Internet Learning Volume 4, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 44

Employee Motivations for Workplace Learning and the Role of Elearning in the Workplace
instructors are selected. While employees
do want to engage in learning when there is a
perceived need and a motivating atmosphere,
they need to have identifiable goals for the
experience in order to fully engage (Kyndt,
Govaerts, et al., 2012). Once the goal is set
and the employee engages with the training
proper development helps to ensure that the
employee remains engaged and successfully
completes the learning process that will
improve employee and firm performance.
Individuals engaging in workplace
learning are motivated by factors such
as personal improvement and career
advancement. This means that they have
an expectation that the learning experience
will help them to achieve positive,
meaningful outcomes. What this means to
the development process is that the material
that is covered, and the way it is delivered,
must be relevant to the individuals who
are participating. This means aligning
content and delivery with the participants’
responsibilities and the way that the firm
conducts their operations. By properly
grounding the delivery as a useful,
applicable model the participants will have
the opportunity to see a linkage between
their learning and their work. With these
development tasks complete the company
can move to the visible part of the ADDIE
process, the delivery.
Much of the delivery of the
learning experience will be defined in the
development stage. Delivery itself will mean
deploying the planned learning process
to identified participants to address the
identified need. If the learning experience
is well designed and well developed then
the execution of the plan should go well.
It is at this point that employees have the
opportunity to directly engage with the
content and begin the process of absorbing
the material and learning how the new
information or skills can improve their
work. At this point in the process the visible
activity of the learning event concludes for
participants, but for the firm the delivery
precedes the final stage of evaluation.
As with any strategic initiative
workplace learning needs to generate a
positive return for the firm. This means
that learning that occurs needs to be
properly and consistently applied when
individual participants return to their jobs.
Determining whether or not this takes
place, and whether or not the modified
behavior has the desired impact on company
performance, is the role of evaluation.
The evaluation following a
workplace learning event may take multiple
forms. In examining changes to quality
metrics, production output, or other
quantitative measures the evaluation is
relatively simple. Over time following the
training the quantitative data can be tracked,
trends and performance benchmarks
can be established, and correlations can
be identified regarding whether training
did or did not have a positive impact on
employee performance. These quantitative
measures, however, are only indicators of
the learning’s outcome and do not entirely
address the efficacy of the program.
The ideal outcome of a workplace
learning exercise is to positively impact
the culture of the organization. While
such a chance may manifest in quantitative
outcomes, the real value of the change is
one of moving towards a high performing
culture. This means that employees adopt
new ways of doing things and also integrate
new ways of thinking and new attitudes
in relation to their work. These kinds of
changes in relation to workplace learning
experiences help to move the firm to a
true learning organization. The net effect
of such cultural shifts in an organization is
part of driving performance improvements
that reach beyond the scope of individual
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