TECHNOLOGY
E-learning rises to top of class for agency education needs
By Dave Willis
Make no mistake. Interactive, Web-based learning--also called e-learning--is transforming how agency and brokerage professionals approach their businesses, their clients and their continuing education and professional development.
Armed with little more than a computer, a microphone and speakers, agency personnel at all levels are joining their peers from around the country--or just across town--via the Internet, for real-time learning and information-sharing sessions. Session organizers manage the process, handle logistics and present content live to all participants at the same time. Handouts are sent ahead--usually via e-mail, and are viewable online during the live presentation.
Participants listen to the presentation via a Web browser--working from materials printed out ahead of time for them, or following along online. Students can click a "raise hand" button and use their PC microphone to ask questions or make comments. If they prefer, or if they're not microphone-equipped, they can use a text chat window instead.
The leader can share PowerPoint presentations, write "overhead" notes visible through the user's computer monitor, and even demonstrate third-party software, all in real time. Leaders can conduct polls on the fly and show results tabulated as responses come in.
Carriers, software groups, trainers and others all are using the technology. In insurance and risk management, topics range from agent sales and marketing education to sexual harassment awareness training for supervisors.
Public and private sessions target wide audiences
Most uses of e-learning are private affairs. Royal & SunAlliance, for instance, uses it to speed delivery of information to its employees, agents and clients. Safety-Kleen, an environmental services firm, offers sexual harassment awareness training for supervisors in a virtual classroom. And ASCnet, the Applied Systems user group, offers 22 courses a month to its agencies live, over the Web.
"Our classes are designed for CSRs and bookkeepers," says David Andrukiewicz, ASCnet education director. ASCnet's goal in going online with some of its education offerings was to serve agencies that couldn't send someone to chapter meetings because of cost or staff size. ASCnet has about 4,800 member agencies and some 70 chapters. Its online venture--ASCnetU--was launched in July 2000.
On the public front, Centra, which sells software used to run online meetings, recently hosted a series of presentations covering sales, marketing, and services strategies. The series, "Outsell, Outmarket, Outservice!," featured presentations by AT&T, Peppers & Rogers, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and more. Other software providers, such as Webex, offer similar sessions.
Earlier this year, Rough Notes magazine, together with Roger Sitkins, offered a public sales training seminar for nearly 500 insurance agency professionals. Sitkins is president of Sitkins Group, which offers networking, consulting and learning opportunities to a select group of client insurance agencies.
Sitkins is no stranger to e-learning, although most of his work has been on the private side, working with his own "Sitkins 100" member agencies. "We've been doing it for a year-and-a-half," Sitkins says. "We run everything from one-hour monthly forums on various subjects to full training sessions." Topics include sales, sales management, CEO issues, producer training, account manager training and business development center training.
Singing from the same songbook
Jan Johnson, controller and head of human resources for Dawson Insurance, a Fargo, North Dakota, agency, appreciates the consistency of message. "You don't have the same person each time you do regular training. I was looking for more consistency. This is a great tool for consistency."
Johnson first experienced ASCnetU interactive training sessions as a volunteer chapter executive. She hosted sessions that brought two dozen users together for training. In her agency, up to 10 people take part at any given time. "They're mostly customer service reps," Johnson says. She had a brand new producer take part, as well. "We were putting her through the regular training disks on the system. For her to be able to come in on a group like that, she learned just what others in the office were learning," Johnson says.
Sitkins, who offers live, in-person sessions for members at his Ft. Myers, Florida, headquarters, also finds consistency important. "When we have our live sessions, the owners, producers or sales managers come to the programs," he says. "We found we weren't really getting our message to all of the other members of the agency. When an agency joins in an online session, CSRs attend alongside producers, sales managers and others. All hear the same thing, at the same time."
There's learning in numbers
Interaction also contributes to e-learning's popularity. Marc Beemer, education coordinator for ASCnetU, provides this insight: "The leader greets everybody and 'passes' the microphone along to each of the participants, so they can introduce themselves to the rest of the group," he says. "It really is like being in a class, just in separate rooms."
Patty Andree, business development coordinator for the Milwaukee-based agency Fitzgerald, Clayton, James & Kasten, says interaction is key. Andree and business development coordinators from agencies around the country hold monthly, real-time, online roundtables. "We share with each other things we've tried, things we want to try, ideas that we've heard of," she says. "It's something you wouldn't do otherwise. If you pick up the phone (to call someone to discuss an idea), you're talking to one person. You go online, you're with 30."
