Transitioning from the Classroom to Online Training:

A City of Los Angeles Experience

Michael Gold, PhDCity of Los Angeles Personnel Department

City of Los Angeles 45,000 employees 42 City Departments Personnel Department responsible for

training most generic topics Individual departments responsible for

department-specific training

Background

7-8 Trainers in Personnel Department 3-4 classes per week each trainers 30 students per class

Before Online Training

2008 – City Council instructed Personnel Department to look into online training

We found that online training would: Reduce training costs Reach significantly more users than classroom

training Eliminate travel time Be convenient and easy to use Contain interactive features

The Transition

2010 – Contracted with vendor to provide online training Learning Management System Content

Online Training

Four courses developed for us: Reasonable Accommodations EEO Supervisory Skills Customer Service

Initial Online Training Content

Staff of 2 Currently have 21 courses Mandatory course

Disaster Service Worker: 23,562 completed Preventing Sexual Harassment: 18,254 completed

Non Mandatory courses: EEO: 774 Customer Service 628 Safety : 774

Current Training Program

Website we created through which online training can be accessed

Provides resources for department training coordinators and for employees

Training Portal

All supervisor resources in one place Rules, policies Brief informational how-to paragraphs Links to supervisory training

Supervisory Library

Issues and Challenges

Custom-developed courses

Off-the-shelf courses

Time consuming to review

Limited views

Generally cheaper Limited time

Generally more expensive

Mandatory v Non-Mandatory

Issues and Challenges

Measuring success Number of employees trained Number of courses offered Positive course evaluations

Issues and Challenges

Even though the vendor is developing a course for you, you are still going to need to devote a lot of time to it.

Lessons Learned

Custom-made courses are generally better value than off-the-shelf courses because you can keep them forever, vs. having to license the courses

Lessons Learned

You need a plan to handle technical issues.

Lessons Learned

Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they will come.

Lessons Learned

More courses More focus on advertising the training Require online training to be prerequisite to

classroom training Link competencies required for job with

competencies covered in each course

Future

Questions?