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Case Study

Published July 2008

Procter & Gamble: Break Up the Content With Surgical Learning

  

  William Martin

As technology evolves, employees need more training, more often. Surgical learning at Procter & Gamble provides a means to train these employees quickly on focused, applicable topics.

During the past two decades, the frequency, magnitude and speed of change in organizations have increased dramatically. Technology, globalization and organizational transformations force companies and their employees to learn and utilize new skills, business models, organizational designs and software at an ever-increasing pace to remain competitive.

This presents a dilemma for most organizations. Employees require more training, more often and in an environment in which dealing with the very changes they need training on limits the amount of time they are available for training. “Surgical learning” presents one solution to this paradox. By empowering authors at local levels in the organization to develop and implement short, targeted lessons, maximum productivity is achieved. Surgical learning is a way to capitalize on the waves of change flowing through the company rather than fall victim to them.

Technology Is Changing Rapidly
The rate of technology change is increasing in frequency, magnitude and speed and will continue to do so in the future. Software life cycles have shortened and new products arrive in the market making existing ones obsolete. Technology skills continuously are evolving, as new software offers previously unavailable capabilities for the end user.

Similarly, organizational change is increasing and will continue to do so. Companies constantly are seeking optimum designs to compete in today’s ever-changing global world. For many organizations, globalization, increased competition and new business models have caused them to reconsider everything about their designs. The evaluation of the company’s success in the marketplace may result in outsourcing, downsizing, centralizing, decentralizing, acquiring, divesting and/or reorganizing.

Additionally, globalization has changed work schedules, making it possible for an employee to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As a result, many employees are taking more work home and on vacation. The result is a workaholic culture in which work-life balance and employee health is significantly impacted, and many companies are providing work-life balance programs to help employees cope.

Effects on Employees
Employees are expected to keep current and productive. As software life cycles shorten, new technologies emerge, the organization is in flux and the workday lengthens — and this has become an increasingly daunting task. Employees are dealing with multiple simultaneous changes on a daily basis. The pressure to learn fast is significant, and the individual who learns the fastest wins.

However, traditional classroom and Web-based training (WBT) development processes cannot meet the current pace of change. They are too slow, too costly and too ineffective. Companies must train large populations of their workforces rapidly in order to maintain effectiveness, and traditional methods no longer can meet this challenge.