Dawson's Johnson also is a fan of the interaction. "You have the benefit that someone else may be asking questions that you hadn't thought of," she says.
Interaction need not stop when sessions end. Sitkins says most of his member agencies hold a "meeting after the meeting." "We ask them to spend another 30 minutes after we're done online, to talk about what they got out of it, what things they need to implement, and how to get it done," he says.
Lead time virtually eliminated
Another e-learning draw is the speed with which information can be shared. "There's no hesitation in the delivery of materials if we have a hot topic that comes out, something new we want to introduce," Sitkins says.
He just introduced a new training approach, which he wanted to share with a large number of people quickly. Rather than pulling together a live program, which would require two or three months' lead time, Sitkins went online. "We had 85 of our members online, and they got the basics of a new program and were trained in it, without having to come here," he said.
Bogan & Formeller, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, agency, had an urgent need of its own, according to Donna Webb, commercial lines account manager. "We had quite a bit of employee turnover in the last quarter of last year and the first part of this year," she recalls. "With so many new employees, we really needed to get some training in here." Webb recently signed up her agency for ASCnetU courses and is training five reps quickly online.
An idea whose time has come
Other factors--more societal--have converged to make e-learning attractive to agency owners and their staff. First is a reluctance to travel after September 11. Also, 2001's economic slowdown led to belt-tightening for businesses of all kinds. And a renewed interest in work-life balance, particularly among workers with children at home, has lessened travel interest.
Couple these factors with the increased agency workloads brought on by a hardened insurance market and you have a climate for a good e-learning market.
ASCnet's Beemer says: "Our members feel that there is definitely a convenience feature for them. They don't have to worry about the expense associated with sending people out of the office for training, nor do they have to worry about getting their desks covered."
Webb notes: "It's not that expensive--$50 a class definitely makes it affordable from the agency standpoint. It's not like I have to come up with several hundred dollars to send somebody someplace. Also, it's tough for us to be 'out of pocket' for two or three days."
Process to overcome glitches
Like all technologies, e-learning has its own set of potential problems. Users take part in pre-event orientation sessions to help identify and fix these. "The first orientation class I went into, I was having trouble with my computer," Webb recalls. "I ended up having to cancel and reschedule for a week later. I had to uninstall and reinstall the software. Once I did that, I was fine.
"That's the whole idea of the orientation class, to make sure that you can get in, and that you can do everything you're supposed to do, that you know how to 'raise your hand' and speak," she explains. "You get all the glitches worked out before you go into a class, so you don't hold up the class."
Agencies take lead with new uses
Agencies are starting to take the idea of e-learning in a new direction. Instead of just using the technology to receive information, some are about to use it to share, as well. "For any of the members that have branch offices, it's a great tool for them to spread the word without having to travel," Sitkins says. Also, agencies can offer education to their own clients and prospects. Rather than trying to put together a seminar, and get clients and prospects to come in for a presentation on a specific issue, Sitkins is helping agencies run online seminars.
Andree's agency plans to be among the first. "We plan on doing seminars online for our clients. We can have up to 20 or 25 of our clients get online with us. For us in Wisconsin, that's ideal for winter," she says.
Prospects for growth
ASCnet's Andrukiewicz sees continued growth in e-learning. "We're planning to expand our Web-based training," he says. But he doesn't see it replacing more traditional educational opportunities, at least not at his shop. "We are moving forward with increasing this. But we're looking to increase our other venues, because they have value, also. We want to continue to grow everything we're doing with our education offerings."
Sitkins agrees the technology won't replace traditional meetings--at least not all of them. "The feedback we get is, people prefer the live event because of the synergy and networking with other people who are there. The excitement is contagious," he says.
Still, he knows traveling doesn't always make sense. E-learning offers many of the benefits of in-person events, but without the time and expense associated with travel. "This sort of training is an extremely viable alternative," he says. *
The author
Dave Willis is a New Hampshire-based writer who edits www.RoughNotesToday.com, an online daily news service for agents. He is a cofounder and former editorial director of PropertyAndCasualty.com. Previously, he wrote for national and regional business and nonprofit publications and held senior communication positions for a large global insurer and a respected insurance professional society.