<b><strong>Diversity training offered with ease of eLearning</strong></b>
Cincinnati Business Courier - October 13, 2006
by Lucy May, Senior Staff Reporter
After 30 years in the diversity training business, with facilitators traveling from city to city to help companies and employees confront their biases, Pat Pope has come to believe eLearning is the industry's future.
Four years ago, she didn't think it possible.That's when the Myca Group, a local technology firm, approached her about forming a business to convert Pope & Associates' intellectual property into online educational materials. Pope admits she was skeptical that something as sensitive as diversity training could be done by computer.
But since the owners of the two firms formed Myca-Pope in 2002, she's become convinced. And fully 90 percent of the proposals that Pope & Associates submits now include some eLearning component, she said.
"You know that everyone is getting the same message, delivered in exactly the same way," said Pope, CEO of Sharonville-based Pope & Associates, the diversity training firm founded by Pope and her late husband 30 years ago.
"In addition to the cost savings in terms of travel expenses, training room costs and meals, there are other benefits of not pulling people out of their jobs to attend training."
The eLearning approach isn't best for every client or every situation. But for many, it's an efficient way to train lots of employees quickly, Pope said.
It's certainly been a critical component of the work Pope & Associates has done for Verizon Communications' IT group, said Toni Thompson, a senior staff consultant in human resources for Verizon.
Thompson helped select Pope to train IT managers and directors, using both eLearning and face-to-face training.
Completing the eLearning courses before the instructor-led training helped save time during the group seminars, Thompson said. The anonymity of the eLearning helped encourage people to be more honest in their responses without worrying about what others might think, she added.
Still, getting people to accept eLearning hasn't been easy.
"It was tough getting potential clients to envision how you can do this kind of training online," said Patti Massey, president of Myca-Pope, one of Pope's partners.
11/9/2006
