THE ROLE OF EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION IN THE SUCCESS...

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THE ROLE OF EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION IN

THE SUCCESS OF ETRAINING WITHIN A

COMPANY IN INDIA

A study submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for

the degree of Master of Science in Information Systems

Management.

at

THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

by

SHEETAL THAWAL

September 2011

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Abstract

Background: Etraining has a large investment attached to it, hence it is important

that to determine and study the critical aspects which have an impact on its success.

After having looked at the literature available it is seen that there exist a need for

research to be made towards understanding the relationship of employee satisfaction

and the success of etraining.

Aims: This research tries to fill in the void for studies made towards evaluating the

role of employee satisfaction in the success of etraining by performing a qualitative

study of how etraining is developed and managed at ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd. an

company providing insurance and banking services in India.

Methods: The research made use of qualitative study approach, a detailed literature

review was done in order to understand the topic better and based on this a interview

questionnaire was created. 8 etraining managers at ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd. were

interviewed and the data was analysed using Thematic Analysis and Concept Map

methods.

Results: The data analysis findings stated that there is a consensus among all the

managers at ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd. that employee satisfaction is one of the most

crucial aspects which have a considerable impact on the effectiveness of etraining

and that there were efforts made first to understand what employees need i.e. what

can be done while planning and development of etraining that will eventually satisfy

the employee. However there was no process devised to evaluate the difference in

performance of etraining when employees are satisfied or not satisfied.

Conclusions: It is concluded that although employee satisfaction does play a very

strong role in success of etraining and that an satisfied employee is expected to

perform better at least this is what etraining developers have an opinion of, however

there was no concrete evidence of change in etraining effectiveness when employee

is satisfied with the training.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my parents and my brother for their intense support due to

which I was successfully able to reach the masters degree.

A big thank you for my dissertation supervisor Dr. Miguel Baptista Nunes whose

support meant a lot for me to complete my dissertation.

As my research was based on a case study approach, for which I had chosen ICICI

Prudential Pvt. Ltd. (India) company, I would deeply like to thank all the

managers who participated in telephonic interviews, and were kind enough to share

their views on the topic. The research wouldn’t have been completed without their

support.

I would also like to thank my dear friend Vikram Telkar, for always helping and

supporting me throughout the masters program.

Last but not the least I would like to thank god with whose blessings I was able to

finish my dissertation successfully.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... i

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. ii

Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1

1.1 Purpose of this study ...................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Problem Description ...................................................................................................... 2

1.3 Research Questions ........................................................................................................ 4

1.4 Objectives of this study .................................................................................................. 5

1.5 Summary of Methodology ............................................................................................. 5

1.5.1 Research Approach ................................................................................................. 5

1.5.2 Data Collection and Analysis .................................................................................. 5

1.5 Practicalities and Limitations ......................................................................................... 6

1.6 Structure of the Dissertation .......................................................................................... 6

Chapter 2 Literature Review .................................................................................................... 8

2.1 ETraining ....................................................................................................................... 8

2.1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 8

2.1.2 Traditional Classroom Training .............................................................................. 9

2.1.3 ETraining Definition ............................................................................................. 10

2.1.4 Purpose of Etraining.............................................................................................. 11

2.1.5 Why Etraining ....................................................................................................... 12

2.1.6 Methods of ETraining (Game Based Learning, Video Conferencing, ELearning

Courses) ......................................................................................................................... 12

2.1.7 Benefits of Etraining ............................................................................................. 13

2.1.8 Limitations of Etraining ........................................................................................ 14

2.1.9 Future of Etraining ................................................................................................ 16

2.1.10 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 17

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2.2 Trainee Satisfaction in Indian Company ...................................................................... 18

2.2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 18

2.2.2 Concept of Trainee Satisfaction ............................................................................ 19

2.2.3 Etraining in Indian Companies ............................................................................. 21

2.2.4 ETraining in Specific Industries ........................................................................... 23

2.2.5 Etraining from Trainee Perspective ...................................................................... 24

2.2.6 ETraining from Management Perspective ............................................................ 25

2.2.7 Comparing actual ETraining with Trainee & Management Perspective .............. 26

2.2.8 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 27

Chapter 3: Research Methodology ......................................................................................... 29

3.1Introduction ................................................................................................................... 29

3.2 Research Strategy ......................................................................................................... 29

3.3 Data Collection Methods ............................................................................................. 31

3.4 Data Analysis Methods ................................................................................................ 33

3.4.1 Thematic Analysis................................................................................................. 33

3.4.2 Concept Maps ....................................................................................................... 34

3.5 Methodological Limitations ......................................................................................... 36

3.6 Ethical Considerations ................................................................................................. 37

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions ..................................................................................... 38

4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 38

4.2 Interview Findings and Discussions ............................................................................ 39

4.2.1 Theme 1: ETraining Manager ............................................................................... 40

4.2.2 Theme 2: ETraining Development ........................................................................ 45

4.2.3 Theme 3: Trainee feedback mechanism ................................................................ 50

4.2.4 Theme 4: ETraining and trainee satisfaction evaluation ....................................... 51

4.2.5 Theme 5: Trainee (employee) ............................................................................... 53

4.3 Concept Map ................................................................................................................ 56

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Chapter 5: Conclusion and Further Research ........................................................................ 58

5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 58

5.2 Summary of Findings ................................................................................................... 58

5.3 Overall Limitations ...................................................................................................... 61

5.4 Recommendations for Further Research ...................................................................... 62

Chapter 6: References ............................................................................................................ 63

Chapter 7: The Appendices .................................................................................................... 70

Appendix A–Interview Questionnaire for Evaluation ........................................................... 70

Appendix B – Sample Interview Transcript .......................................................................... 76

List of Figures

Figure 2.2.2.1: Kirkpatrick-Philips Model………………………………………....20

Figure 3.4.2.1: A concept map showing the features of concept map and the

relationships between them…………………………………………………………35

Figure 4.3.1: Concept Map derived from actual data analysis……………………...57

The Role of Employee Satisfaction in the Success of ETraining within a Company in India

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Purpose of this study

This research paper uses the word 'Etraning' for the word 'Elearning' as there

are different ways in which 'Elearning' is worded. This is done in order to maintain

consistency through the content and especially for the quotes and references from

other authors.

Training whether the traditional face to face or the new age online training

also known as etraining has a huge amount of cost attached to it. Corporate look at

this cost as an investment, one which helps them grow their business excellence and

knowledge base. This means evaluation of its effectiveness is one of the most crucial

functions for their training management division. It is only when we understand what

contributes to the success of training can we organise and plan the available

resources and align them towards a right direction.

Many researchers have highlighted the importance of evaluation of the end

result of etraining. Peak & Berge (2006) studied Kirkpatrick’s four levels and

Phillips’ Level 5 methods of evaluating training and found that neither could provide

useful understanding of the ROI, ROE or other measurement criteria of the training.

However he concludes that no matter how we evaluate training investment what is

more important is whether the company goals are being meet or not. This means that

the training delivered should influence and improve the business functions that need

them.

Despite of the large investment in the development of etraining modules

organisations have not always been successful in achieving the required training

objectives. O’Neill et al. (2004), states that both the modern etraining and traditional

learning have different critical success factors. Several authors have highlighted the

critical factors linked to the success of etraining. McPherson (2002) reports that the

organisational context is critical to etraining success which integrates the tutors,

learners, courses and the ICT. Hall (2002) mentions that Curriculum Development is

one of the critical success factors for etraining implementation and that the

curriculum should be detailed such that content is well sequenced and sourced from


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different specialist members of the team. Currier & Campbell (2002) argue that

interoperability standards assisting in delivery and management of the etraining has

become a high priority today. Holsapple & Lee-Post (2006) introduces a success

model for etraining, which states that overall success is depending of the level

success meet at three stages of the development; designing, delivery and outcome.

Rousseau (1997), says the better interaction between the business function and the

corporate intelligence building team the higher is the success rate, he also states that

for long term benefits of etraining the company needs to have the best expertise in

domains like instructional design and multimedia development and Project and

electronic document management.

Davis & Wong (2007), found that although etraining has been accepted by

many organisations as well as educational institutions around the world with an aim

to elevate the learner experience, there has been very less amount of studies focus on

evaluating how learner experience impact on the usage of the etraining system.

The purpose of the study is to understand how critical is Employee

satisfaction in the success of etraining and to try and add in the existing vast research

literature of etraining.

1.2 Problem Description

Employee training management has always been one of the most expensive

activities for all business. In an article - An informal history of eLearning, Cross

(2004) quotes:

―Forget about college, classrooms, courses, curricula, credits, and the campus.

We're going to chat about eTraining. This is corporate.”

Cross (2004) states that organisations have IQ or rather corporate IQ, like

human brain and one which keeps growing with time. He adds further that Business

organisations invest in training their staff so that they perform better which will

provide them a competitive edge and will increase their profit margins. Recent times

have seen a revolutionary paradigm shift in the way corporate training is delivered,

as traditional instructor led training as slowly given way to electronic training –

etraining (Nsour & Abdul-Rub, 2004). Etraining technologies have number of


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benefits over the conventional methodology as it provides features like self-paced

and self sequenced learning patterns with increased control for learners over content

and delivery media enabling them to meet their personal learning objectives to the

fullest (Ruiz et al., 2006). All these features of etraining have been the reason why

modern corporate world have accepted it with open arms. As etraining grew within

organisation, more and more funds were invested in its management and

development, with this increased the amount of expectations from etraining.

Evaluation of etraining became an extremely important management function of

organisations. Many authors and researcher developed methods of etraining

evaluation and suggest a varied set of crucial factors which impact the etraining

outcome.

Giangreco et al. (2009) states that the measure of trainee satisfaction for

evaluating the effectiveness of the training has been quite underrated. His study

reveals that the trainee’s perception of the usefulness of training is the most

important factor influencing the trainee satisfaction, however he also expresses that

there exist a lot of scope for research in this domain. It has been seen that there has

been limited study done towards understanding the importance of the trainee

satisfaction and how it contributes towards the success of the training delivered.

Ever since etraining has been in existence, organisations have made

numerous efforts to promote this self learning solution to their employees. Cross

(2004) provides an excellent count of how etraining evolved over the years, how it

was perceived by the trainees and the organisations. He states that etraining on a

computer system was not as easy as it sounds as trainees were constantly disturbed

by their core business tasks, or by other colleagues or bosses who did not take

training seriously. However with time etraining technologies evolved CBTs, to

WBTs, Blended learning to Game based learning. The success of etraining lies in its

outcomes, whether employees perform better after taking these trainings, is customer

satisfaction level improving, is there any rise in the sales Cross (2004).

Understanding the relationship of employee satisfaction and etraining success

together will help organisations to rethink and revise their training practices.

Organisations need to think beyond the cookie-cutter approach while development of


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etraining modules. Most trainings whether classroom or etraining are seen by

employees as dull and unimportant sessions, which are looked upon as mandatory

exercise imposed by their employers. This prejudice puts of even the most interested

employees well before the training session has even started. All this with the

constant pressure of performing and the never ending to-do list does more than just

simple damage to an employee’s motivation to learn.

These factors are sending continuous SOS signals asking etraining designers

and developers to look at employee satisfaction as crucial aspect. There is a

desperate need for research and development in evaluating the role of employee

satisfaction in the success of etraining within an organisation. This research attempts

at trying to find the answer to the question:

Does employee satisfaction contribute to the success of etraining within an

organisation?

In order to define the scope and set achievable research targets this research

looks at the performance of etraining delivery in an Indian company. Data from

management staff interviews are analysed to create a hypothesis and then evaluate a

conclusion. It can be easily seen that this conclusion which will be based on the

performance of etraining within a single organisation does not speak for all the

organisations around the world, however it can help in understanding what a small

part (one company) of the whole (companies around the world) have to say about

the importance employee satisfaction in etraining.

1.3 Research Questions

Following are the questions this research tries to answer:

What are the most crucial aspects of etraining that define its effectiveness?

What is the role of employee satisfaction in the success of etraining?

Do employees respond better to etraining which gives utmost importance’s

towards understanding what do they need?

Does employee satisfaction lead to improved business performance and

eventually impact profit margins?


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1.4 Objectives of this study

Understand the relationship of employee satisfaction and success of etraining

within an organisation in India.

This research will be based on a case study approach were it will analyze the

outcomes of Etraining implemented in one of the real world companies.

The research will look at existing research in order to understand what the

study made in this domain.

With the help of past company records of how Etraining was implemented on

what scale and by what method and also what the outcomes were.

Through interviews the research will try to understand what the employees as

well as the managers of the trainings have experienced with the Etraining

module.

The basic objective of the research will be to understand the role of employee

satisfaction in the success of Etraining in a company in India.

1.5 Summary of Methodology

1.5.1 Research Approach

A qualitative approach will be undertaken for this research. The higher

management people who actually conduct the training will be interviewed forming a

part of qualitative research which will help in defining an accurate and detailed

research conclusion.

1.5.2 Data Collection and Analysis

The data will be collected from a specific company in India in order

to limit the scope of the research.

Interviews: The qualitative data will be collected with the help of interviews of the

higher management people i.e. HRD and LND managers of the company who

manage the Etraining programs. For analysing the interviews, Thematic Analysis and

concept maps will be used.


