Up, up and away: E-learning in the travel sector

Here’s a thought piece covering the use and value of e-learning in the travel sector – this one made the cover story of e.learning age magazine. Again, would welcome your comments.

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Harnessing technology to build trust and improve customer care remains a priority for the travel sector.

There is no doubt that the travel industry is in a state a flux. As the recession gets worse, redundancies continue to plague the sector, with 5,000 reported since autumn 2008 from recognised names such as Hertz and Delta Air Lines. British Airways has also announced a pay freeze.

In these circumstances, trust has become a major issue for the sector, particularly in the wake of collapsing firms such as XL Leisure. ABTA has since appointed a PR consultancy to address the issue and help restore consumer confidence in booking a holiday. With the pound down, people are also staying closer to home and foregoing extras, such as car hire and flight upgrades.

To add further woes, travel firms must digest an unenviable cocktail of challenges, including changing energy prices, eco-tourism, sustainability, online booking and financial modelling, as well as a high staff turnover, which is double that of other industries.

On a brighter note, Travel Weekly recently reported that holidaymakers plan to spend the same in 2009 as 2008, with companies such as Hays Travel actively recruiting and EasyJet announcing a fourth quarter 2008 profit increase.

So, what is the likely impact on training? The challenges faced by the travel sector clearly demonstrate a need for ongoing training. And to survive the recession, travel firms must focus training on customer service skills to help rebuild trust and generate a long-lasting competitive edge. Changing needs of travel customers also bring different knowledge demands and, as learning and development professionals, we need to keep up. Sustainable destinations and offsetting carbon footprints were key desires in previous years, but these are now being replaced by cost as the priority.

Henrietta Palmer, e-learning manager at TUI UK and Ireland, confirms this trend, saying: "Aside from vital compliance and product knowledge training, other requirements can be incredibly reactive. It's all about one thing and as soon as something happens, another completely different skill need becomes the priority. As learning professionals we need to think smart and have a portfolio of learning objects, a library of modules and tools to use and repurpose as needed."

Delivering business benefits

As an industry, travel has a highly evolved learning culture, with nearly one in five more people in the sector, compared to all businesses, receiving training and ongoing development last year, according to People 1st and the ABTA Travel Industry Training and Development Benchmark Survey 2008. Crucially, the same report demonstrated clear business benefits from training, including increased customer satisfaction reported by 96% of survey participants, increased profits (88%), a rise in productivity (83%) and a gain in sales (84%).

While the economic climate brings uncertainty, it is heartening to hear that the majority in travel do not plan to reduce training budgets and half of them expect a slight increase over the next five years. This is different to other sectors, which plan to cut or freeze training budgets in 2009, according to research recently conducted by Brightwave. The research also found that, despite the overall reduction, half of those questioned expect e-learning spend to rise in 2009, qualifying the increase in demand we are seeing for effective online solutions.

As training and ongoing learning are crucial to the travel sector and with large volumes of people involved in the industry, e-learning was introduced in its infancy by some of the larger agencies, hotel chains and air operators. E-learning meets a large number of travel training needs as it is efficient, persistent, consistent, accessible and engaging. It can also help bring large numbers of new recruits up to speed through effective induction and ensure high levels of compliance are met. Further, it improves customer service, builds product knowledge, fulfils multiple language requirements and provides on the job support.

Another reason for the early popularity of e-learning in travel is that it enables new training opportunities, such as critical job simulations targeting cabin crew and virtual scenarios for customer care and sales. We expect e-learning to gain greater popularity as it delivers more cost reductions, faster delivery, higher levels of learner engagement and more opportunities to train people where and when it suits them - crucial for time-shift work.

The future is bite sized

For the travel sector to continue exploiting e-learning in future, it needs to continue viewing technology enabled learning as an investment and not a cost as the rewards and return on investment are huge. There is a great opportunity for learning innovation using new tools and models of working. Travel companies should also take a more flexible approach to e-learning dependant on their goals, learners and risk.

As we move away from traditional and often unnecessarily lengthy courseware, learning progresses towards more digestible and memorable learning bites, or knowledge chunks, which are more engaging. These can be delivered via podcasts, video on demand, social learning, computer simulations or games to help change behaviour and improve performance. Learners simply select the format that suits their need from a collaborative learning portal designed with performance support in mind.

Wendy Stubbs at British Airways supports this view: "Bite sized knowledge chunks will change the way that we do mandatory short sharp courses. If there's a new piece of compliance, let's validate first then get learners to take the course. This frees us up to spend the budget on important stuff that is business critical."

Social networking

E-learning is helping to generate more effective informal learning as it blends formal online training with social networking and knowledge transfer. With generation Y so well represented in the travel sector, informal or social learning is likely to take hold much faster than in other industries. Companies have a lot to gain by connecting people so that valuable knowledge and best practice can spread faster.

At Brightwave, we are seeing travel firms exploring the potential of social learning ahead of other sectors and expect this to grow as technology costs come down and new models are created. A wiki devoted to destinations or the handling of difficult customer scenarios could help share knowledge and best practice live. Imagine this, supported by a portfolio of learning bites and communication pieces, and you have a powerful learning resource. As part of this mix, mobile learning, intuitively aligned to a dispersed travel workforce is poised to give true access to location-based services and bite sized learning.

