The Masie Center sought to find out by conducting a survey of 1,609 training and human resource professionals from 25 countries on September 19 to September 20.
Masie's report "Training Reactions to Terrorist Attacks" provided the following insights into how organizations adjusted learning and collaboration in response to the terrorist attacks.
In response to the question "What outreach to employees has your organization done in reaction to these events," more than 80% of the respondents indicated that senior management had sent an e-mail or letter to employees. Of those, slightly more than 50% said they offered counseling or support services. Roughly 40% cancelled organizational meetings and/or held meetings or in-person discussions with employees.
When asked "Has your organization CANCELLED ANY training offerings due to these events," 52% answered NO. When asked "Has your organization ADDED ANY training offerings due to these event," 88% answered NO.
In response to the question "How, if any, has the organization's travel policy changed," more than 35% chose the response "employees may make personal choice not to travel at this time." Slightly less than 35% reported no change.
When asked "Have recent events increased your organization's use of collaborative technologies?" about 55% indicated no change.
For those remaining 45% who indicated that there had been changes in the use of learning technologies, 39% said that it was too soon to know if the expected the changes to be long-term or short-term. Seventeen percent of the respondents expected the long-term changes.
For the most part, these findings seem to indicate that most of the organizations surveyed continued business as usual. This could be a function of the types of organizations that were surveyed. In any event, the terrorist attacks did not seem to increase or decrease training activities or to increase the use of learning/collaborative technologies.
One might assume that the terrorist attacks might impact employees' work performance or ability to learn. This assumption would lead to more organizations canceling meetings and/or training. Another assumption might be that organizations would cut back on air travel and use collaborative technologies instead. The study showed that this was not necessarily the case.
Resources
The Masie Center http://www.masie.com
Welber, Michael. "Checking the Industry’s Pulse"
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