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1.5 Practicalities and Limitations

The research results and conclusions will be based on the hypothesis

developed from the interviews conducted with the employees of the selected

company in India. It is very natural that there will be different motivations and

factors that affect the response of an individual and hence it is quite possible that

they do not convey the correct or incomplete information. This aspect can be

managed to some extent by the use of more close ended questions rather than

questions whose answers are expected to be more subjective.

One more practical difficulty of managing with the schedule of the

interviewers within the limited time frame of the research can be a challenge.

However well planned and pre scheduled the research tasks can help overcome this

challenge.

1.6 Structure of the Dissertation

The dissertation is structured as follows:

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

Introduces the background of the research topic with its purpose of study. It

then explains the problem description following the research questions. Objectives

of this research are also mentioned in this chapter. Then the methodology used for

conducting the research is discussed. Practicalities and Limitations are also discussed

in this chapter.

CHAPTER 2: Literature Review

Literature studies conducted by various authors on, ETraining and Trainee

Satisfaction in Indian Company is discussed in this chapter. We discuss the

following sub topics in detail in each literature review topic.

In ETraining, we discuss the background of etraining along with traditional

classroom training. Then we discuss the ETraining definition, its Purpose and the

reason behind Etraining. Moving further we discuss the different methods of


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ETraining (game based learning, video conferencing, ELearning Courses). Lastly we

discuss the benefits, limitations and future of Etraining with a Conclusion

completing the chapter.

In Trainee Satisfaction in Indian Company, we discuss the background of

trainee satisfaction followed by discussing the concept of Trainee Satisfaction,

ETraining in Indian Companies, and ETraining in Specific Industries. Then we

discuss ETraining from trainees and from Management Perspective. Moving ahead

we compare actual ETraining with trainee & management Perspective and conclude

it.

CHAPTER 3: Research Methodology

This chapter specifies the methodology adopted for research with Data

collection and analysing methods. Thematic analysis and concept maps will also be

discussed in detail in this chapter. Concluding this chapter we will talk about the

methodological limitations and ethical considerations.

CHAPTER 4: Findings and Discussions

Data gathered from the interviews are analysed and represented using

thematic analysis and concept map. Themes derived from the interviews are

presented with appropriate discussions.

CHAPTER 5: Conclusion and Further Research

This chapter concludes the research with summarising the findings, stating

the limitations and giving recommendations and future research options.


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Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 ETraining

2.1.1 Introduction

In January 2011, BBC News reported that as per World Bank the

global economic growth is expected to slow down in the year 2011. In the year

2009, BBC News had reported that UK was then in recession for the first time since

1991, it’s been 3 years now and there is still no respite, in fact the economy is going

bad to worst. Businesses small or large have been trying to put in all their resources

to survive in these tough times. Slow economic growth is not the only challenge,

delivering products and services to customers with better quality and faster than their

competitors is also the need of the hour. Companies have to constantly look at

revising their business and market strategies as per the needs of the customers, and

with all the competition around, it becomes even more crucial for business to

survive. The constantly changing business strategies means introduction of new

product lines and services, which means changes in the manufacturing, operations,

marketing almost all functions.

In such times training their staff becomes all the more important for

businesses. Traditionally trainings have been conducted by a Trainer or Instructor

who delivers the training to a group. This kind of training, though most effective,

becomes extremely unmanageable when there is a need to keep the workforce up to

date with the ongoing changes in the process, products or services. Also the biggest

drawbacks of traditional training are:

It’s extremely difficult to track the trainee’s learning curve.

Once the training in delivered, the trainees will not be able to refer back.

The cost involved in arranging such trainings is extremely high.

The quality standard and effectiveness is completely dependent on the trainer

and can vary from trainer to trainer.


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Strother (2002) reports that many large organisations have turned to

online training for more faster and economical training delivery. Companies like

IBM, Ernst and Young, Rockwell Collins have been able to successfully implement

Web-based training at far less expenses as compared to the traditional form Strother

(2002). Many authors have expressed that etraining is definitely more cost effective

at the same time provide broader benefits (Barron, 2001), (Strother, 2002).

Phillips & Burkett (2008) states ―Etraining investment impacts multiple

areas of an organization‖. He suggest the below key questions:

In what way do the Etraining programs provide strategic value?

How does the strategic activity affect the business results?

Are the employees (learners) getting more responsive to the customers?

Does the Etraining investments helping the organization to innovate more

effectively?

Does everyone in the organization have greater access to required

information?

Has the Etraining services helped the organization achieve its core capacities

more effectively?

When etraining is seen to have so many benefits it becomes all the more

apparent that there exist a need for measuring its results. Strother (2002) raises a

question: When we measure the results of etraining, do we have to evaluate

etraining differently from traditional training methods? Kirkpatrick’s classic model

and Phillips’ Level 5 method and few others clearly state that there are definitely

different ways of evaluating the results of etraining.

2.1.2 Traditional Classroom Training

Classroom training or Instructor led training have been traditionally the

methods of training. Such trainings are delivered by a trainer or instructor to a group

of trainees. Most common form of the traditional training is the school classroom

where teacher delivers the learning to a group of students.


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As per Jen & Sandhu (2006), traditional classroom training delivers

training with a human touch as the instructor or trainer meets the learners in person

in a classroom environment making a costly method of training. He says this

considering the fact that there are multiple overheads involved for managing such

trainings, precisely because when employees have to be group together at one central

location from where the training can be conducted it will mean that they are not

available for their core business function for that duration which means loss of

productivity. This along with the cost of the trainer, location and travelling cost of

the employees adds up to the total training cost.

According to Coppola and Myre (2002) ILT trainers need and learning

capacity by employees proper techniques like delivering the same content multiple

times in different ways for example techniques like ―repetition,‖ can be used which

reinforces important information being delivered until the learners have encoded it

properly. In this study on ILT (instructor led training) and Web-based training he

finds that the ILT training are far less suited for geographically large scale

organization as they lack the required resources.

2.1.3 ETraining Definition

Jen and Sandhu (2006) quotes: ―E-learning, or less better known as

“electronic learning” can be defined as acquiring of knowledge or skills via

electronic devices, such as the computer, the internet, telecommunications tools like

the telephone and other electronic devices, namely the video and CD-Rom.‖

There is no progress...in how we teach, despite what be possible with

the new technology Laurillard (2002). Electronic training, usually referred to as

etraining, is a relatively new approach to teaching and learning. However, the

concept that lies behind the etraining is pretty old and one that enables users to

access training courses and learning materials on a desktop computer.

A pretty comprehensive definition of etraining was proposed by

Knowledge and Learning System Group NCSA of the University of Illinois at

Urbana Champagne: etraining is the acquisition and use of knowledge distributed

and facilitated primarily by electronic means. Etraining can take the form of courses

as well as modules and smaller learning objects.


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As per (Wentling et al., 2000) etraining may incorporate synchronous or

asynchronous access and may be distributed geographically with varied limits of

time. Incidentally, the report (Wentling et al., 2000) includes a comprehensive

survey of etraining definitions done from various perspectives, including the

business one.

Notwithstanding the widespread adoption of computer communications

in society, we have yet to fully experience the transformative effects of this medium,

particularly its effect on etraining. We are in what Brown (2000) described as the

gradual development phase of this transformative medium and are yet to experience

its explosive impact.

2.1.4 Purpose of Etraining

(Rousseau, 1997) study on etraining delivered by any medium whether

network or standalone computer found it to be very purposeful in, “improving

employee performance and service quality at lower lifetime cost.”

Selim (2005), states that like in any training method, the purpose of

etraining is also to meet the required end learning objectives and the measures can

be; “environmental, technological, student related, and instructor related”.

Especially for large companies where their employee base is scattered around

different locations of country, the prime purpose of etraining is to provide a

centralised training delivery medium which helps in not just proper distribution but

also in tracking the learning curve of the employees as well as training outcomes in

some cases.

According to Hunt & Ivergard (2005) this learning purpose is a

central issue and concern of etraining, such learning help in developing skills and

strategy for lifetime. In this paper he concludes that it is important to first identify

and then give emphasis on the purpose of learning based upon which the choices

with regards to the technologies used to deliver the learning needs to be made. He

further argues all said and done etraining fails to deliver the ultimate learning goal as

according to him learning by practically performing the task in real life situation

continues to stand as the most important purpose of learning.


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Takiya et al. (2005) suggest that the purpose of etraining should not be seen as one

which will replace the traditional learning but one which will work with it.

2.1.5 Why Etraining

When corporates were moving from traditional classroom training

towards online etraining methods one big question that need to be answered was:

Why etraining as an alternative method for the traditional classroom training?

The answer lies in what Rousseau (1997) mentions in his paper on ―Strategic Issues

in the Development of Low-Cost On-line Training for Engineers‖, he states that

etraining is needed as it provides:

Simultaneous, benchmarked and quick implemented learning solutions for

employees spread across a wide geographic area

Less time spend on training

Overall cheaper lifetime cost

Talking about blended etraining, Bennink (2004) gives an example

where a traditional training program was converted into a blended etraining

programme which delivered as much quality training as the traditional training. He

states that such trainings help companies to reduce its cost of training significantly as

well as provide multiple benefits to employees including ability to learn at their own

speed, at anytime and anyplace they want.

2.1.6 Methods of ETraining (Game Based Learning, Video

Conferencing, ELearning Courses)

Training can be conducted in various forms like game based training,

video conferencing, by creating etraining courses based on factors like the

requirement in which it is to be delivered, the ability of the trainee to grab the

knowledge, e.g. older age group people prefer the game based training as it can

motivate them rather than the normal page turner etraining course, as well as the

willingness of the client in terms of investment, that is the budget set for the training.

According to Eck (2006) there are three factors whose combined

weight has resulted in widespread public interest in games as training tools. The first


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factor is the ongoing research conducted by Digital Game Based Training (DGBT)

proponents. Researchers have published dozens of essays, articles, and mainstream

books on the power of DGBT in each decade since the advent of digital games—

including, most recently, Marc Prensky's Digital Game-Based Learning (2001),

James Paul Gee's What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy

(2003), Clark Aldrich's Simulations and the Future of Learning: An Innovative (and

Perhaps Revolutionary) Approach to e-Learning (2004), and the soon-to-be-

published Games and Simulations in Online Learning: Research and Development

Frameworks, edited by David Gibson, Clark Aldrich, and Marc Prensky.

The other factor is how the present ―Net Generation,‖ or ―digital natives,‖

who are disinterested with conventional instructional strategy. These individual are

seen to favour content that is delivered in multiple streams, with a rather more

inductive reasoning, have high interactivity, and re graphically more appealing. Last

factor is the recent popularity of games has made etraining developers think if it is a

better option is which training content can be delivered.

2.1.7 Benefits of Etraining

Strother (2002) states that along with the positive economic benefits,

etraining does provide other benefits such as “convenience, standardized delivery,

self-paced learning, and variety of available content, have made e-traning a high

priority for many corporations.”

Anaraki (2004), study finds Web Based Training (WBT) or etraining

gaining popularity as a replacement for the traditional training as it directly benefits

the organisation is developing and maintaining high performance capabilities and it

provides increased efficiencies and effectiveness. The study also states that etraining

method of delivery provides customised learning solutions which are self-paced,

highly interactive and one which can be tracked. Such etraining solutions assist

companies in workforce development by offering numerous easy to use courses in

Flash or Microsoft Powerpoint, assessment solutions and also virtual learning

communities for collaborative learning.

Takiya and Archbold (2005), comments that etraining can be always

profitable for companies as it provides below mentioned benefits;


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Creates a favour employer image in the minds of it employees as the

etraining solutions promote professional development opportunities for the

employees.

Etraining promotes use of internet and anytime training culture within the

employees which means that the employees are available 24/7, which means

round the clock services can be offered to clients.

When employees access training material from home or from outside the

office the cost of the training infrastructure is reduced as there is no need to

setup classrooms, arrange for trainers and get a group of employees to one

place.

The just in time learning services provides employees with a more

continuous and faster means of training and as the total amount of time spent

on training reduces the cost of training an employee reduces which means

better productivity at optimal cost.

Kruse (2004) states that along with increased employee retention,

shortened learning time, Etraining provides many benefits to learners like:

Any time access to the training content for learners to complete the courses

during their convenient schedule and time even from home.

The self-paced nature reduces stress and increases satisfaction for learners

with different learning pace.

With its interactive learning style engages learners to undertake the courses

willingly.

Eliminates the burden of memorizing all the information as refresher modules

are readily available.

2.1.8 Limitations of Etraining

As per Rousseau, (1997) over the years companies interested in

Etraining soon realise that, trainings have their own limitations like,


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The training material may contain expensive features that are not

instructionally sound.

Few trainings can’t be delivered in online environment.

There is huge development and maintenance cost.

Also as there is rapid change in the delivery of technology and

incompatibility between platforms and data standards which may also

prevent the learners from accessing etraining courses.

Multimedia might quickly become outdated with new versions.

ETraining may have few disadvantages to the trainer or the organization:

There is a huge development cost involved in creating an etraining solution.

Cash flows and budgets will have to be negotiated.

There could be technology related issues like whether the existing technology

infrastructure can accomplish the training goals, whether additional tech

expenditures can be justified, and whether compatibility of all software and

hardware can be achieved.