British Airways is piloting BABlend.net, a professional networking tool that enables employees to learn from each other. It is popular with staff and has already identified what works best. For example, first screens and tags are vital to early engagement.

Travel companies that increase their commitment to training during the recession will be in a good position to prosper once the economy picks up. With customer service so fundamental to success, a 96% increase in customer satisfaction from ongoing learning and development can be ignored only at companies' commercial peril.

Looking ahead, Palmer at TUI, says: "We will all be looking to maximise budgets, repurpose resources, maximise informal opportunities, reduce business travel and exploit technologies to work across distances. Alongside cost reduction and customer care, sustainability is high on the agenda. E-learning is a way we can make an impact."

There is no doubt that technology will increasingly move centre stage to deliver business critical training with increased efficiency. But the shift also catalyses a move to more engaging and timely learning experiences for a sector that, while hit first by the recession, will also lead the recovery into a new economic landscape.

Black Swans - Barriers to Effective Learning

Here's an article I wrote a few weeks back for Learning Technologies magazine which has just been published. It's a fairly long post but if you make it to the end I would welcome your comments.

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When unpredictable change becomes the only constant, learning on your own terms is an essential survival skill in these turbulent times, says Lars Hyland.

The unthinkable is happening. In just a matter of months, the financial upheaval in the US, UK and the rest of the world has shaken us to the core. What we once believed to be immovable - rock solid even - reveals itself in all its brittle fragility. It could be described as a financial "black swan" (a term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book of the same name), a large impact, hard-to-predict and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. A black swan being a metaphor for something that could not exist or happen since all swans are believed to be white.

While this has a certain air of Douglas Adams' infamous "Infinite Improbability Drive" there is a growing sense that the seeming randomness of change around us is just the beginning of a fundamental reappraisal of the way we do things in many areas of modern life. That includes the way we learn, both in the workplace and within our education systems.

The rate of change really does feel like it is accelerating, which means just keeping up takes new levels of determination. Crucially, if efforts are not to become all consuming, we need new strategies and tools that help us to cope and prosper. Learning using traditional methods in this increasingly turbulent climate is rapidly losing its effectiveness and for that matter its audience. Embracing and harnessing new technology is simply essential. The good news is that while old institutional structures are crumbling around us, so too are the barriers to new ways of learning, sharing, interacting with our peers, colleagues, family and friends.

So what and where are these barriers? How are they changing? And what is its impact on learning in the workplace?

E-learning benefits finally understood

So with recession ringing in our ears, the traditional cut back in budgets does not appear to be brutally focused on training cost centres in contrast to days gone by. There is an emerging trend towards more effective, longer lasting investments in e-learning and performance support where the core benefits of a consistent and persistent learning experience can be offered to a large, dispersed group of people. Multimodal learning (or blended learning if you prefer) is much more common, where different mixes of media are used to create a more varied, engaging and impactful learning experience. E-learning is a core component now rather than a novel add-on.

Attention and persuasion critical to engagement

In an "always-on" environment there is a growing risk that we are becoming increasingly "time-poor" and beginning to suffer from an ever more fragmented attention span. This has its benefits and its distractions. Increasing numbers of people are happy to manage a continuous stream of SMS, emails and voice calls that challenge the effectiveness of the traditional "course" format. So rather than persevere with models that are at odds with the way we actually cognitively assimilate and consolidate new knowledge and skills, we can now provide instant and contextualised access to learning support at the point of need, wherever that may be. Where individuals take more responsibility for their learning and development, they will vote with their feet - and rightly so - if they feel their time is being wasted. Communications are critical in persuading learners to spend their valuable time and attention on a learning experience.

The Invisible LMS

While bespoke e-learning development is on the ascent, there are still many organisations offering employees libraries of blandly designed content on systems that make it difficult to find and use. The eLearningGuild in the US commented in its LMS 360 Report 2008 that learning management systems score some of the lowest satisfaction scores they've seen in any research report. As the emphasis rightly moves towards the learning experience, the supporting platforms must become transparent - if not invisible - and present no unnecessary steps or hindrance to engaging with content, tools or people.
For more than a year, Brightwave has helped stimulate the trend amongst its clients for the provision of a learning platform that puts usability and accessibility at the forefront. This signals a move towards targeted learning portals in the workplace that can present learning content in a focused, context-sensitive manner.

Universal broadband access

Everyone in the European Union could have, by right, broadband access by 2010. The European Commission's Universal Service Obligations (USO) demand that all citizens who want them should be able to get access to basic telephone services including a fixed line of sufficient quality to "permit functional internet access". "High-speed internet is the passport to the Information Society and an essential condition for economic growth," says Viviane Reding, EU Telecoms Commissioner. But what about the other 3 billion people who have no viable access to the internet? Google, together with John Malone, the cable television magnate, and HSBC, have set up O3b Networks to put up 16 low orbit satellites connecting mobile masts to fast broadband networks, and in the process bring the cost down by 95 per cent. If these are operational in 2010 as planned, then it marks a huge step forward in ubiquitous access and for driving the use of the internet for learning and knowledge in the parts of the world with the most to gain.

