In today’s world, companies invest in learning and development of their workforce through different types of training. But there are two important types we are going to mention in this article. One – the classroom training led by an instructor and the other is eLearning, which is deeply connected with technology and is gaining momentum in organizations all over the world.
While in-person training isn't going away anytime soon, eLearning is steadily gaining ground. But, how do you know your company needs eLearning? Let's take a look at six signs:
1) You Have a Large Geographically Dispersed Workforce
Is your company widespread across different countries with employees working in different time zones or on different shifts? Or maybe you are hiring lots of remote workers?
If this is your case, you must ensure that everyone gets equally trained (especially in the onboarding process), no matter where they're located. You have to make sure all employees has the same learning experience.
Achieving this with traditional methods can be a challenging task. The complications are many, but – firstly having to send staff off-site for their training is costly and inefficient. Accommodation and travel expenses for large groups can be HUGE. Even if the employees are in the same location, scheduling classroom sessions can be a challenge if the headcount is more.
If the above-said points are taken into consideration, one will definitely suggest leveraging E-Learning so dislocated team members can have access to the same learning events, anytime, anywhere they are. By implementing an online training solution, organizations can eradicate these costs. Employees can sit in their respective locations and take up the training as per their convenient time. Since eLearning is centralized in one single place online, tracking and retrieving the performance of individuals becomes easy. Also since the courses remain the same for any new number of users, eLearning is considered a good option and cost-effective as well.
Check out: Facts and Stats That Reveal The Power Of eLearning [Infographic]
2) You Have High Turnover Rates
Is your company investing time and money into your employee's professional development? According to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management, organizations require at least six to nine months of an employee’s salary to find and train their replacement. Clearly, staff turnover is expensive and offering ample training opportunities can reduce the risk of losing talented staff. Read more here: High Turnover Costs Way More Than You Think.
Employees stick to an organization where they find growth opportunities and self-development in a regular basis. When they have access to continuous training, they feel valued, appreciated and more importantly satisfied with their job. Hence, it becomes the responsibility of the company to invest in self-directed and continuous learning opportunities in order to retain top talent, gain their loyalty and boost productivity.
Think about it. In the traditional classroom training, a new hire gets the opportunity to attend an instructor-led class for three or four entire days a week. He/she then moves on with their day today job and days pass by without learning. With no further training to energize them, employee sticks to the company until they find a new job.
Fortunately, eLearning can help businesses train workers anytime, anywhere 24/7. The course can be designed in such a way that it can be split into spaced modules accompanied with tests and certifications. Even the time contributed to an eLearning course by each employee can be recorded in the system. This way, employees feel that they receive continuous training. Better yet, since courses are online, they can register to those they feel will help them do their job better rather than management forcing them to sit in an 8–hour classroom session that’s only going to waste their time. In obligatory eLearning courses, workers are also given the option to skip the contents that they already knew than wait for the crowd to complete.
Additional reads:
Employee Training is Worth the Investment
Training and Retaining Current Employees is Cheaper Than Hiring New Ones
3) You Need to Cut Down Training Costs
Does arranging classroom training tighten your existing training budget?
Traditionally, when the L&D department of an organization plans for Instructor-Led training, the first thing that they look for is a well qualified and engaging instructor/trainer. Companies have to pay a good sum to get the trainer, not only for his/her time imparting the training but in many cases cover the travel expenses too. Additionally, there are other costs involved like: employee travel and meal expenses, printing materials — it all adds up quickly against your budget.
In order to eradicate these costs, many companies today implement synchronous and asynchronous online sessions where employees across different locations can join. They can chat lively, asks questions and have an interactive learning experience. These sessions can also be saved, stored, searched, downloaded and recorded for later view. The cost involved is a one-time cost but will benefit the organization for years.
4) You Need Faster Rollouts to Outsmart Competition
Do you think you lack speed in sharing product knowledge to your employees?
Well, in this fast moving world, people are expected to keep updated with what’s happening around them. Things change quickly and standing still can leave your business behind! Companies launch new products often, new policies come up in place, new technology is being developed all the time, changes in systems and processes surge frequently, and eLearning is the only way to make sure your worker's skills and knowledge are up-to-date; this it what will keep you competitive within the marketplace.
With eLearning, there’s no need to waste time in finding an instructor, preparing training schedule and checking the availability of rooms. Today’s technology has improved in a great way that salespeople, for instance, can go through new product training using just their smartphones.
5) You Need to Train New Hires Quickly
Is your company a fast-growing one with hundreds of new hires every year?
Although new employees are recruited after proper screening by the respective operations department and HR, still every company has to provide an induction session to explain internal policies and procedures.
This is indeed a time-consuming task for the HR department. Since the recruitment happens depends on the vacancy, HR cannot provide training for each employee separately. They have to wait for a decent count of new hires to join to deliver the material. This takes time and because of this, the new hires may get demotivated or can even get a bad impression of the company they have just started to work at.
Using eLearning technology to support the onboarding process can even be as simple as creating an online course that can be quickly updated and shared across the company automatically. If the policies and guidelines are online, new hires can start their training on day one, and they will have a positive feel towards the company since the beginning.
6) You Need to Keep Up-to-Date with Regulatory Demands (Compliance Training)
Every company has their own standards and policies that they want their employees to comply to. In Banks, they may have to set up new policies depending on the change in government law. In these scenarios, eLearning is ideal.
eLearning can be set up in a way that employees have to take up or do a refresher certification of the same course once every three months or six months, thereby the employees get reminded of the existing policies. Additionally, eLearning tools once prepared can later be modified thereby reducing costs.
Read more: Challenges of Compliance Training
Also, bookmark this checklist: Do you need eLearning?