Inappropriate content for etraining may exist according to some experts,

though are limited in number. Even the acquisition of skills that involve

complex physical/motor or emotional components (for example, juggling or

mediation) can be augmented with etraining.

Also cultural acceptance could be an issue in organizations where student

demographics and psychographics may predispose them against using

computers at all, let alone for etraining.

Disadvantages of etraining to the learner:

Learners have a technophobia related to the Technology and unavailability of

required technologies.

There has been portability in training which has become strength of etraining

with the proliferation of network linking points, notebook computers, PDAs,


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and mobile phones, but still does not rival that of printed workbooks or

reference material.

Other drawback could be reduced social and cultural interaction. The

impersonality, suppression of communication mechanisms such as body

language, and elimination of peer-to-peer learning that are part of this

potential disadvantage are lessening with advances in communications

technologies.

2.1.9 Future of Etraining

Oehlert (2003) quotes: “A Google search on the terms „future‟ and

„etraining‟ returned a dizzying 912,000 results!” While this was in the year 2003,

today the Google’s search engine will return about 157,000,000 which is massive

rise, saying that there has been a lot of research and development being made

towards understanding and defining the future of etraining.

Today corporate world over have still not been able to completely replace

traditional classroom training with the modern etraining techniques. However with

more and more advancement in etraining technologies and with more real life

simulation and game based learning concepts being adopted the future of etraining

needs to see a time when it will override the traditional form.

Commenting on the future of etraining Oehlert (2003) future states that

as technological advancement moves into our household it is apparent that there will

be increased demand for etraining solutions. He also points out that with M-learning

and embedded training systems like Future Combat Systems (FCS) training will be

available anytime, anywhere and a lot more customised to the learners need.

Rousseau (1997) confirms this increased use of etraining and future of training to be

digital, as more and more training content is made online with the help of intranets

and internet.

The future of etraining seems to have the double edged sword analogy as

there exist many risks and dangers at the same time numerous opportunities posed

and the risk comes from factors current unknown, ones which might surface with

time Oehlert (2003). Other authors like Attwell (2007), talk about PLE (personal


17

learning environments) applications as the future where companies will be able to

provide training and development while the develop an internal enterprise level

organisational learning.

2.1.10 Conclusion

The above chapter provides an in-depth introduction to etraining, its

benefits over the traditional face to face training and also the limitation it exhibits. It

can be very well seen and concluded that etraining is the future of learning although

there is a lot that etraining needs to prove it is definitely the needs of the hour.

Businesses have been making large investments in order to develop

the skills and competencies they need in order to have a competitive edge and

although the traditional classroom training has been effective is far more costly and

complex to manage. Etraining is the answer to the need for a faster and cheaper

mode of content delivery. It cannot be seen as a replacement to the instructor led

training, hugely because of the fact that we are more comfortable or rather more

habituated to learn from a teacher rather than lean by self. However it can act as a

perfect alternative to classroom training for now as we slowly we get used to this

new moe of learning.

Unlike the traditional form of learning, etraining has a huge

one time development cost attached to it which can act as a sole reason why

organisations feel circumspect while making the transformation. However with more

and more successful case studies of companies who are benefited from this large

startup cost are known, businesses are going to make their transition from the

traditional mode to etraining sooner or later.

However there still exists one area that remains unexplored that is how

one can evaluate whether the output of etraining is delivering the huge expectations

of the organisations (Jen and Sandhu, 2006). One conclusion can be made from the

above chapter is that with all the huge expectations from etraining in the background

and the training and development needs of today’s corporate world, the question

needs to be answered is – DOES ETRAINING DELIVER WHAT IS EXPECTED

FROM IT? The next chapter tries to understand from all the known factors that can


18

be used to evaluate etraining performance, how much importance needs to be given

to trainee satisfaction.

2.2 Trainee Satisfaction in Indian Company

2.2.1 Introduction

Corporates around the world device varied strategies to manage their

business intelligence. With the recent business automation technology advancement,

companies are looking at optimizing their performance in order to gain a better

market position and a competitive edge. Etraining is one of such initiatives that are

luring organisations of recent times (Cheng, nd). However as highlighted earlier with

more and more funds and resources being invested in Etraining it has become only a

natural need to evaluate its effectiveness.

Ivanova (2009) studied the attitude of 12 large companies in Japan towards the use

of etraining for new hires and segregated them into clusters and found that the

companies that fall under the high cluster make extensive use of etraining

technologies and put in their maximum funds and resources possible to train

employees through etraining. The study states that these companies measure the

effectiveness of etraining through indicators like employee satisfaction. The study

also states that companies that do not much show interest towards investing into

etraining do not evaluate its effectiveness.

While few authors like Cheng (nd), found that effectiveness of

etraining cannot be measured. One fails to understand why it should be difficult to

measure any kind of investment an organisation makes and not just invest into

etraining. In case of Etraining, it is natural that trainee satisfaction is an important

criterion while development and evaluation as it’s the trainee for whom the

companies develop etraining courseware.

Trainees are like internal customers for organisations while

implementing etraining and their preferences, needs, level of learning and

availability must be considered. If they fail to do so the output even after having all

the learning it intends to impart which fail to appeal or interest the learners. And

there nothing more worst for any training programme than uninterested learner who


19

takes the course just of formality sake and does not absorb the valuable learning

delivered. It can be very well said that the employee satisfaction is one of the most

important pillars for a successful training programme.

2.2.2 Concept of Trainee Satisfaction

It was Kirkpatrick who introduced the concept of training satisfaction

about 40 years ago (Brown, 2005) through his methods of etraining evaluation.

Brown (2005), defines – ―training satisfaction is an evaluative

judgment by trainees of training features, including, for example, the content (what

is being transmitted—is it interesting, useful, and so on?) and delivery (how it is

being transmitted—is it effectively presented, is the technology easy to use, and so

on?)”.

Schmidt (2009) says that the concept of trainee or rather employee job

training satisfaction have roots in the concepts of job training and job satisfaction, he

cites his own definition of job training satisfaction as: ―how people feel about the

different aspects of the job training they receive.”

In his study Ruiz et al. (2006) comments that satisfaction is a function

of employees views about the factors like: ―easy to use, hard to use, fun, boring, and

so forth.‖ This study concludes that learning satisfaction must be considered as one

of the key aspects to be measured to evaluate etraining performance in an

organisation.

It can be seen that Trainee’s and their views about the training form the

fundamental aspect on basis of which any training can be evaluated. Training

programmes are like products which are manufactured and targeted towards a certain

group of customers, which can be seen as the trainees. The products needs to appeal

to it targeted customers, such that they find it worth buying, the same applies for

training programmes if they appeal to the trainees they will find it worth spending

time on. Therefore customisation of the training programme based on the needs,

likes and nature of the trainees is of utmost importance. This factor becomes even

more important when the trainees are employees of a company who invest a lot of

funds in development and management of the training. The companies expect that


20

their employees learn from the training and implement the learning to optimize first

their and then eventually the company’s business performance. Employee

satisfaction is a reflection of how well the training schedule is organised and

delivered by the organisation Schmidt (2009).

Many authors have referenced or used existing training evaluation

models like Kirkpatrick-Philips model which is one of the most widely used model

having 5 levels at which etraining effectiveness is evaluated (Ruiz et. al, 2006)

(Giangreco et. al, 2009) (Brown, 2005) (Minaya and Margason, 2005). The

diagrammatic representation of the model is shown in figure below.

Figure 2.2.2.1: Kirkpatrick-Philips Model (Clayton and Saravani, 2009)

The level 1 which assess how much satisfied the employees are from the

training activities conducted and how the employees have responded to the training.

Although the model evaluates the success of the etraining at 5 different levels, it can


21

be easily seen that Trainee satisfaction has been considered as a real driver of

etraining success.

Sun et al. (2008) did a critical study to understand the factors that

influence learner satisfaction. This study results concluded that out of many critical

aspects the course quality, usefulness and ease of use are a few that affect learners’

perceived satisfaction. The study summaries its results are below:

The learner’s perceived usefulness and ease of use of a course is defined by

its technological design and this will impact on learner’s satisfaction.

Both Qualitative and Quantitative learning schemes are important to achieve

learner satisfaction; however in such cases the flexibility acts as an

important element in ETraining satisfaction.

Better and uninterrupted operational environments will help improving

learner satisfaction with ETraining.

The study also states that, learners’ satisfaction is hampered by user anxiety.

2.2.3 Etraining in Indian Companies

It has been said by many researchers that Indian economy is growing at a

much faster rate than any other country’s economy. Meredith, cited in Rao, 2011

who quotes that ―India and China are going to be the most successful emerging

economies with India becoming the world‟s “back office””. With more and more

multinationals as well as Indian companies emerging in the Indian market, it has

become all the more important for companies to maintain a competitive edge.

Organisations are looking delivering products and services with faster company to

customer time, which means they need to emphasis on optimizing their operations to

max.

Looking at these prerequisites of running business, Indian companies are

increasingly looking at etraining as a faster training delivery medium. Rao (2011)

comments that Indian companies with an aim to develop their employee knowledge

capital are constantly promoting etraining.


22

Corporate India has shown a lot of inclination towards etraining

technologies, as more and more companies adopting more effective etraining over

the traditional classroom training in order to create a competitive edge (Gokhale &

Chandra, 2009).

Charmonman & Chorpothong (2004), quotes that – ―etraining is here to

stay‖ and also mentions that in 2004 the search on Google.com for etraining and

etraining in Various countries showed about 142,000 results which was the 4th

highest only after UK, USA, China and Japan, while if the same is tried today in the

year 2011, Google returns 6,430,000 which is 5 times more than in 2004.

There have been many large companies who have adopted the electronic

way of training, Unnithan et al. (2002), studied how an Indian company TIS (Tata

Interactive Systems) used etraining first as an internal training solution and then also

developed business opportunities, this case study concludes that there have been

made efforts to make effective use of etraining in India and is not limited only to the

developed nations.

Its not just corporates across India but also educational institutions have

made considerable amount of efforts towards the development of etraining education

systems. Universities like Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), BITS Pilani Virtual

University, Visvesvaraya Technological University, Sikkim Manipal, YCMOU also

NGO’s like the Azim Premji Foundation have had taken their etraining initiates on

large scale (Bhattacharya & Sharma, 2007).

Bhattacharya & Sharma (2007), argues that although the General

Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) having a considerable impact on education

and etraining industry in India and even after critics stating that for a nation like

India the priority is investments in basics like infrastructure rather than educational

systems, there is no reasons why capable institutions like ones mentioned above

should stop the revolutionary development work they have been doing in etraining as

this is prove of great help in near future.


23

Although a many researchers have commented that the etraining has

made its impact on the Indian market few authors like Mittal (2008), found that

etraining has not been able to influence corporate training in India but also believes

future holds good prospects as more emphasis is given to continues learning and

development of employee performance rather than the adhoc traditional face- to-face

training programs.

2.2.4 ETraining in Specific Industries

Etraining has been accepted and implemented in almost all industry

domains around the world however this research is limited to an Indian banking and

insurance firm : ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd. India, hence its more than required to

look at the research made in the banking and insurance domain in India.

The Indian banking and insurance industry have made revolutionary

transformation over past few years. There is been written a lot about how private as

well as public sector banks have adopted internationally proven practices (Goyal,

2010) (Choudhary & Tandon, 2010). While talking about the impact of IT on Indian

banking industry, Rajput & Gupta (2011) mentions that Indian banks have been

making continuous investments in IT for providing services like ATM’s, telephone

banking, online banking, round the clock customer services even mobile banking. IT

has impacted all areas of business from product and services manufacturing to

customer services and also the way in which an organisation operates.

Mittal (2008) in her study of evaluating etraining programs in Indian

banks mentions that technological advancement has had it impact in the way in

which training is conducted by corporate in India. She states that companies in India

adopt etraining as tool to impart learning to employees at reduced cost and faster

delivery mode. Her study targeted to Indian banking firms concludes that a very

important aspect on which she suggests needs to be researched further, was how

much importance needs to be given the learners (employees) while planning and

development of etraining modules; we need to understand if learner can contribute

towards customisation of the programme such that it suits their needs and

expectations. She suggest that research towards understanding learner needs and


24

demands for etraining is required in order to change the supply driven approach to

demand driven approach.

2.2.5 Etraining from Trainee Perspective

Cheng (nd) conducted a survey at two international accounting firms in

Taiwan to understand what the missing element between managers and users is with

regards to satisfaction in etraining and found startling facts. He found that the

etraining courseware developed by the companies’ offshore headquarters where not

in sync with the local regulations or standards of Taiwan which left the learners

unsatisfied and also discouraged towards learning. This study also concluded that the

more satisfied the learners are with etraining the more they are expected to respond

to the training provided. One can summaries from the conclusion of this report that

trainees perceive etraining as one which is customised to their needs; environment

and learning requirements and they are put off by anything that is not in line with

what they expect.

There is very less past research available which tells us about an

employee’s perspective of etraining, however one can imagine that employees which

are predominantly of two kinds ones which will be interested in learning and

improving their skills, while others who are least bothered to work towards

performing better. The earlier might be seen as to more motivated learner, however

even they can be put off by poorly managed etraining programmes which do not

appeal to them or which are organised without taking into account the availability of

the employees.

