eLearning in SMEs: From Cultural & Technical Revolution [Interview]

October 30, 2019

eLearning in SMEs: From Cultural & Technical Revolution [Interview]

Practical example

Company

Large companies have now firmly integrated eLearning and blended learning into their qualification methodology. But small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are also successfully active in the eLearning sector! In the interview, Dr. Stefan Enzler reports on cultural and technical challenges in SMEs and on solutions from the research project KMUdigital.

Reading tip: More information about KMUdigital and the role of blink.it in this research project has been summarized for you in the article KMUdigital: How blink.it is researching for 'Further Education 4.0'.

Im Interview mit blink.it: Stefan Enzler von imu augsburg

About the person: For over 25 years, Dr. Stefan Enzler has been focused on the holistic skill development of individuals and entire organizations through coaching, training, consulting, and research. In his work, he combines individual learning with the cultural and structural development of organizations in order to sustainably enhance the innovative capacity and success of companies. He uses blended learning to significantly increase the effectiveness of learning and development.

Hello Mr. Enzler. You initiated the research project 'KMUdigital' together with imu augsburg and blink.it. What is the goal of this project?

S. Enzler: "We have been working with companies, especially in the medium-sized sector, for over 25 years. We have found that many companies lose their development power as soon as external support from training and coaching is withdrawn. Our question was, how can we support companies so that a development initiated by us externally can also take place sustainably internally? This led to the idea of supporting medium-sized companies with the help of blended learning, that is, through the combination of eLearning and classroom learning. In KMUdigital, we train so-called integral coaches: people who are employed in their own company and then help implement such projects internally with their own coaching skills."

What has changed in companies and especially in further education over the past 25 years?

S. Enzler: "25 years ago, projects were still more predictable - today we deal much more with uncertainty. Companies have a vision, but how the path to it looks changes constantly or is only discovered during the journey.

This also affects the people who are part of these changes: Knowledge must be available according to the new working models. Previously, it was much more structured: there was a fixed day for training once a year. On this day, employees went to the seminar and learned - or often did not learn at all.

Today, learning must be self-organized, usually directly at the workplace. And here lies the great advantage of eLearning: The offer is there, and I can use it as an employee in a rhythm that suits me. I will be more responsible for my own development and must set priorities myself. For many people, this is a big leap from structured to self-directed learning."

The integral coaches trained within the framework of KMUdigital are supposed to help implement eLearning, especially in the form of blended learning. But why should SMEs use blended learning specifically?

S. Enzler: "I see the charm of blended learning primarily in that learning sequences I as a learner must simply see, hear, and understand can be detached from the fixed structure of 'I go to a seminar' – here the responsibility comes into play to organize some of the learning myself. This is enormously important for employees from medium-sized companies: Their life and working time is heavily compressed and correspondingly scarce.

In classroom training, practical learning is then strengthened: The presence times are no longer filled with theory and knowledge transfer but are really exciting. There, learners are directly engaged in interaction."

An insight into the blink.it learning platform, which is used in the KMUdigital research project. Source: blink.it

What special challenges arise in small and medium-sized enterprises when introducing digital further education methods such as blended learning?

S. Enzler: "SMEs are very good at connecting the technologies they work with on their products to digitization. However, transferring this to people often reveals a gap that was very surprising to us: In their private lives, employees are active in this digital world with their smartphones, watching videos, and actively seeking information. But at work, they wait for information and do not use the digital world as independently as they do at home. This is often a problem with the corporate culture, which leads to employees not utilizing part of their skills, which are actually available.

Often the mindset prevails: 'If I only look at the computer, I am not productive!' For managers, who usually sit with their own computer in their individual offices, it is normal. But on the level of shift supervisors or production workers, it is a significant cultural break to leave the workplace during working hours to learn. Making these occurrences in teams 'allowable' requires, above all, a cultural change. There are also many hurdles: for example, smartphone use is often not permitted at the workplace.

This also requires a technical revolution. Often, while there may be a computer in the companies, the location is not in an appropriate learning environment, and overall, there are too few devices for the employees. Frequently, the infrastructure is lacking so that digital learning can also be implemented smoothly."

The cultural and technical infrastructure in SMEs is therefore often not well developed. How can they address these issues to establish a foundation for blended learning?

S. Enzler: "The first major key to gaining more acceptance for digital learning in SMEs is the formation of learning teams. This serves a dual function in SMEs: First, it increases employee motivation to really stay engaged in a self-directed eLearning online course. Secondly, it has the advantage that employees in learning teams reflect directly. This creates a social effect, forming the learned concepts into a shared language through interaction.

This also partially solves the problem of technical infrastructure: In many SMEs, computers and monitors are rather isolated from the actual work or production site. This way, employees can jointly seek out a designated learning spot within learning teams.

A second solution that we introduce for the technical problem: There should at least be a few tablets available. These can serve several functions in many SMEs and are not solely acquired for further education: for example, tablets can still be used as scanners directly at the production site, but also for learning sequences outside.

A third major lever - to break down the barrier to eLearning - is to guide employees in creating their own videos for the learning units. Specifically about practical topics, such as operating a particular machine. With the available tablet, employees can record videos themselves and then share them with other colleagues in the online course. This has twofold benefits: First, it is really funny because familiar faces appear in the videos. Second, it lowers the threshold for sitting down to learn in front of the screen or tablet: When content is created by employees for employees, it becomes normal."

Tablets ermöglichen als multifunktionale Helfer in KMU das Lernen direkt am Arbeitsplatz.

Tablets serve as multifunctional helpers in SMEs to facilitate learning directly at the workplace.

Videos seem to be an important key point here. How important do you think videos are in digital further education for SMEs?

S. Enzler: "I see that it is increasingly becoming THE most important medium. Especially when I observe the younger generation. But I also see this tendency in myself: I prefer to watch a short video before reading something – provided the situation allows me to watch a video with sound.

Videos overcome the resistance in SMEs to utilize digital skills: When employees record their own videos, they become part of communication, then part of learning, and subsequently part of company culture. And for that, hardware deficiencies must be addressed as well, to be able to watch the videos.”

With blended learning and videos, the KMUdigital project is thus guiding companies towards digital learning and a new corporate culture. Why did you choose blink.it as a tool for this?

S. Enzler: "What appeals to me about blink.it and what convinced me to see it as a key element for SMEs is: It is simple and works reliably. Especially in SMEs, the worst thing we could have done would have been to overwhelm employees with complexity. With blink.it, this risk did not exist: Even an employee who engages with it only briefly can use it immediately.

Simplicity is, in my view, part of the solution to the acceptance problem of eLearning in SMEs

. Together with this strong involvement of employees and communal learning, blink.it as a simple platform makes a valuable contribution to the project. This simplicity makes blink.it a particularly suitable tool for medium-sized companies. And throughout the projects, we are working together to further improve the tool specifically for this purpose.

Thank you very much for these exciting insights!