Industry: Healthcare Services
Organization Size: 5,000+ employees

The Challenge

Move from classroom training to online training in order to better scale learning across a distributed organization.

The Objectives

Integrating Learning and Work: The Interactive Media Group received a mandate to “Get people out of the classroom.” The traditional learning paradigm is that 80% of learning happens in a classroom and 20% happens on the job. This department’s mission was to turn that around so that learning happens as part of the work process.

Leveraging Technology: Through online collaboration, intellectual power is networked and problems can be solved immediately, applications can be developed faster, and learning can take place no matter where the individual employees are located.

 

The Results

In 1999, Empire BCBS moved to a new building and installed a standards-based, world-class technical infrastructure of both hardware and software. From this innovation came a tremendous amount of technical power, and leveraging this newfound power meant enabling a dynamic culture of workplace learning and collaboration.

In response to the traditional learning paradigm (80% of learning occurs in a classroom, 20% on-the-job), Empire BCBS's Interactive Media Group received a mandate to "get people out of the classroom". Their mission: Reverse those percentages so that 80% of training occurred in the workplace and 20% with traditional instructor-led training. The results: overwhelming success.

Empire viewed moving learning from classroom to online as a change initiative, not simply as training, and this approach allowed them to build on early success. In 2001 Ninth House was deployed to all supervisors and managers, and then in 2003 to all employees enterprise-wide.

"I was an e-learner and now I am an e-worker. Always be aware of the possibilities that technology can do for you. I now encourage managers to look for opportunities to collaborate and learn as part of the work process."
- Lela Rotunda, eLearning Strategist

With courses chosen at the department level, and an online "Collaboration Center" providing post-work to help employees apply new skills and concepts to their work through interaction with others, the initiative has been wildly successful. The Empire BCBS technical infrastructure enabled the organization to deploy effectively and allow learners to embrace this new change. This infrastructure was put to the test under extreme circumstances on September 11, 2001 without lost work or data. Moreover, groups at Empire BCBS have enjoyed a 100% completion rate of all the courses assigned by their managers. Across the organization, 75% of all learners complete a minimum of one Ninth House course with a majority completing multiple courses.