Especially for employees who work for the company’s core business

function and for whom the time spent on training is crucial for the company’s as well

as the individual’s performance etraining needs to deliver to the point and in as short

time as possible. It’s not just the content being delivered but also other important

aspects like training schedule, accessibility of courses, work environment and also

the background of the employees that needs to be reviewed in-depth before any

etraining programme is designed.


25

2.2.6 ETraining from Management Perspective

Benninck (2004) quotes that“…there is no one right answer for how

to develop and deliver etraining effectively. Tapping into actual needs of the

organisation and the learners is the key to success.”

Etraining courseware development and management team performs

crucial activities like tapping training needs, content management, training

programme design and delivery modes, selection of appropriate technology and

tracking and monitoring learner progress. The management team is solely

responsible for the organisations knowledge base development, performance

improvement and professional skills and competency development. Each

organisation have their own set of goals, and most etraining management teams work

towards achieving these goals, and in this process they either ignore the trainee

(employee) needs or give it the least priority.

In a study Schmidt (2009), comments that the employees learning and

growth depends directly on the organisation’s training management team. He advises

that the management must consider employee preferences and need while designing

training modules. This study tries to understand if there is any impact of diversity in

employees on job training satisfaction. Many authors like Kaliski et al. (2008), state

that managers look at etraining with an aim first to reduce the training cost and time

then because of its other advantages over the traditional form of training. This can be

seen as a natural effect of the slowing down of the global economy, where every

business is trying its best to survive with limited resources it possesses.

In such testing times organisation need to look at the recession as an

opportunity, authors like Ahmed (2009), have highlighted that it’s the responsibility

of HR and the learning and development (L&D) managers to help the company’s

work force in developing required skills in order to deliver successful business

practices. He suggests that managers need to look at more creative and real problem

solving solutions like the cost and time saving etraining.


26

Cheng (nd) finds that managers perceive etraining is highly effective,

while employees have their own reservations, he says this considering that managers

are constantly under pressure to optimise their overall business performance and see

etraining as a more cost effective solutions even when they do not evaluate the

effectiveness.

2.2.7 Comparing actual ETraining with Trainee & Management

Perspective

Cheng (nd) study on understanding the difference between etraining as

seen by Managers and Employees concludes that both had different perspective

about etraining. Demiray (2005) says that trainee work related etraining is seen by

Managers as medium to increase employee satisfaction, provide challenges and

growth opportunities and reduce stress due to low performance. He also quotes that:

“As an employer, a key factor to a thriving company is employee satisfaction.”

However it has been seen from the above literature review that in

totality there exist two type of etraining management perspective, one which looks at

etraining as a cost and time saving alternative to the traditional form while the other

is of the opinion that etraining which helps the professional development of the

employees which in turn can act as one the effectives ways to reduce the attrition

rate. Most managers also look at etraining has an effective tool to impart training on

their ever evolving product and services and stay ahead of the competition.

Although the later gives more importance to the needs of the

employees, it has been seen that in most cases etraining mangers either fail to tap

what the employees would actually need from the courses or are not able to

implement the instructions while in designing and developing the courseware. As a

result the outcome is a mere attempt to provide effective learning solution and one

which does not meet the targeted learning objectives.

On the other hand the employees look at etraining as a mandatory

activity which needs to be fulfilled by them as a formality. Since most of these

training are either too dry or appeal very little to them employees just sit through

them and do not make effort to learn. This becomes more difficult when these

trainings have to be taken by employees during their productive work hours, and


27

with a very long list of tasks to be finished and more strict deadlines, the most

motivated employees are put off from the training delivered.

Authors like Antonacopoulou (1999) have highlighted that although

companies understand that training efforts facilitate employee learning which will

eventually serve the towards meeting the organizational goals, there has been very

less studies made towards understanding the perspective of the learners i.e. how do

they see training as a whole and what are their expectations from trainings organized

by their employers. His study concludes that there is a need to look at the

implications of the employee’s expectation from the training and also to understand

the underlying difference between the perception of the etraining managers and

employees.

2.2.8 Conclusion

Employee Satisfaction of training as a concept was introduced in the

chapter and we found that although most researchers and etraining managers as well

are aware that employee satisfaction does have an impact on the success of etraining

programmes it is one the most neglected or misunderstood factor.

It was seen that etraining is slowly but steadily gaining popularity

among the companies in India and although it has to prove a lot to be able to

establish itself as an alternative for the traditional training, it is something that

address most training and development needs the companies. There has been very

less research made towards understanding the performance of etraining implemented

by companies in the banking and insurance domain of India even when there are

very well known names like ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd. have been making use of

etraining for training their staff.

In general it is seen that there exist a lot of difference between what

etraining is seen from a Manager’s and an Employee’s perspective. The manager’s

look at etraining as a more cheaper and faster means of training and although they

understand that the employees satisfaction is important they either ignore or

misunderstand what the employees in reality need from the etraining courses. In can

be concluded that there exist a need to explore this aspect of training and come up

with solid answer to the question, Will inputs from employees or participation of an


28

employee in the courseware development process will make any difference to the

success rate of a training programme.

The account of literature review made in this chapter and the past

chapters reconfirms there exist a need of further study to made towards evaluating

the importance of employee satisfaction in the success of etraining implemented by

an organisation.


29

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

3.1Introduction

A dissertation without correct methodology will be like finding a place in

the London with help of a map of the city of Mumbai. In order to meet the research

objectives and to derive a conclusion any research will need the most appropriate

methodology that will be devised for the undertaking the research. This chapter gives

a count of the research methodology selected for the study and also the reason of the

selection. The chapter lays out the research strategy, the data collection and analysis

methods used along with a few limitations posed by the methodology and its ethical

considerations.

The basic objective that was kept in mind making a selection of the

research strategy was to acquire as much valid data as possible from the correct

sources and through the best available means within the deadlines of the research. In

order to find most practical and appropriate answers to the research questions below

a very detailed literature review of all the related research topics was conducted. The

infamous quote by Sir Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further it is only by standing on

the shoulders of giants” says a lot about what is first and the most basic prerequisite

for attempting to find new answers or solve existing problems was to know the in

and out of the domain one is working on. And in order to meet the research

objectives it was first needed that we review the existing studies made and recorded.

The extensive and elaborate literature review that was covered in the previous

chapters help knowing as much as we can about the topic of this study as well as to

make selection of the most suitable methodology for conducting the research.

3.2 Research Strategy

The research was about assessing the understanding: How much

importance does employee satisfaction hold in the success of etraining. Although for

different companies the concept of success of etraining and employee satisfaction

may vary as each have their own organisational goals, it can was found that defining

a state that an employee is satisfied can be judged either by they themselves or by the


30

etraining managers. The research methodology selection idea initially started with

the thought process that both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods be

used, however it was decided that since the idea of satisfaction with regards to an

etraining program will be subjective to any employee and hence a quantitative data

collection approach will not help our case, which is why the qualitative approach

was finalised. This can be further debated that even if we manage to get subjective

rather than more concrete data that quantitative data collection method would have

acquired would it not help in the analysis of a wider spectrum of data. However

keeping in mind the limited timelines for the research it was more beneficial that

only qualitative methodology be adopted rather than both.

Bryman (2008), states that when a sole qualitative approach is devised

the research naturally tends to be inductive rather than deductive which is the case

when quantitative approach is used. The inductive approach was found to be most

suitable as the concluding understanding from the literature review was that

employee satisfaction is a more subjective concept for employees among themselves

as well as for the etraining managers. An inductive approach will be fruitful to

review the ideas and attitudes of the individuals who are exposed to the use and the

output of etraining.

It was decided that the research data will be collected from an Indian

company - ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd. which offers insurance and banking services

nationwide in India. It can be seen that since the research limits its scope only to a

single Indian company the results or conclusion that is derived might not be fully

applicable to all the other similar domain companies. Having said that, it can

definitely help in revealing some crucial aspects of the research area which can

definitely form a base for research that will be made with a more than one Indian

insurance and banking domain firm. It can be also seen that this shortcoming was

largely posed by the rather challenging timelines and limited resources that where

available. Having known that the scope of the research did pose the benefits like

better planning of tasks was then possible and all resources would be able to do an

indept analysis of the data collected. The conclusion can be far more concrete

although not generic i.e. applicable for other case studies. The initial strategy for

collecting research data included data to be collected by interviewing the employees


31

at ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd. as well, however after initial talks with the Managers at

ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd. it was decided that the employees will not be interviewed

and rather the etraining managers which have grown within the organisation from

being a trainee to now a part of the training and development team will be

interviewed. This decision was on the recommendation of the Managers at

ICICI Prudent who were of the opinion that there is least possibility the employees

will comment negatively about questions on employee satisfaction simply because

they are too influenced by the fact that they cannot raise issues in the training in a

survey being organised by the training and development department itself.

Keeping the fact in mind that the training managers are the best judge

of the situation at ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd., the recommendation was considered

and the decision was made that only the etraining managers will be interviewed.

Although it would have been really helpful to include the employees views for the

analysis, one can understand that the views of someone who have an experience of

both a trainee and training manager can make up for this limitation.

3.3 Data Collection Methods

For this research purpose it was found that semi-structured qualitative

interviews would be the best method for collecting data. These interviews were

conducted over the phone and were digitally recorded. It would have been an

understatement to say that it was difficult to organise and schedule these interviews

considering the facts like the time difference between India and UK, the availability

of the interviewee who had a long list of tasks to be finished which would the first

priority for them. The decision of short listing the interviewees was done after a lot

of initial discussion with the training and development team at ICICI Prudential Pvt.

Ltd. and interviewees were finalised considering their past experience and exposure

in etraining development. There were total 9 interviews taken of 9 team members

from the training and development management team at ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd.

all at different levels of hierarchy and with varied experience and exposure of

managing etraining. 3 interviewees were training managers who had about 1-2 years

of experience of managing etraining and grew from either past role in the companies

where they undertook the etraining courses themselves. These interviewees had


32

experience of being a trainee and a also a part of the team that developed the

etraining modules which was really handy as they were able to bring in the aspect of

a trainee’s view as well. The other 5 interviewees where, Senior Managers who have

been responsible for the training and development division at ICICI Prudential Pvt.

Ltd. for over 5 years.

There were telephonic interview taken on a one-to-one basis and had a set of 11

questions divided in 3 sections. A standard script (see Appendix A) for the interview

questions was created in order to make sure that the researcher does not go off track

in the conversation and stay in tune with the objective of the research. The list of

questions and the script development was given a good amount of time and was

based on:

The research objective

The knowledge and conclusion derived from the literature review

The questionnaire where are set of main questions, trigger questions

and follow up questions, however the script was taken as a reference document and

the questions that where asked were modified with understanding and comfort of the

interviewee. As mentioned earlier the 11 questions where divided into 3 sections

which targeted at different aspects like the section 1 had questions to understand the

background of the interviewee and also his views on general aspect training and

specifically etraining development at ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd. The section 2 where

targeted at understanding the nature of etraining solutions, their development

methods and how the etraining projects were managed and what kind of feedback

mechanism where used. The final section questions where aimed understanding how

employee satisfaction and the performance of the trainees after taking the trainings

were measured and also what kind of benefits did etraining bring for them.

The interviews that where conducted can be stated as successful as all the expected

data was collected along with some new, unexpected and interesting facts that

brought in light a lot of valuable data towards meeting the research objective as well

as create a good hypothesis for the conclusion.


33

3.4 Data Analysis Methods

After the fruitful task of collecting data the next step was to organise and

then analysis this data. Just like random jumbled characters together do not say

anything unless are organized in words that have meaning, random data is also of no

use unless is organised and put together in a way that it makes sense. This research

made use of Thematic Analysis and Concept maps for organising and analysing data

that was collected from the interviews.

3.4.1 Thematic Analysis

The research will make use of the Thematic Analysis method to analysis the

qualitative data collected from the interviews. Aronson (1994), states that with

thematic analysis one can identify the themes and patterns of person and/or his

behaviour. Braun & Clarke (2006) quotes that “thematic analysis as a useful and

flexible method for qualitative research in and beyond psychology.”

The result of the thematic analysis is nothing but a list of common ideas or

thoughts that a person subconsciously gives out in a conversation; these common

elements convey a lot about the underlying principles and patterns that influence that

person. Once such subconscious thought process of a person or a group of persons is

known providing solutions to related problems becomes possible. Since this method

can help in outlining and understanding the concept and ideas that emerge from any

conversation made with for research purpose (Aronson 1994), they form the best

method for the analysing the interviews that are conducted for the research.

This analysis is performed in the following steps:

Relevant data is collected.

Keywords, ideas, concepts or simple similarity is identified from the

available data.

These similar elements are grouped together then organised as themes.

The themes are looked in dept long with the data again to find instances of

redundancies of the theme.


34

The theme identified are then interpreted and questioned when, why and

how.

Braun & Clarke (2006) in their research on thematic analysis talk about how

flexibility is one of the biggest advantages of thematic analysis; it helps the

researcher to identify existing themes within the data in a number of ways. However

they also states that one needs to be very careful will using thematic analysis and not

limited its flexibility. There are other advantages of thematic analysis like:

Simple and faster to learn and use.

Is accessible to researchers having least experience in qualitative research.

Is very useful in summarising large amount of data and creating a good

elaboration of the summary.

