Why the Traditional Corporate Classroom is Disappearing

Statistics Confirm Formal Classroom Evaporation

The traditional corporate classroom has been a staple of employee training and education for decades. Until the birth of the 21st century, corporate classroom education increased as most of industry depended on ever-changing and improving technology.

Unlike the early and middle of the 20th century, when many employees could establish their knowledge base once (manufacturing, accounting, sales, etc.) and add expertise on-the-job, technological innovations starting in the 1970s required employees to be constantly learning new techniques and processes.

However, the volume and sophistication of technological advances includes impressive improvements in the education function. Therefore, web- and computer-based study is quickly replacing “brick and mortar” classrooms at many workplaces. The organizations that track this trend confirm the mysterious case of the disappearing classroom.

For example, in 2001, 76 percent of all corporate training and education transpired in formal classrooms. Only 11.5 percent of company training was totally technology-based. Since then, the average annual decrease in classroom training is 2.48 percent per year. That average includes an increase in 2008, during the depths of the recession.

Web 2.0 current and anticipated improvements project to carry online learning to an even higher level. The amazing graphics, simulations, complexity, and task levels of Web 2.0 should again change the landscape of learning, escalating knowledge acquisition to new, interesting levels.

Reasons for the Disappearing Classroom

Along with web-based advances, there are other legitimate reasons for the “case of the disappearing classroom.” Employees should understand these reasons to help prepare for the coming education revolution.

• Increasing costs of travel and attendance offsite: As senior executives navigate through the deep recession and attempt to regain public trust in their financial stewardship, cost control is more prominent. Attending offsite corporate education programs has become more costly than many organizations wish to support. Rising fuel costs have generated higher travel costs. When added to seminar attendance costs, educational expenses can take a large “budget bite” during recessionary cost containment.
• Lost workplace time with smaller staff: Neither management nor staff happily endorses downsizing, layoffs, or job elimination. However, down economies often necessitate severe employee cutbacks. The recent recession has caused many companies to operate with reduced staff levels in order to survive. Hours in formal classroom settings, while useful, also put extra strain on reduced staff levels. This affects not only those still at the workplace, who often performing extra responsibilities, but also those in the classroom, who must return to an even larger work load.
• Ease of getting information online at work rather than studying formal packaged courses: Formerly, communicating knowledge was more effective using packaged learning programs. Unless employees were given time off during the workday to attend formal college-level classes or spend hours doing research at the library, access to high level information and knowledge was difficult. The incredible volume of information available via the web has eliminated this concern.
• Questions of education relevance: As technological changes and improvements appear at a rapid rate, prepackaged training courses may be teaching older, already out-of-date information. This condition is not the fault of many well designed and organized education programs. It is simply a result of the amazing speed of technology changes.
• Responsibility for gaining knowledge is transferring from teachers to employees: Much like the dramatic transfer of responsibility from teacher to student that occurs in the large leap from high school to college, the task of gaining additional expertise is moving from supervisor to employee in the business community. The combination of the wonderful information available online and the corporate “need for speed” has fueled this contemporary transfer of responsibility.
• Learning function becoming a continuing and ongoing event: The influence of global markets, even on smaller companies, the consistent evolution of technology, the ever-increasing volume of new government regulations, and the increasing creativity of the competition has made ongoing learning a necessity. Instead of using the benefits of an annual or sporadic additional course, learning must now continue on a daily or weekly basis.
• Younger workforce is highly tech competent. As the aging workforce is replaced by younger employees, the average level of “tech competency” increases. It is therefore easier to introduce what formerly were “non-traditional” education and training programs for this younger workforce.
• The “Net Generation” is becoming an ever larger percentage of the workforce. Those workers born between 1977 and 1997 are known as the “Net Generation”. Contributing to the declining average age at the workplace, this group already accounts for an amazing 27 percent of the U.S. workforce. Beyond the general comfort with technology enjoyed by the overall younger employee pool, they are as adept at using web-based functions as they are at eating and sleeping.

These factors are the primary elements in the case of the disappearing corporate classroom. When viewed objectively, this evolution benefits most employees. The opportunity to generate constant learning, integrate new skills immediately into job duties, and gain knowledge 24/7/365 gives employees the ability to become as valuable as they want to be.