort to be, eLearning tools are one of the easiest, most obvious ways to cut your carbon footprint.

When you look at the above list, it's obvious that many of the benefits of learning management systems - such as increasing productivity through reducing travel - transcend reducing carbon emissions and can save your business time and money in other ways, as well.

The bottom line

We've come across some companies - mainly outside the U.S. - that are promoting the environmental benefits of eLearning as central parts of their marketing efforts.

That's all well and good, but while LMS vendors may no longer be surprised to hear customers talk about sustainability, one point Rick Nigol made two years ago still holds true: Using eLearning simply to reduce travel, while noble, isn't in the best interests of any organization.

Finding a robust eLearning system that can meet all your training needs is the real holy grail of corporate learning, and anything else is gravy.

Green gravy.