Nurses learn leadership the e-way

An award-winning e-learning solution meets the needs of nurses and clinical staff

Dealing with day-to-day leadership issues

Faced with large-scale modernization and change, the UK's National Health Service (NHS)
has turned to the Internet to help busy nurses deal will day-to-day leadership issues, such as
problem solving, con¯ict situations and handling change. As part of the national nursing
leadership program (NNLP), an award-winning e-learning project has been developed to deliver
computer-based training to a large number of nurses at low cost.
The NNLP, which is now the largest single leadership program in the world, was confronted
with the practical dif®culty of removing nurses from the ward for long periods of training. Speci®c
issues that prevented staff from attending included the work/life balance, lack of time, lack of
money, lack of support and staff shortages. Existing courses had been successful in supporting
and developing leaders, but research showed that nursing staff preferred to learn at home and
over the Internet ± in their own time and at their own pace.

Phased approach
The e-learning project, which was launched in April 2002 and has since become an integral part
of the NNLP, was implemented using a phased approach. A pilot phase involving 400 clinical
staff set out to establish the e-learning needs of nurses. The results suggested that staff wanted
easy access, good information and user guidance. They wanted to build their skills relating
to leadership, personal effectiveness, con¯ict resolution, embracing/championing change and
problem solving.
Following feedback from the pilot phase, a number of changes were implemented. These
included:
J customization of generic content, whereby the NHS team could modify the e-learning
in-house;
J deployment to a wider audience, in which courses uniquely featuring audio, graphics and text
could be delivered through any Internet browser, using standard 56K modems and telephone
lines; and
J offering online guidance and dedicated technical support.

Once these changes were implemented, the program was rolled out to a further 1,000 nurses
prior to the next phase.

`` Ongoing user feedback is a vital way of improving the

e-learning process itself.
''

DOI 10.1108/14777280410519581
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VOL. 18 NO. 2 2004, pp. 29-31, ã Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1477-7282 DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS PAGE 29
 Phase three began with a full marketing campaign with the aim of reaching 20,000 nurses by
summer 2003 and 40,000 by December 2004. This campaign included trade press advertising,
a promotional CD-ROM sent to all nursing directors in NHS hospitals across the UK, and a
posting on the NNLP Web site.

Integration with existing programs

Instead of heavy investment in a bespoke e-learning package, the NHS opted for a highly
customized solution using generic e-learning content that is adapted to the hospital environment.

Through the phased project's customization process, the e-learning program is linked closely
to the instructor-based leadership courses offered by the UK's Royal College of Nursing and
leading empowering organizations. In this way, the e-learning program enables learners to
builds on existing skills, as well as opening up leadership training opportunities to completely
new audiences.

Feedback and measurement

Ongoing user feedback is a vital way of improving the e-learning process itself. The manage-
ment system developed by SkillSoft, which provided the generic e-learning content, offers
regular reports, such as numbers of users and courses accessed. This information is linked
back into and helps to direct marketing programs and qualitative research.

In addition, representative samples of nurses are asked if they had put their e-learning into
practice. The results to date suggest that almost 70 percent of e-learners can give concrete
examples of how they have applied their new knowledge on the wards.

Further, more than 85 percent of learners said they would recommend e-learning to a colleague
or friend. Almost 75 percent of students spent less than 30 minutes online per session and
58 percent of learners studied at home.

The project has helped nurses address real issues such as: time management; dealing with
dif®cult people; problem solving with patients; holding effective meetings; clinical team building;
coaching and mentoring; dealing with bullying; supporting teams; asking for resources to do the
job; and managing paperwork.

Bene®ts
The project demonstrates that e-learning can be successfully implemented to train large
numbers of staff in a cost-effective way. Speci®c bene®ts of e-learning include:
J increasing the accessibility of leadership training;
J introducing relevant new skills;
J incorporating training into the work/life balance;
J offering the ability to learn in small chunks that ®t in with time pressures;
J accessing learning just-in-time to meet pressing needs; and
J cost-effectiveness compared with developing bespoke e-learning packages.

In particular, an e-learning project can be introduced at a very low cost per employee, which
results in signi®cant cost savings. It has been found to be an excellent way of underpinning and
supporting existing learning programs as well as opening up leadership development to a whole
Keywords:
new section of staff.
Leadership,
Computer-based training, Further, the use of a phased approach that focuses on quality and effectiveness at each stage
Employee development, enables information to be collected from, for example, users, technical support or developers.
Nurses, UK This is critical to provide ongoing improvements for the learning process itself.

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PAGE 30 DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS VOL. 18 NO. 2 2004
`` An e-learning project can be introduced at a very low
cost per employee, which results in signi®cant cost
savings.
''

Comment
This review is based on ``Using e-learning to liberate the talents of nurses'' by Young (2003)
of SkillSoft, West Drayton, UK. The article describes a highly acclaimed e-learning project
developed for the UK's NHS. The case for using customized, generic e-learning content is well
presented and forcefully argued (albeit by the content providers themselves), and provides
good examples of user feedback. The article will have particular interest for developers of
leadership development programs in organizations with large numbers of employees and where
classroom-based courses may not always be practical.

Reference
Young, K. (2003), ``Using e-learning to liberate the talents of nurses'', Industrial and Commercial Training,
Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 137-41, ISSN: 0019-7858.

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