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Where e-HR meets e-Learning

Conclusion

The danger for any big technology vision is that the thinking behind it will not be sufficently fine-grained or flexible enough to equip it for the shock of real life. That when things get real, it will end up missing the target more often than it satisfies real needs.

So the language used to conceptualise it is important.

What I learned from this day was that there is more to e-HR's vision for learning than simply putting training administration online, but that many whose focus is principally on e-HR tend slightly to miss the point about e-learning.

The problem is that organisational learning does not sit that comfortably alongside payroll and recruitment. They are all business processes, but learning has a slightly more complex dynamic.

SAP seemed to have the most sophisticated take on how people development integrates with the management of human capital. Possibly because it has been learning from the LMS vendors. These are used to giving ROI-based justifications for their often highly-priced solutions, and their pitches are usually aimed at the strategic level. Why? Because big-ticket items need board level sign-off.

According to O'Dowd's predictions, e-HR looks set to swallow the LMS market hook, line and sinker... But we should remember that this is a market where over the last few years we have seen hyperbolic marketing promises that could never be met, low rates of customer satisfaction, clunky integration and in some cases massive over-specification - leading to systems that end up unloved and in many cases unused.

It would be a shame if the big fish were to swallow the bad krill along with the good.

Introduction
Hopkins and Markham: e-HR and change
Mark Doherty plays buzzword bingo
Case study: On the bus with the Co-op
SAP: What is the return on training investment
Conclusion