Blended Delivery Strategies for Competency-Based Training

With employees located across a wide geographical area, the ability of organizations to provide equitable training programs is costly. Travel funds, enabling employees to attend on-site training events, can be severely limited or even nonexistent. Compounding the problem is the simple fact that travel to a central training location frequently results in longer workdays for employees, causing increased compensation expenses to cover the training associated over time. These factors, coupled with the organizational need to provide just-in-time or skill-based training can impose challenges for the human resource development practitioner. Thus, practitioners are turning to blended learning strategies as a way to overcome these obstacles. This solution, however, is not without its problems. This article describes blended learning within the context of learning theories and provides recommendations for best practice.