Both similarities as well as differences can be highlighted.

Has ability to generate anticipatory insights.

This research made use of the 5 stage process as used by Peng and Nunes (2010)

which are:

Stage 1: Understanding data

Stage 2: Coding data

Stage 3: Attaching codes to themes

Stage 4: Reviewing themes and creating concept maps

Stage 5: Report writing

A 15 point checklist (Appendix B) suggested by Braun & Clarke (2006) was

referred while performing the analysis.

3.4.2 Concept Maps

For future analysis of the qualitative interview data the research will employ

Concept maps. Freeman (2004) quotes:


35

“The power and benefits of concept mapping rest in four arenas: enabling shared

understanding, the inclusion of affect, the balance of power, and client

involvement.”

The use of concept map will be helpful in representing the expert’s

knowledge, and also in identifying the gaps ideas and concepts recorded from the

qualitative interviews (Novak & Canas, 2008). (Novak & Canas, 2008) also states

that the concept maps help in better representation of data from interviews in the

form of concept maps, where the information is presented through icons on maps.

These easy to use concept maps considered as helpful in communication and

beneficial among users (Freeman, 2004).

In a concept map ideas or concepts and their relationships are depicted in

form of diagrams with concepts enclosed in circles and boxes and their relationship

shown with the help of lines connecting them together (Novak & Canas, 2008). One

such concept map example is shown in Figure 3.4.2.1 below.

Figure 3.4.2.1: A concept map showing the features of concept map and the

relationships between them. Such a concept map is read from top to bottom (Novak

& Canas, 2008).


36

The benefits of using a concept map for analysis of qualitative research data

is that the underlying concepts or ideas that are indentified can be organized

graphically with important concepts placed in top to down layout and also cross

linking to other concepts which gives the diagram a multidimensional feature. Such a

diagram provides a helicopter view of the data and also helps in understanding the

interlink between all the concepts thus helping in the analysis after and more

effectively.

3.5 Methodological Limitations

One of the biggest limitations faced by the sole qualitative approach adopted

by the research is the fact that the conclusion will not have concrete supporting

numbers behind them. However, this limitation is more of a good to have addition to

the research as it research deals with thought and behavioural aspect of the

individuals dealing with development of etraining modules at work place and not any

activities whose performance can be counted or recorded in numbers.

Braun & Clarke (2006) states that, one of disadvantages of using the thematic

approach for a research lies in its biggest strength which is flexibility, since it allows

a varied range of analytical options which leads to far broader things that can be said

about data. Such a broad view does not help determining an important focus area and

result in a very generic conclusion. While there are other limitation of thematic

analysis related to how the analysis in conducted and how the themes are identified

from the data, its advantages recommended by many researchers like Braun &

Clarke (2006) and Aronson (1994) suits the best for this research.

The research also makes use of concept maps to create a framework of the

concepts and the interlinking between them although this method is seen to be very

beneficial there are few limitations which Zeilik, cited in Eppler, 2006.

They are not easily implemented, one need good amount of training.

They are too subjective to the view of the researcher.

Tutors take time to evaluate them.


37

They look very complicated and may not help too much in cases where there

are multiple cross linking which makes them difficult to analyse.

Having considered all the methodological limitations and knowing the

advantages of other methodologies it can be said that, no matter how well optimised

the methodology that one selects, the success of research will be still dependent

various other aspect like literature review, source from which data is collected and

how well does the researcher stick to the methodology used. Braun & Clarke, cited

in Holloway & Todres, 2006 and quotes that:

―What is important is choosing a method that is appropriate to your research

question, rather than falling victim to „methodolatry‟, where you are committed to

method rather than topic/content or research questions.‖

3.6 Ethical Considerations

In order to undertake this research, it is required that there is direct

interaction learners and understand their views and feedback. In this process of data

collection utmost importance will be given to the respect to the beliefs, feelings and

point of view of the individuals involved. The data will be collected from a present

operating company, and hence will be kept confidential in all aspects.

All the conducted surveys and interviews that will be recorded, after

which a transcript will be created and shared with the interviewees and the source

company. All the research and data collection methods will adhere to the highest

ethical standards possible.


38

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions

4.1 Introduction

This chapter tries to find the results and the findings of this study, based

on this chapter the research conclusion and recommendation will be derived which

forms a part of the next chapter 5. All the literature review and the data collection

activities that have been done and elaborated in the past 5 chapters are reviewed here

and analyzed further. As mentioned earlier the research make use of qualitative data

analysis approach, the data was collected by conducting interviews of 8 etraining

managers at ICICI Prudential and insurance and banking firm in India. There were

11 questions asked to all the 8 interviewee the interview questionnaire script can be

found in Appendix A. The interviews were recorded digitally and then a transcript

for the interview was developed a sample of the transcribed interview can be found

in Appendix B.

The data from the interviews were then analysis with the help of

thematic analysis in which concept map for the data which is a diagrammatic

description of the relationships between various concepts or themes was represented.

The thematic analysis was done with the help of stage wise process as used by Peng

and Nunes (2010), the steps conducted as below:

Step 1: All the data from the interviews were first organized in a more logical form.

A document was created which collated the answers each of the questions of all the 8

interviewee together. The document which had answers of all interviewee to

question 1 was listed below the question and the same for all the questions. Such a

logical grouping of the data helped enormously in further analysis.

Step 2: The next step was to perform data coding which was done by indentifying

repeating keywords, phrases and patterns with the data. So any repeating patterns

where then listed together which helped for the next step.

Step 3: Once the coded data was made available the same was mapped with the

research objectives and the areas in which further analysis will help in answering the

research questions. The sort listed concepts or idea were grouped in themes and sub

themes.


39

Step 4: These themes and subthemes were then reviewed and remapped with the

data again to identify the relationships among them and other the areas which relate

to them. This relationship was then depicted in a concept map which can be found in

the Appendix B.

Step 5: What follows is the step 5, i.e. the report of the thematic analysis and the

finding from the concept map and the relationship derived from them.

4.2 Interview Findings and Discussions

For this research purpose it was decided that the analysis finding and the

discussion be presented other that is together with the themes as it would help in

presenting the finding and its corresponding discussion in a way that links the data

analysis, findings and the discussion raised from the finding together. Such a flow

would help in creating present better understanding of the concepts being discussed.

The themes that were identified from the analysis made of the data from the

interviews and the relationships with the each other helps to derive a possible answer

to the research question. The themes and their sub themes identified are as follows.

Theme 1: ETraining Manager

1.1: Manager’s responsibilities

1.2: Manager’s attitude

Theme 2: ETraining Development

2.1: Varied etraining products

2.2: ID considering inputs from trainee feedback

2.3: Employee part of product development

2.4: Barriers

Theme 3: Trainee feedback mechanism

Theme 4: ETraining and trainee satisfaction evaluation

Theme 5: Trainee (employee)

5.1: Trainees responsibilities

5.2: Trainees attitude


40

Although it can be seen that there were other aspects that formed a part of the

data the same were filtered and not included in order to maintain a focus on the topic

in discussion as the target was to look at data relevant to the research and one which

will help in answering the research question.

4.2.1 Theme 1: ETraining Manager

The etraining manager formed the epicenter of the discussion and also

the source of the data of the research. All the aspects about etraining and employee

satisfaction from the etraining were described from the point of view of all the 8

interviewees who were part of the etraining development and management team at

ICICI Prudential. It can be easily seen that for any organization it’s the training and

development managers who initiates any or introduces etraining as a mode of

training. Any organization big or small have to train their staff at some point,

whether it is the new staff to be trained on the operations or a new product or change

in the organizational strategy that needs to be delivered to the existing staff. It is the

training manager that who indentifies the areas which need training and then decides

the best strategy to deliver the training. All the decision right from knowing what is

to be trained to who is to be trained and how to be trained is taken by the etraining

manager. Hence the work profile or responsibility and his attitude towards etraining,

trainees, satisfaction of trainees or need for evaluating the performance is of extreme

importance in a study like this one which looks at what factors contribute to the

success of etraining and specially employee satisfaction. It can be easily expected

that this theme will have a relationship with most of the themes that has been

indentified for the study. Let us look at the 2 most important sub themes:

4.2.1.1 Manager’s responsibilities

Each interviewee was asked about what their normal day’s routine at work

was and what responsibilities did they serve as a part of the job profile. All the

interviewee planned their daily activities differently and performed various activities

like attending meeting, communications, addressing to urgent issues, MIS analysis,

content development review, administrative and other documentation and reporting

tasks.


41

After having looked at such wide range of tasks and including

ones which are not directly attached to etraining development it is apparent that the

core etraining development task will be given very less amount of time. It is also

interesting to note that almost all of the interviewees mentioned a schedule that did

not involve a task to look at the need of training or what kind of training is needed

for the employees. This can be seen as a part of the strategy where the need is

highlighted either periodically, however even then there was no consideration given

to any task that looks at existing content or etraining development with the

perspective of whether they are in line with the needs of the employees. Although

one interviewee 3 mentions that one of the activities he performs is ―Identify new

training requirements‖, which does say that efforts are made however he does not

mention whether this activity perform daily, monthly or randomly.

All the interviewee also mentioned whole wide responsibilities that they serve like

interview 1 said:

―I m responsible for 3 major things:

1) Content development for all the verticals.

2) MIS and analytics, all the productivity related reports, observations etc which

is another responsibility.

3) ELearning‖

Interview 2 said:

―At the start of the year there is a defined architecture, which is based on 3 criteria’s:

1) The function of the domain must have knowledge.

2) Need based knowledge.

3) Good to have knowledge‖

Interview 3 said:

―See there are 2 sets of training divisions that we have

1) Page training division


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2) Complete learning and development which is for the managerial training

program.‖

Again it has been seen that not all the responsibilities of the managers at ICICI

Prudential are directly concerning etraining courseware development rather more

generic training related. It can be thought that ICICI Prudential as an employer or the

training and development team are not inclined towards etraining development and

look at as one of the domains which a part of organizing and managing training as a

whole. However this is not the case as further in the discussion where the

interviewees were asked about the kind of etraining solutions that they develop, the

response of as mentioned below.

Interviewee 1 said: ―yes we do use different types of etraining products.‖

Interviewee 2 said: ―there are different products for the different needs. For eg if I

have a certification training program which is mandatory to be taken but I don’t have

an interesting content, then I may have some gaming activities and simulations‖

Interviewee 7 said: ―at times a role based, game based or simulation based‖

This does say that the etraining and development team are involved in a lot of

etraining development. In such a scenario it can be concluded that the managers

work profile and the responsibilities they serve are not dedicated towards etraining

development and hence there is a possibilities that most crucial aspects like need of

training and employee satisfaction get lost in the long To-do list that the etraining

managers possess. This can also be validated from Gray et al. (2004) findings in his

study where he interviews a few managers and found that that among the varied

management approaches that were highlighted one of the approach was to use a

fulltime manager in order to overlook and coordinate between the learners and

developers.

4.2.1.2 Manager’s attitude

Another subtheme for the etraining manager is seen to be the attitude of the

Manager towards training, etraining, employee satisfaction and benefits of etraining.

It was seen that most managers attitudes towards training and etraining as whole was


43

similar, when asked about whether they thinks etraining has an upper hand to

classroom training the below mentioned was the response:

Interviewee 1: ―I would say it depends on the audience.‖

Interviewee 6: ―I can only teach skill on the etraining, I can do behavioural training

only in the classroom.‖

Interviewee 7: ―depends on if it is a skill based training or behavioural training, if it’s

behavioural it has to be classroom, if it’s skilled then etraining.‖

When asked about their views on what is provides more return on investment and

leads to better employee satisfaction the interviewees said:

Interviewee 8 said: ―etraining will be beneficial most of the times because of the

geography that India has it helps you to reach out to people though the connectivity

remains a challenge even now, however the speed is better‖

Interviewee 5 said: ―etraining any day.‖

Interviewee 2 said: ―ROI definitely etraining is effective if you talk about

satisfaction then classroom training.‖

Interviewee 4 said: ―Trainee satisfaction is more effective when I talk about

classroom training because; in etraining some where I am not able to measure the

satisfaction level as I am not able to capture the feedback.‖

It is clearly seen from the above response that the managers at ICIC Prudential look

at using a more blended approach when it comes to providing training as whole. This

shows that they do not favour or are not confident with etraining for all kinds of

training needs; they do feel that personal touch which classroom training provides is

important even when most they found etraining delivering more return on the

investment as compared to classroom training this is exactly what Gray et al. (2004)

suggests that etraining programmes should make use of blending approach rather

than is the technology to deliver all the training. With regards to employee

satisfaction most found etraining delivering better than classroom training. It can be

said that most managers found etraining to be more effective since they thought the

employee satisfaction and ROI are better delivered in this mode.