In the workplace, we are already seeing the liberating effects of broadband access encouraging rapidly increasing levels of teleworking (admittedly after a slow start). According to the CBI, 46 per cent of UK businesses now offer teleworking to help with working-hours flexibility, reducing carbon footprint, downsizing pressure on corporate workspaces while at the same time increasing productivity. With more distance working comes distance learning. E-learning support and online collaboration tools are essential for workers to engage with colleagues and teams often distributed globally.

Mobile internet access gets usable

The advent of Apple's iPhone and now Google's Android mobile platform is transforming the experience of using communications devices on the move. Innovations such as an intuitive touch-based interface, large, clear screens and powerful support for a wide range of applications is bringing mobile internet use to life. Soon after its launch, O2 revealed over 60 per cent of their iPhone customers were sending and receiving more than 25 MB of data per month compared to just 1.8 per cent of their other contract customers. While mobile internet access used to be the preserve of those with a natural interest in technology, this has now changed. Most of us are pretty ambivalent about the technology we use - we just want it to work. The iPhone is a great example of technology that removes most of the former barriers through careful attention to ease of use. Google's new Android platform, while perhaps lacking the glamour of Apple, could further open up the potential of mobile services that are intuitive, fast and productive.

There have been many of us in the e-learning industry - myself included - who have been tolling the bell for mobile learning over the past five years but it appears that we are at last trudging out of what Gartner's Hype Cycle terms the Trough of Disillusionment (remember WAP?) and sliding onto the Slope of Enlightenment. With a more powerful, easy to use, standardised and open platform, the opportunities for learning on the move will grow rapidly.

Games become learning simulations

Games are firmly out of the teenagers' bedroom and are a natural part of developing experience in areas of personal and professional interest. Whether it is rearing virtual pets, performing virtual surgery or playing in a virtual rock band, whatever your interest there is almost certainly going to be an increasingly accurate simulation available for you to develop and practice your skills. Aviation led the way with flight simulators that once were £millions. Now they can be bought for little more than three thousand pounds (including cockpit controls and multiple monitors for a full 180 degree view).

More and more professions and job roles can and should be simulated. You wouldn't want to board a plane without knowing that the pilot has been through thousands of hours of practice, even though much of it on a simulator. This will dramatically accelerate the induction training period, which can often take several months before trainees become fully productive.

Mitra's self organising theories state that when learners feel empowered and self motivated, the difference in learning outcomes can be dramatic. What does this mean for the workplace? Well, similar young people are already entering the workforce and are demanding a more interactive learning experience. What works for them is an immersive, simulative solution that provides a safe, yet meaningful place to practice - and share their experiences with others.

Social Networking means we can all be reached

The move towards simpler, integrated interfaces is one facet of the wider move to Web 2.0. Social networking (whether Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Linkedin etc...) continues to explode in its popularity and develop in its application. Recent statistics from the European Commission state that just in the past year, the use of social networks has grown 35 per cent in Europe. Over half of the European online population visited social networking sites last year and the number of regular users is forecast to rise from today's 41.7 million to 107.4 million in the next four years. That's a significant growth pattern given that we barely understood the concept three years ago.

Sharing is at the heart of the learning process and being able to reach people with the answers, advice, knowledge, stories that you need, greatly accelerates the underlying learning curve of any individual. Social networking is now an accepted part of the landscape - and that includes organisations. According to the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study, 93% of Americans believe that a company should have a presence on social media sites and 85 percent believe that these companies should use these services to interact with consumers. Through sheer bottom up demand companies have to embrace these communities or face being sidelined in terms of their ability to successfully recruit and retain staff as well as their relationship with their customer base.

A new scientific base for learning

While all these technologies evolve and develop around us, our understanding of how our brains acquire, process, hold and use knowledge and skills is striding forward. The unravelling of the deeper mechanisms of the mind will inform new, more robust instructional practices and support methodologies than we have at present. The fields of neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and anthropology are yielding fascinating insights into how we make decisions, how we remember (and forget), how our brain chemistry alters the effectiveness of the learning process. Who would have thought that blueberries have a positive effect on memory recall? Or that a six minute nap can boost your learning skills? (See my blog http://larsislearning.blogspot.com/ for more on this theme).
Indeed, "smart drugs" are becoming more prevalent which clearly provide users with a cognitive edge. There are growing reports from the US that students are making full use of these drugs to gain an advantage at examination time. It is a trend also known as "cosmetic neurology," a term coined by Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.

In Summary

In times of rapid and radical change it is more important than ever that we find and adopt learning strategies and technologies that will allow us to adapt. The barriers to effective learning that I have listed can just as easily be thought of as frontiers. There is much work to be done but attitudes are altering at a brisk pace now that we have all embraced technology so fundamentally into our lives. In many ways it is the corporate and governmental institutions which are proving to have the slowest response to adapting to a new learning landscape. In short, be prepared, our very own "black swan" is just around the corner.