Tata Interactive Systems (TIS), the global e-learning producer, was one of only eight organisations in the world to be awarded one of this year’s Performance Centred Design (PCD) Awards. The awards are conferred by EPSScentral LLC, the Virginia-based worldwide provider of electronic performance support systems (EPSS) and PCD and were presented at the Training Solutions Conference and Expo in Denver, Colorado, in November.

According to TIS’s Saurabh Mittal: “TIS‘s EPSS provides on the job, context relevant knowledge support and tools to improve performance execution. It’s an integrated online support system, which guides employees at every step of complex operations, enabling them to take appropriate decisions. This ensures consistency in decision-making, improved productivity and lower training costs.”

The core elements of the EPSS are process guides, scenarios, tools and knowledge reference. Interactive process guides ensure that employees execute the process according to the requirements of best practice. The EPSS focuses on enabling action and not just providing passive information. It has been designed using the principles of Human Factor Engineering, which leads to superior usage performance and application on the job.

Among the applications of TIS’s EPSS is in the insurance industry, where it has helped to remove inflexibility. This has not only helped to build employees’ expertise in handling complex procedures but also improve the quality of customer service and customer satisfaction levels as well as productivity and profitability.

Comment: EPSS – or ‘rapid’, ‘workflow’ or just plain ‘informal’ learning – is gathering ground as there is general realisation that 80 per cent of all organisational learning happens informally. This is upsetting a number of ‘traditional’ LMS vendors because LMSs have been designed to monitor and measure formal learning activities – either delivered via a classroom or electronically. Therefore, they are not effective at assessing informal learning. But which would you rather: have a system that measures some of the learning activities in your organisation so that you can justify your position through the ‘ROI’ figures this monitoring produces or provide the means – but not the monitoring – to make your organisation’s employees more productive and efficient in their jobs? Hmm… I thought so.