44

When asked about their views on whether employee satisfaction can lead to

improved operational efficiency and eventually the company’s growth the

interviewees had to say the below mentioned:

Interviewee 1 said: ―Oh yes most certainly because a satisfied employee whether

through training or by policy is always beneficial for our organization and that has

been our observation as well that if he or she is looking forward to suit the training

inputs than he or she is more connected to work, adds more enthusiasm towards

work puts in lot of energy around it, eventually getting better results and then it is a

cycle, it’s a positive cycle for his growth eventually connecting to branch and the

organization.‖

Interviewee 2 said: ―Yes it is. Every training that we do would have certain kind of

quantitative measure in terms of improving product training parameter. If for

example I m training to fix a particular problem of a person who doesn’t have

closing skills would expect the closing skills in terms of higher appointment to late

closures, from the employee who has undergone the training, So we try to measure

that, and hence say that every training has a lighter effect that we see in our

employee.‖

Interviewee 8 said: ―employee satisfaction is definitely important.‖

This says that most of the managers do think that employee satisfaction is of extreme

importance and can definitely impact on the employee’s performance. This states

that most managers have very high expectations from etraining and the do believe

that the organization will be benefited if an employee is satisfied with the learning

delivered to them this is further testified by Schooley et al. (2009) who believes that

improved employee performance do have a positive impact on the business success.

However when asked about what is given a higher importance while development of

etraining modules, is it cost or employee satisfaction or mode of delivery the

interviewees said:

Interviewee 6 said: ―It’s a mix and match that we have to do. Important factor is

time‖


45

Interviewee 3 said: ―mode of training first. Development time. Training satisfaction.

Cost also plays a role, ROI in creating a module. Budget and time both is important

in creating a course.‖

Interview 2 said: ―mode of training…Importance…Satisfaction‖

Most of the above responses are varied and there no thumb rule that is followed

however there were others who did mention preference to what a learner needs

which background to be the first priority. The Interviewee said:

―Learner, learning requirements what kind of background he comes from, his current

role, responsibilities, his competency level, what is the ideal competency level and

what is his competency level. Budget allocated for this particular module. Learning

outcomes‖

It can be concluded that most managers found to be having high trust on etraining

when it comes to delivering learning which can improve employee performance and

eventually impact the company’s growth. They also thought the when it comes to

ROI and employee satisfaction etraining is better than classroom training and

classroom training is considered to be an important part in training which Schooley

et al. (2009) also agrees in her study where she mentions with etraining the company

can expect upto 69% of ROI. But when it comes to development of etraining mode

of training, time and then employee satisfaction is considered as the priority order.

The training manager’s responsibilities and attitude towards etraining and employee

satisfaction does seem to have an impact on the central aspect of the research which

is employee satisfaction as it’s the manager’s who device process and perform

activities which consider employee satisfaction as importance. This is validated from

the interview response.

4.2.2 Theme 2: ETraining Development

The next theme identified was the etraining development activities at ICICI

Prudential; although this theme seems to be too generic one is only a broader theme

enclosing other specific subthemes that are listed below:

Varied etraining products


46

ID considering inputs from trainee feedback

Employee part of product development

Barriers

The theme was indentified after grouping a few etraining development related

themes together, it would just organize theme better. Since the research objective is

to understand what are the critical factors for the success of etraining and what is the

role of employee satisfaction in specific it is all the more required that we look at

etraining development in general.

The first questions that come across are what kind of etraining development

activities are performed, what solutions are developed, what all goes into the

development and does it take the employees views or involvement. It will also be

interesting to know what kinds of barriers were faced at ICICI Prudential. With this

target in mind the interviewees were asked about the processes followed to develop

etraining courseware and based on the answers that were collected the following

themes that relate to the research were shortlisted.

4.2.2.1 Varied etraining products

When asked about the kind of etraining products developed at ICICI

Prudential the interviewee’s said the below mentioned:

Interviewee 3 said: ―As per my observation if the people see good amount of variety

in products, eventually the interest of the people improves. They do not equally

respond to all the products, what hooks them on is the proper storyline, a game based

kind of interactivity, it’s easy enough for them to get into it, however challenging

enough is for them to scratch their game, so it’s challenging to find out what they

want.‖

Interviewee 7 said: ―If i have a product for which a subject detail is to be done, then

my course has to be interactive, a stronger user interface. And if the course is feature

specific then, may be I think about the product features then there is an assessment at

the end.‖


47

And when asked whether trainees responded differently to different solutions,

interview 4 said: ― it depends on how exciting the product is. We have seen programs

where they are given certain thematic modules, story based and gaming, people had

a good response to that.‖

This says that the training and development team is of the opinion that a variety in

the kind of courses brings excitement and interest among the employees.

Understanding this they target at giving a wide range of courses from game based to

story based courses. This says that the development team does consider the likes of

the employees while designing the courses, which is in a way being sensitive

towards the needs of the employees. This further confirmed by the below response

from 2 other interviewees.

―it depends on the age of the learner. Young crowd is excited for game based

courses. Senior management people won’t like those kind of hanky panky stuff;

instead they like serious content presentation.‖

―product definitely changes as per the time, and most of the etraining is game based.

Its concept based, I am talking about the vertical unlimited product. How to make the

product interesting, in which content of the product also plays an important role. It

shldnt be monotonous, some interactions should be there.‖

4.2.2.2 ID considering inputs from trainee feedback

It was found that the development team did incorporate a lot

of feedback from the learners in from of inputs from employees considered while

instructional design development of the courseware. When asked whether the team

looked at employee feedback while devising the ID strategy this is what the

interviewee said:

Interviewee 2: ―For a particular segment whom the program has to be developed we

have a 360degree feedback session, by asking them, asking their supervisor, asking

their juniors, and asking their peers as in what kind of skill set is required, so when

we have a 5 minutes of understanding as in what all is exactly expected, we workout

through knowledge we have something called as ISM instructional strategy matrix,

that gets designed.‖


48

The same was confirmed by interview 5 who mentioned:

―360 degree kind of approach is taken when it comes to tele calling, what do I mean

by that, is speaking to the target audience, and depending upon the kind of problem,

a problem statement is designed, once the questionnaire is designed then the tele

calling is designed, we will s peak to the end participant who will get the training,

and if he is a superior we will also speak to his subordinate and also to his reporting

boss. And that’s what completes the 360 degree cycle.‖

This again confirms the fact that the development team has set processes which take

a full feedback from the target learners well before they plan designing the

instruction design strategy for the course. One can say that for the team at ICICI

prudential the target learners and their requirements do form a great importance and

they do so with an expectation that if the courses are based on the employees inputs

it is more likely that they will appeal to them. This is also validated by Schooley et

al. (2009) who mentions that employees feel valued if their feedback is given

importance.

4.2.2.3 Employee part of product development

One of the other aspects that investigates the use of employee

interaction while etraining development is whether or not the developers involve

employees in the process of designing and development. When asked about this the

interviews said that:

Interviewee 3: ―we have a feedback mechanism that is an online portal, where the

user enters his feedback in terms of usability, interface, relevance of subject, the ease

with which he could complete it. We also have module by module feedbacks. So one

product acts as a baseline for creating a new product.‖

However this was the closest that an employee gets to be a part of the development

process and there is seen to have to information conveyed by the interviewee. Thus it

can be concluded that although the employee inputs are considered in instructional

design development, there is no instances where the employees are physically

present with the development team which can pose a negative impact on the

effectiveness, this is in agreement to what Gray et al. (2004) highlights that problems


49

may arise is there is exist a lack of face-to-face interaction with the learners which

can impact the success of development and management of etraining.

4.2.2.4 Barriers

The discussion of the etraining and it success is incomplete

without including discussion about the barriers that it faces. When asked about the

difficulties faced by etraining at ICICI Prudential this is what the interviewee’s had

to say:

Interviewee 3 said: ―we do have issues pertaining to BW, and connectivity issue is

their part of lie because it’s not only in accessing the etraining solutions but it’s also

when they access other applications. They know it’s an issue for them, but they will

still have to stay with it.‖

Interviewee 5 said: ―infrastructure issue. Not that much of cultural issues.‖

Interviewee 1 said: ―we do face issues, like content issue, readability issues, systems

are not able to handle the load, technology barrier, BW issues. Some people are not

very technology savvy, for them to get to the computers is a big challenge. We

avoid too many hours of sitting.‖

The only strong barrier that comes across from the conversation is the – Bandwidth

issue, which is an infrastructure issue. This findings differs from what Leary &

Berge (2007) found in their study that it’s only small organisations that face

infrastructural issues, and not ICICI Prudential which is a large company. Such

problems will have very bad effect on employees as they can put off by a slow

loading course. There are other issues like content issues and computer operating

difficulties faced by a few employees. However there was no mention of issues like

employee find difficulty operating or understanding high computer interaction

courses like the game based courses. One can say that it might be because the team

have been successful enough to develop courses what appeal to the target audience

are at their difficulty level or they are not open to any such happenings. So one

cannot really say that employees at ICICI Prudential do not face issues with courses

that they do not understand or find difficult to operate as there is no data backing up

the conclusion. Having spoken about the current barriers of etraining it is important


50

to consider what Zhang (2003) study on the future of etraining this millennium is

will see all these barriers crossed with better infrastructure and technological

development.

4.2.3 Theme 3: Trainee feedback mechanism

One of the most important aspects that will be important for this

research is whether there exists any trainee feedback mechanism at ICICI Prudential

and if there is one is it helpful in the development process. With this view in mind

the interviewees were question whether such process is used at ICICI Prudential. The

responses recorded are as mentioned below:

Interviewee 2 said: ―we have a feedback mechanism that is the push mail, and when

it comes to organizational learning we have something called as K-Quotient, we

have also given telephonic support where we have in house call centre where we

have booked couple of seats, where we expect that within 15-20 days all the

employees must take up the etraining program. Generally what happens is people are

not comfortable writing a mail, in that case they can just call & get the query

resolved & get on, so that was an additional support we had given while conducting

a K-Quotient program. Otherwise it’s an email support that is always available.‖

Interviewee 8 said: ―we have feedback mechanism. Feedbacks vary, when there are

skill building exercises then they prefer classroom training, and featured oriented

there etraining.‖

This does say that there are processes in place for employees to provide their

feedback; however the same needs the employee to proactively send an email or

make a phone call. This although serves the purpose does ask a lot from the

employee, especially when they are not really happy with something about the

training program. It will be the most motivated employees who would go out of the

way and put in efforts to send an email or make a phone. It would have been more

fruitful if the training development and management team created surveys or make

proactive efforts to get this employee feedback which is what even Gray et al. (2004)

found in his study that large projects did give emphasis on collection of feedback

from users with the help of tools which automatically distribute and collect survey

feedback from users.


51

This was about getting the feedback from employees, however what is done about

the feedback one of the interviewee comments that:

―It’s a mix of positive and negative feedback. Negative feedback we are very

particular not to repeat it. The feedbacks are like content is very interesting, I was

not bored. If you are able to solve doubts if you are able to get that knowledge than

you can say that yes, etraining has been successful. An if the user is not satisfied the

content is confusing then the etraining is not successful.‖

This says that the employee views are considered in future developments; especially

negative feedbacks are seen to be repeated. It is interesting to know that there an

understanding within the etraining managers that if the employee is able to absorb

the learning being delivered it is considered to be successful and if there is a negative

feedback from the employees it is considered to be a failure.

However there is no other interviewee who confirms this data it is nevertheless

important information for this study. If we go by what this interviewee says then it

can be concluded that employee satisfaction is regarded as a deciding factor

determining the success of etraining.

4.2.4 Theme 4: ETraining and trainee satisfaction evaluation

One theme or aspect that is important from the research point of view

and one that was indentified in the interviews conducted was how the evaluation of

etraining and trainee satisfaction done at ICICI Prudential. There have been many

authors who have highlighted the importance of etraining evaluation, one of which is

Greenagel (2002) who concludes in his study that etraining is has a very high

development cost and hence measuring the effectiveness is as important as

measuring cost saving. Considering etraining and employee satisfaction is important

and beneficial is one and evaluating the training in order to understand if the same is

being delivered is other. The evaluation results states whether the efforts made

towards making sure that the etraining is successful and that employee is satisfied

with the training. It serves as the most important feedback for future developments

and inputs for etraining strategies to follow. It is also considered important by many

researchers like Faherty (2002), who states that etraining evaluation is extremely

important for corporates in order to retrain or raise their competitive advantage.


52

When asked whether there exist any such process for evaluation of etraining as a

whole and employee satisfaction in specific the below mentioned was commented by

the trainee.

Interviewee 2 said: ―Effectiveness is measured to a limited extent, immediately when

the training is conducted. But if he is using in his day-to-day life we don’t have an

mechanism. We don’t have very active follow-up me mechanism.‖

Interviewee 3 said: ―very difficult to quantify, challenge across industry.

Performance improves of the sales guy could be because of 10 other things. There

might be a new contest that is happening for which he is performing. There are no

specific factors which could be measured, due to which they go out of the box and

perform.‖

Interviewee 7: ―it’s a challenge. While in training people say that yes it was good, I

learned this I learned that but when they go back to implement the same not all is

implemented. Even if 30-40% is implemented that is a big one I would say.‖

It is clear from above that there exists no process or mechanism which evaluates the

performance of etraining or employee satisfaction at ICICI Prudential. It is seen as a

challenge considering the work profile and dynamics of the profession they are into.

This can be a major drawback as it is difficult to evaluate whether the time and

money being invested in etraining is serving any purpose this is verified by

Researchers like Schooley et al. (2009) who have highlighted the importance of

evaluation of etraining performance. However minor attempts are made with a view

to understand the performance from course to course basis which can be concluded

from the below mentioned response from one the interviewee.

