Abstract:

Recent studies in the area of learning show that organizational learning is already characterized by so-called blended learning concepts (Kaur, 2013). Yet, in-depth explorations focusing on this (still rather new) form of employee training, combining various types of offline and online education modules, are still missing. This paper focuses on the different challenges, companies face when using online training material (internally and/or externally produced) to train their staff, and periodically document respective learning progress. Such is particularly important for companies with highly regulated quality management systems, such as medical device producers (ISO 13485:2016) or the pharmaceutical industry (EU GMP), as their employees have to keep up their training in internally defined processes and also need to be evaluated based on this, so as to fulfill external regulatory requirements. Companies, which comply with quality management norms such as the ISO 9001:2015 as well, have to deal with these issues, as this facilitates the idea of continuous process improvement. To shed some light on this particularly described problem, the paper thus present the results of an interview study conducted in German-speaking companies.

The study highlights the following identified challenges:
(1) the worker`s council has to be considered a key player,
(2) it is all about the didactical mix,
(3) procurement is difficult,
(4) completed online trainings are often not accepted elsewhere,
(5) management support is often missing and, most importantly,
(6) it is difficult to measure success.

The paper concludes with a discussion of these aspects and introduces a number of suggestions for more efficient implementations.

Keywords:

Online education challenges, employee development, professional training, quality management.