I am a fan of e-Learning and I also create some e-Learning materials for our company (an ISP helpdesk) aside from my job of actually training people. With my experience, I have seen the big benefits of e-Learning. Aside from the lower cost which was a highlight in the blog, it also is a very good tool in rapid information dissemination, which is very crucial for operations in our case – we need to know as much as we can in a small span of time.

I am proud to have garnered 97-100% ratings in all of my training classes that I handled "live". I recently created an e-Learning course series and I got 100% approval from our learning committee. The trainees liked it too.

I believe it all depends on how a trainer can transcribe or translate his training style to moving text, speaking "instructors", and animations within the e-Learning tools.

The only reason why e-Learning should not work is if the e-Learning tools or system is solely being ran by those who know how to use it rather than an experienced trainer who would sit down on the computer and do the presentations.

In a previous job I taught professional-level computer programming face-to-face to small classes. It was difficult to cover the equivalent of a full college semester course in 40 hours straight – 8hrs/day for a group with widely varying backgrounds and innate intelligence. Being an remote mentor for elearning would have helped us all immensely – those not yet up to speed could take more time. There are now programs like that.

Being a visual/kinesthetic learner I do best at my own pace with opportunities to try things out. I also like to push the envelope and go beyond what's being taught.

Since I have to pay for my own technical training it's a combination of books plus free or inexpensive elearning. I generally make at least 3 passes through all the technical stuff to make sure I got it. The simple stuff like HIPPA was a cursory pass and a test – missed 1 question (on an obscure detail).

I've contacted a few technical book authors / elearning gurus with specific questions beyond the scope of their presentation and have gotten excellent responses. In one case the author (of 15 books on the subject) hired me as a part-time subcontractor when she has overload – it's been a win-win.

I liked e-learning because it allowed me to go at my won pace and it allowed me the flexibility to make time for it in addition to my regular work. Granted there are e-learnings that are boring and not really that informative but we had many that were very good. Some were so sophisticated that they had introductory questions at the beginning which if you scored high enough on those you were just given credit for the entire course and you were done in about 5 minutes. Others recorded the time you spent on each screen and if you appeared to click through too quickly it would stop you and force you to stay on a page for a time. Also, I am an accountant and some of the trainings involve proper documentation for audits and tax forms so you needed to have the document/form in front of you to understand the concept so e-learning was basically the best way to set it up.

I disliked in-class training more because it was strain on my regular workload to attend them, our offices were all over the country so the trainings would require some travel, when people starting asking clearly dumb (ie uninformed) questions it slowed down the pace for everyone and led to more people being distracted. Although the networking opportunities with peers were not that valuable since we had plenty of other networking opportunities surrounding meetings, events, happy hours etc. What was very valuable were the handful of trainings where the staff along with the managers, directors and partners were in the same class because it gave you an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge to these higher-ups and get a feel for their thought processes based on their questions and comments. This can also be critical to ensuring that everyone is getting the same message and understanding.

Face to Face Training and Mentoring is non existent in most companies. In this fast-paced world no one really has the time to mentor anyone in the real sense.

Elearning courses at least help you learn things on your own.

If the learner is not interested even face to face trainings do no good.

So what is important is to make trainings interesting, be it eLearning or face to face training.

1) e-Learning is a good way to get staff through mandatory training required for accredidation in our industry.

2) e-Learning is quick, easy to setup and allows employees to take it at any time. This is especially important in industries where we have 24/7 shifts. Like healthcare.

3) e-Learning does not eliminate other types of learning. Our organization does not use it for orientation basics but does use it for all annual requirements. Classes about how to deal with fire, lost children, etc are online. However classes about how to be a better manager – they are in a classroom.

Nobody really loves e-Learning. However if organizations are going to continue to spend money on development training, it's a great way to not have to spend on mandatory training.

You are right and I am afraid I wasn't clear. I don't think anyone expects their company to make them happy. In fact, employees, even in what many would consider bad work situations, will make the best and almost trick themselves in to thinking they are happy. A company truly has to go out of their way to make workers unhappy.

I definitely did not mean that a job should be the **source** of a person's happiness. I really meant that if there is anything a company can do to make their employees more productive in an economically feasible way — they should. Part of that is ensuring they are happy, like you said "that is why we all run a ton of motivational events, put together reward systems and etc."

However, I believe that with Millennials you will find that motivational events, compensation-based reward systems and etc. will not work as well as it arguably has with boomers, x-ers and the all those in between. This is good for a lot of companies because the rewards that Millennials seek are not really money but more intangible things. This is also bad because this is a new way of thinking of "reward systems" and will take time for managers to adjust after dealing with boomers.

I am afraid I have taken this comment way off the original topic. Sorry Penelope.