―It happens with program specific. Trainer tries to keep in touch after the training

through SMS n all.‖

It can be concluded that overall there seems to be no or rather very minimum efforts

made to evaluate the performance of etraining and specially the impact of employee

satisfaction which can led to a situation where the company will not able to justify

the investment made. This seems to be in line with the argument made by Grant &

Danziger (2005),that if the company does not measure certain quantifiable returns,


53

then the cost of etraining can become uncontrolled one with no demonstrable returns.

Having said that it is important that we look back at an interviewee’s comment

mentioned earlier where it was said that:

―The feedbacks are like content is very interesting, I was not bored. If you are able to

solve doubts if you are able to get that knowledge than you can say that yes,

etraining has been successful. An if the user is not satisfied the content is confusing

then the etraining is not successful.‖

This is says that although there is no specific data that is seen as an indicator of

success for etraining, there is an general attitude among training managers that if

there is positive feedback from trainees than etraining is successful or it has failed.

The feedback that is received then becomes either a benchmark or a challenge to

overcome in future development. One can say that as there exist no mechanism to

evaluate the etraining results, we can rely on the feedback from companies like

ICICI Prudential who have been making use of etraining mode of training deliver

since a long time, the same is in agreement with what Strother (2002) concludes in his

study which tries to assess the effectiveness of corporate etraining.

4.2.5 Theme 5: Trainee (employee)

The epicenter for the any training program be it etraining or classroom

is the trainee for whom the training is being delivered. It is natural that everything

about the training form the need to level of difficultly, knowledge and content

delivered, schedule and duration are optimized as per the needs and background of

the trainee. The trainee becomes a very important element for any research which is

targeted at understanding the aspects that impact the success of etraining. The trainee

is the sole judge of the effectiveness of the training, if the content being delivered is

easy to understand or being delivered in a way that its understood, if there is enough

interactivity in the program that can keep the employee engaged and hooked on till

the end of the course and if the trainee absorbs the training and implements the same

at his work place the training can be termed as a success.

Literature review done for this research did say that most of the times trainings

etraining development either do not consider the trainee or fail to deliver to the

trainee expectation. This research tries to understand this important aspect form the


54

point of view of the training managers at ICICI Prudential although it would have

been extremely helpful to have it heard from the horse’s mouth, i.e. the trainee

himself. This decision as mentioned earlier was made on the recommendation of

training and development team at ICICI Prudential. The data acquired with the help

of the interviewed was analyzed and 2 important subthemes were indentified which

will be discussed further.

4.2.5.1 Trainee’s responsibilities

One most important and revealing aspect that came out of the

data analysis was how much impact does the trainee’s responsibilities and job

profiles has on first their attitude towards etraining and second on the success of

etraining as a whole. This can be seen in what a few interviewees’ had commented;

Interviewee 4: ―Today with so much of chaos at the field, for a trainee to implement

it (learning from training) into and see the result takes a little longer time. I learnt

today I implement tomorrow the result is not their attitude, audience doesn’t have the

patience to wait for the result.‖

Interviewee 8: ―there are challenges, they (trainees) don’t take up classroom training

willingly even for etraining we have to really follow up. Because the nature of the

business is that we don’t have enough bandwidth.‖

What can be seen from the responses is that there is a sense of understanding among

the managers that the employees who are subjected to the training have a very

challenging work environment which is uncertain and dynamic. In such scenarios

training and learning does tend to take a backseat as core business functions are seen

as the priority at any given moment. The training management team understands this

and tries to make up by making efforts from their end towards following up with the

trainee’s to make sure they undertake the training courses.

4.2.5.2 Trainee’s attitude

The second most important theme that was indentified from

the data and one which can be really helpful in understanding employee’s

perspective of etraining is their attitude towards etraining.


55

One the most revealing and detailed response that was recorded is given below.

―…neither people have lot of inclination towards training or sending the team

members for training nor are they ready to read and spend some time with

themselves and with the content to understand that it would benefit their branches.

Hence we observe that there is an initial resistance for releasing this training,

however if they release it, or detach from their supervisor say, if the employee goes

through lot of handy tools which he or she can apply in their business then the

person gets overly joyed and convinced that, oh all these things I was not aware that

you guys gave is eventually helping me to solve my problems with which all these

days I was struggling with.

So it’s a moment of truth that they have to experience then only, they get inclined to

send people for the subsequent training programs.‖

This response states that not all the trainees are inclined towards etraining initially

and there is seen to be more initial resistance towards taking the courses. However

there have been instances when employees have came back to the managers and

provided positive feedback after having taken the course. After seeing what such

training courses had to offer them the employees are seen to have become more

inclined towards etraining.

Once such attitude issues raised by one the interviewee’s is as mentioned:

―Generally it’s like from the top management that the training is to be done, hence it

has to be done and the trainees have to do it. Because mostly in the sales team

nobody thinks they need any training because it’s not a skilled job, no high skills are

required. They think what they are doing is right.‖

Such issues where the employee does not consider that they need training act as a

serious threat to etraining and its success rate. There is not much any manager can do

in order to overcome such challenge except to keep educating such employees about

the benefits of etraining. It can be concluded that employee’s attitude towards

etraining is seen to be very crucial aspect impacting the success of etraining this can

be validated from Gray et al. (2004) conclusion of the study that for etraining to be

successful companies have to transform their attitude to etraining and adapt to it.


56

4.3 Concept Map

Wallace & Mintzes (2011) quotes that ―concept mapping offers a valid and

potentially useful technique for documenting and exploring conceptual change in

biology.‖ Considering the benefits of using concept maps we tried to

diagrammatically display the themes and the relationship between in form of a

concept map. The output of the exercise was the below mentioned concept map,

which helped in determining which themes or subthemes had an impact on the other

themes or subthemes. This relationship diagram helped in first understanding and

then organising it in graphical form which was very fruitful for the data analysis and

report writing stages.


57

Figure 4.3.1: Concept Map derived from actual data analysis.

Supervises

Trainee

Satisfaction Etraining and trainee

satisfaction evaluation

Etraining Manager

Trainee (employee)

Etraining development

Trainee responsibilities

Manager’s responsibilities

Manager’s attitude

Trainee feedback

mechanism

Trainee attitude

Varied etraining products

ID considering inputs from

trainee feedback

Employee part of product

development

Barriers

Success of

etraining

Part of

Influences

Influences

Part of

Part of

Part of

Part of

Part of

Part of

Part of

Defines has impact on

Helps in

Has impact on

Influences

Influences

Impacts

Impacts

Impacts

Impacts

Defines


58

Chapter 5: Conclusion and Further Research

5.1 Introduction

This chapter provides the final conclusions derived from the data analysis performed

in the previous chapter. In the previous chapter we used thematic analysis and

concepts maps to look at the data collected from the interviews, the finding of the

analysis will help us derive the final conclusions. In order to do that we need to

revisit the research objectives set out in the beginning of the paper, the research

objective were:

The underlying objective of this research was to: “Understand the relationship of

employee satisfaction and success of etraining within an organisation in India.”

The research questions were:

1. What are the most crucial aspects of etraining that define its effectiveness?

2. What is the role of employee satisfaction in the success of etraining?

3. Do employees respond better to etraining which gives utmost importance’s

towards understanding what do they need?

4. Does employee satisfaction lead to improved business performance and


This chapter makes an attempt to use the finding from the data analysis to first find

answers the research question and then make conclusions to check if the research

objective was fulfilled.

5.2 Summary of Findings

In order to summaries the findings in a way that will help us answer the research

questions we need to look that answers to each questions individually. What follows

is summary made which try to answer each question individually.

Question 1: What are the most crucial aspects of etraining that define its

effectiveness?

Conclusion:

It was found that having a blended approach towards the overall training to be

delivered is beneficial, as etraining is seen to provide the return on investment and


59

employee satisfaction better than classroom training, while classroom training helps

in providing a the much needed human touch. From the response of most of the

managers it can be concluded that employee satisfaction form a very important

aspect that delivers the effectiveness. The training and development team at ICICI

Prudential Pvt. Ltd. strives towards providing a variety of courses and have found

that they bring excitement and interest among the employees, thus it can be said that

avoiding monotony in etraining courseware development does help improving the

effectiveness.

Another important aspect that is revealed in the analysis was that insuring employee

feedback is considered while designing and development of the instructional design

strategy helps in creating solutions which employees will be satisfied with which

will impact towards the effectiveness. Employee attitude is also seen as a major

indicator that defines the effectiveness, it was seen that the employees at ICICI

Prudential Pvt. Ltd. had initial resistance towards etraining but with efforts from the

training management team when this barrier was crossed the employee started

showing inclination towards etraining, hence it can be also concluded that proper

follow up from the training management team etraining can be successful.

Question 2: What is the role of employee satisfaction in the success of etraining?

There was a unanimous consensus among the managers that employee satisfaction is

of extreme importance towards the success of etraining, hence we can concluded that

employee satisfaction do led to the success of etraining. Having said that it was also

seen that this is a general expectation and thinking and there was no supporting data

which the managers can backup this thought process. The only one thing that can be

considered as an evaluation was the kind of feedback that were received from

employees. If there is positive feedback etraining was considered as successful and if

not than the etraining has failed. If we go by this logic then it can be concluded that

employee satisfaction is a major driver of success for etraining.

The analysis also points towards a few activities that are proven to have led to

employee satisfaction, there are:

A good mix and match of types courses like game based, story line based etc.


60

Making sure that employee negative feedback is not repeated.

Considering employees inputs in the designing and development phase.

Another aspect that can be summarised is that with regards to employee satisfaction

etraining delivering was found to have a better hand over the traditional classroom

training.

Question 3: Do employees respond better to etraining which gives utmost

importance’s towards understanding what do they need?

Conclusion: Yes employees to respond better to etraining when it gives utmost

importance to what they need. This can be concluded from the responses from the

Manager’s who have highlighted that when they looked at providing a blend of

courses, incorporate employee feedback and made other efforts to develop

courseware as per employees preferences they have responded positively. However

it can also be concluded that even if there are efforts made towards optimising the

courses to employee needs they have been instances where employee’s initial

resistance have created a barrier.

Question 4: Does employee satisfaction lead to improved business performance and


Conclusion: Although most of the managers do think that employee satisfaction is of

extreme importance and can definitely impact on the employee’s performance and

that the organisation will be benefited from this, they themselves agree that there is

no data backing up this conclusion. It was also seen that there exist lack of measures

or process that evaluate the performance of etraining and whether a satisfied

employee performs better than an unsatisfied employee.

Few other conclusions:

From the data analysis we can very well conclude that there exists a clear cut bias

towards etraining as compared with classroom training with regards to ROI and

employee satisfaction deliver. Etraining is preferred mode of training but classroom

training to bring in the personal touch to the trainings. It was sent that infrastructural


61

barriers form a larger part in issues that impact the success of etraining and one

which can upset the learner.

Having seen the conclusions formed for the individual research questions, we can

now attempt at the overall conclusion which can help us determine is the research

objective was met or not. The research objective was: “Understand the relationship

of employee satisfaction and success of etraining within an organisation in India.”

We can say that the research objective have been met largely as we can now say that

we have developed an understanding that there exist a strong relationship between

employee satisfaction and success of etraining within an organisation, however the

same cannot be backed up by actual data which would have been possible if ICICI

Prudential Pvt. Ltd. had devised a set process to evaluate the performance of

etraining and difference between the performance of a satisfied and an unsatisfied

employee.

5.3 Overall Limitations

The research met with two limitations which did have an impact on how much the

research questions could be answered and how much the research objective was

fulfilled.

The research was not able to interact or interview the employees at ICICI Prudential

Pvt. Ltd. this meant that there was no data which would have brought new insights

from the employee’s perspective. Having said that the data from the interviews of the

Managers at ICICI Prudential Pvt. Ltd. did serve a lot towards the research objective,

however one can state that the research could have been 100% complete at least from

the availability of data perspective.

The second most crucial limitation was the inability to get concrete data about the

performance of etraining and the difference of performance between and satisfied

and an unsatisfied employee. This data would have provided a good hypothesis and

would have made sealed a strong conclusion.


62

5.4 Recommendations for Further Research

After having successfully completing the research it was found that there are a few

aspects or areas that ask for more detailed study further. These aspects or areas will

need future exploration and in-depth study.

One of the areas which need further research was towards exploring ways by which

etraining performance can be evaluated along with the performance when an

employee is satisfied and when not satisfied with etraining. This study will help in

understanding whether a satisfied employee performs better. Research in this area

will be really important for the corporate world as they will be able to develop and

organise more successful etraining programmes.

The other aspect that needs further exploration as well is in studying the employees

perspective towards etraining and whether do they really feel more attached to the

training if they are made keeping their inputs in mind. Although most organisations

developing etraining solutions for their employees will in some way of the other take

some inputs from their employees, it will be really important for the organisations

know whether there is worth investing time and effort towards understanding an

employee’s needs.

One minor aspect which does need further study is to understand whether etraining

managers who are responsible for the etraining development for a company need to

be dedicatedly working on development activities or also be a part of managing

training as a whole. This need comes across after knowing that etraining courseware

development process has many critical areas which need constant supervision by a

manager who needs to overlook at the process at every step in order to ensure high

success rate.

[Word Count: 19,081]


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Chapter 7: The Appendices

Appendix A–Interview Questionnaire for Evaluation

University of Sheffield University

Department of Information School

Pre Interview

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Sheetal Thawal and I am a postgraduate student in the Information

School at the University of Sheffield in the UK. The purpose of this interview is to

evaluate the Employee satisfaction of your company which in return will lead to the

success of the Etraining conducted in your company.

I take this opportunity to thank you for participating in this interview.

Before conducting these interviews, let me assure you that the questions asked

during the interview will not be directly related to anything sensitive. For data

collection purpose I will be using a software-voice recorder during the interview.

The recording would be accessed only by me for my research purpose, and it will be

erased once the dissertation is completed in September 2011.

The results of this discussion will be treated as confidential and your name will be

made anonymous. If the company wishes then I would share the research report so

that they can evaluate the analysis and hence upgrade the training methods if wished

which would satisfy both the employees (trainees) and the company. I would also

create an executive summary of the entire research which might be useful for the

company.

Please do not hesitate to share your extensive experiences and options about the

interview questions with me.


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Interview Questions:

Section 1: General Questions

1.1 As Learning Development Manager of the Insurance department what is your

daily routine?

1.2 In your opinion is your employee satisfaction in the etraining you conduct

beneficial for the company’s growth?

Follow-up Question:

Does it improve the operational efficiency of the project?

Is your team supportive towards the etraining?

1.3 According to you what is more effective, the traditional classroom training or the

ETraining.

Trigger Question:

To be more specific in terms of Return on Investment (ROI) and employee

satisfaction?


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Section 2: ETraining products

2.1 What type of ETraining product do you usually develop?

Follow-up Question:

Do you develop same product for all etrainings or the product changes as per the

requirement of the ETraining. e.g.: CD-ROM, Game based, Multimedia

simulations…Etc.

Do the employees respond to the different ETraining products?

2.2 Do you use any Instructional Design Methodology? If so, does it consider inputs

of future trainee satisfaction?

Follow-up Question:

If Yes, please describe.

If No, please explain why not.


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2.3 Do you use any Project Management Methodology? If so, does it consider inputs

of future trainee satisfaction?

User Involvement

Workplace environment

Follow-up Question:



2.4 Do you ever face any issues while conducting ETraining? If so, does it consider

as inputs of future trainee satisfaction?

Follow-up Question:

Like whether the existing technology infrastructure can accomplish the training

goals?

Cultural issues where the demographics and psychographics may predispose them

against using computers at all?


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2.5 While developing an ETraining course what are the basic criteria’s you consider?

Follow-up Question:

Do you evaluate the development cost, or the trainee satisfaction or mode of

etraining?

Section 3: Trainee (Employee) Satisfaction

3.1 Do you conduct any specific measures to keep a check if the employee (trainee)

is satisfied with the etraining?

Follow-up Question:

If Yes, what is it that the employees liked the most about the ETraining as compared

to classroom training?

If No, what could be the specific reasons?


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3.2 According to you how successful are the trainees in implementing their action

plans?

Follow-up Question:

Did you personally support the trainees to implement the same after the etraining?

3.3 How do you evaluate the benefit of conducting the etraining?

Follow-up Question:

What specifically did the learners learn or be usefully reminded of?

What commitment have the learners made about the learning they are going to

implement on their return to work?


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Appendix B – Sample Interview Transcript

Section 1: General Questions

Interviewer: 1.1 As Learning Development Manager of the Insurance department

what is your daily routine?

Interviewee: ―I will have to tell you about my job profile, which will define my daily

routine. Part of head office I m responsible for 3 major things:

1) Content development for all the verticals.

2) MIS and analytics, all the productivity related reports, observations etc

which is another responsibility.

3) ETraining

These are the 3 major areas that I am responsible for my organization, so that in a

way defines my routine.

The first couple of hours in first half are primarily decided by some urgent important

work areas that I have, it could be related to MIS analysis etc. or at times it could be

related to content development delivery review, or it could be on ETraining depends

on what is the high priority on which the first 2 hrs get decided. Next section till

lunch is reviewing the Content development activities that are on. Post lunch

answering mails, because the mail rate in India, and particularly our company is

quiet high, if u are away from your desk for couple of hrs you have around 40 odd

mails to answer, so clearing then up and then again moving to checking on MIS

statuses, planning for next day, next week, and the final review of all these 3 i.e. MIS

productivity reports, content development between verticals and Etraining

development activities.‖

Interviewer: 1.2 In your opinion is your employee satisfaction in the etraining you

conduct beneficial for the company’s growth?

Follow-up Question:


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Does it improve the operational efficiency of the project?

Is your team supportive towards the etraining?

Interviewee: “Oh yes most certainly because a satisfied employee whether through

training or by policy is always beneficial for our organization and that has been our

observation as well that if he or she is looking forward to suit the training inputs

than he or she is more connected to work, adds more enthusiasm towards work puts

in lot of energy around it, eventually getting better results and then it is a cycle, it‟s

a positive cycle for his growth eventually connecting to branch and the organization.

Every survey or any book that I have read it always says a positive answer. However

in my organization if you are saying do I have any data to substantiate it, No I don‟t.

But my generic understanding is that a satisfied employee must be better

contributing to the project.

If you ask me that has been exactly my personal experience in the charge that I have

taken in the last 110-120 days. See one of the typical issues that we have found under

the name of multitasking people or the supervisors who are handling branches they

are the ones who release their team members for training. So what is the impetence

for one to release the team for training,

1) He should be naturally inclined towards the importance of training

2) Or he should understand what is in the offering and is it importance for his

team members to take up training and then take a call.

Now the problem is that both these things are not seem clearly in most of the cases,

neither people have lot of inclination towards training or sending the team members

for training nor are they ready to read and spend some time with themselves and

with the content to understand that it would benefit their branches. Hence we

observe that there is an initial resistance for releasing this training, however if they

release it, or detach from their supervisor say, if the employee goes through lot of

handy tools which he or she can apply in their business then the person gets overly

joyed and convinced that ,oh all these things I was not aware that you guys gave is

eventually helping me to solve my problems with which all these days I was


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struggling with. So it‟s a moment of truth that they have to experience then only, they

get inclined to send people for the subsequent training programs.”

Interviewer: 1.3 According to you what is more effective, the traditional classroom

training or the ETraining.

Trigger Question:

To be more specific in terms of Return on Investment (ROI) and employee

satisfaction?

Interviewee: ―I would say it depends on the audience.

Like for example for the audience we have like the frontline sales team members they

are more inclined towards classroom training, interactivity, discussion , learning

sessions listening to people, visual effects etc. There is another set of audience who

is a little season then the mature audience; they are more inclined towards the

etraining due to the convenience of learning and they are themselves wise learning

these concepts. So we don‟t have a peer pressure to feel good or bad whether they

are able to understand the concepts or not so they would prefer etraining.

Our observation is been that the entry level employees are not generally very

comfortable with etraining. Subsequently they have to be mature to get on to the

curve to be able to get along with the etraining program. I believe that it would be

the case way we mostly because most of the academic orientation has never been

through learning through computers or something like that it has always been

through classroom training lectures and all. We do have a defined architecture for

the first 6 months which is a mix of classroom as well as etraining, and these are

compulsory programs so the employees have to undergo them, this way we train

them, make them comfortable to etraining. Etraining will be beneficial most of the

times because of the geography that India has it help you to reach out to people

though the connectivity remains a challenge even now, however the speed is better.

In this case the initial development cost, that is the infrastructure cost is the only

cost that has to be taken care of, otherwise it‟s a readily available platform on which

people can learn.


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That‟s more of physiological effect for the beginners of classroom training they are

still accumed to having a feeling if they have got something only when they see

people around, when they interact with them, that is what happens with most of us,

irrespective of the hierarchy. However with the limited time available with the

employee, and the infrastructure limitation that he may have the time, people are

getting more and more convinced about the benefits of etraining. At the same time

there are more and more new concepts, which are getting the trainees hooked on

and taking up etraining.‖

Section 2: ETraining products

Interviewer: 2.1What type of ETraining product do you usually develop?

Follow-up Question:

Do you develop same product for all etrainings or the product changes as per the

requirement of the ETraining. e.g.: CD-ROM, Game based, Multimedia

simulations…Etc.

Do the employees respond to the different ETraining products?

Interviewee: ―Yes we do use different types of etraining products. My personal

experience is that web based solutions was always appreciated by people, they liked

the change and the response rate improves. By this what I mean is that as per my

observation if the people see good amount of variety in products, eventually the

interest of the people improves. They do not equally respond to all the products,

what hooks them on is the proper storyline, a game based kind of interactivity, it‟s

easy enough for them to get into it, however challenging enough is for them to

scratch their game, so it‟s challenging to find out what they want.‖

Interviewer: 2.2 Do you use any Instructional Design Methodology? If so, does it

consider inputs of future trainee satisfaction?

Follow-up Question:



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Interviewee: ―Yes we do have methods:-

1) VOC-World Cup Customer

2) FGU-Focus Group Discussion

For a particular segment whom the program has to be developed we have a

360degree feedback session, by asking them, asking their supervisor, asking their

juniors, and asking their peers as in what kind of skill set is required, so when we

have a 5 minutes of understanding as in what all is exactly expected, we workout

through knowledge we have something called as ISM instructional strategy matrix,

that gets designed.

There are established methodologies like ADDIE, Assess Design Develop Implement

Evaluate. Blooms Taxonomy. These scientific tools are better understood by the

designer and it all depends on the time available for designing the content and which

would really apply.‖

Interviewer: 2.3 Do you use any Project Management Methodology? If so, does it

consider inputs of future trainee satisfaction?

User Involvement

Workplace environment

Follow-up Question:



Interviewee: ―We have not formalized any methodology as of now, however our

aspiration would be really to put that structure around. Based on the past

experience, wisdom, things that are available to you in terms of VOC, FGU and

ISM.‖

Interviewer: 2.4 Do you ever face any issues while conducting ETraining? If so, does

it consider as inputs of future trainee satisfaction?


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Follow-up Question:

Like whether the existing technology infrastructure can accomplish the training

goals?

Cultural issues where the demographics and psychographics may predispose them

against using computers at all?

Interviewee: ―I have not come across cultural issues so far. There are certain

guidelines within which the content is developed so there are no religious sentiments

that get involved in the content development at all. It more generic then any region

specific example at all. However we do have issues pertaining to BW, and

connectivity issue is their part of lie because its not only in accessing the etraining

solutions but its also when they access other applications. They know its an issue for

them, but they will still have to stay with it.‖

Interviewer: 2.5 While developing an ETraining course what are the basic criteria’s

you consider?

Follow-up Question:

Do you evaluate the development cost, or the trainee satisfaction or mode of

etraining?

Interviewee: “It‟s a mix and match that we have to do.

1) Important factor is time, which we have to take in account, many times that

become a deciding factor,

2) We work backwards, if that is the time available, then who is the training partner

or the development partner we need to finalize, what are their efficiency levels, cost

also is a factor but it is negotiable, but time can‟t be compromised, so time becomes

more deciding factor.

See there are instances where trainees get really bugged up with 2-3 aspects, one is

constant disconnection due to BW issues, sometimes they find it boring, if managers

are around they can see the reactions coming from the employees, you can find out a

mechanism o get such kind of feedback in central office so what we generally do is


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when we release the learning program, and we release a communication around it,

we usually give them a mail id, in our case it is [email protected] so

the trainees can email their feedbacks, which in turn helps to design the forthcoming

programs or update the current programs if there is a need.‖

Section 3: Trainee (Employee) Satisfaction

Interviewer: 3.1 Do you conduct any specific measures to keep a check if the

employee (trainee) is satisfied with the etraining?

Follow-up Question:

If Yes, what is it that the employees liked the most about the ETraining as compared

to classroom training?

If No, what could be the specific reasons?

Interviewee: ― We have a feedback mechanism that is the push mail, and when it

comes to organizational learning we have something called as K-Quotient, we have

also given telephonic support where we have in house call centre where we have

booked couple of seats, where we expect that within 15-20 days all the employees

must take up the etraining program. Generally what happens is people are not

comfortable writing a mail, in that case they can just call & get the query resolved &

get on, so that was an additional support we had given while conducting a K-

Quotient program. Otherwise it‟s a email support that is always available.”

Interviewer: 3.2 According to you how successful are the trainees in implementing

their action plans?

Follow-up Question:

Did you personally support the trainees to implement the same after the etraining?

Interviewee: ―See we have a set of trainers across the country, so after the etraining

program there is an objective with which the program gets conducted, post to that

definitely there is a support available, which is generic for the learner to implement

these learning‟s in actual reality. So to summarize they are implementing it in their

actual work and they do have support if they get stuck.‖

mailto:[email protected]


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Interviewer: 3.3 How do you evaluate the benefit of conducting the etraining?

Follow-up Question:

What specifically did the learners learn or be usefully reminded of?

What commitment have the learners made about the learning they are going to

implement on their return to work?

Interviewee: ―One preliminary check is to get their understanding in any training

that we develop whether classroom or etraining.

On the implementation part as mentioned earlier, there are other departments,

called as MIS an productivity analysis. So each program has a certain objective.

When we generate MIS after a particular frequency that gives a fair idea if a person

is able to implement it in his situation and what are the delta movements happening

around him. And those are periodically highlighted to their supervisors.‖

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