If you operate a firm, whether large or small, you and your staff have specific operational principles and advancements. Possibly a client-service technique that has become your company’s calling card. This is the information and abilities that contribute to your market advantage.
To grow your company, you need an effective tool to help you draft policies and corporate rules and pass them on to your staff. That is the purpose of corporate training, which used to be full-time everywhere: either experienced managers taught novices on their own or the corporation paid dedicated business trainers. Nevertheless, neither solution is financially viable.
As a result, firms are less likely to use a one-on-one training approach in recent years, which has already been partially replaced by more self-paced eLearning, i.e., staff training using technology that can be done remotely.
What Are the Advantages of E-learning?
Most entrepreneurs are attracted by the accessibility and massiveness of eLearning. Courses are always at the fingertips of hundreds of employees on a tablet or smartphone. And it doesn’t matter where you live in the country. In some cases, you don’t even need a permanent Internet connection, as you can download all the necessary materials straight to your device and study them offline.
The possibility to learn at any time in a convenient way allows for an individual approach to each employee. With eLearning, there are no time constraints or limitations; students can at any time get back to a particularly complicated topic and master their skills.
The individuality of the learning process is supplemented by its flexibility: notifications and reminders can be set up so that the course does not distract the employee from work. However, laziness and putting off until a better time can prevent the student from becoming familiar with the material.
To ensure that laziness and procrastination don’t lead to falling behind in learning the material, online programs provide an ongoing collection of analytics and statistics. You can find out at any time whether employees have learned certain materials and how far ahead or behind they are compared to their colleagues.
Top 5 Reasons to Switch to E-learning
1. Accessibility
This goes without saying but first and foremost, eLearning provides convenient access to educational materials. If a student misses a class for any reason, he or she can watch a presentation or a video recording of the lesson at home.
2. Scaling up Your Business
If you’re opening new business units, bringing new products to market, or increasing your staff, one of the mandatory steps you’ll need to take is adapting new employees. People come from the job market knowing nothing about your company and its values, they are not familiar with internal procedures and rules.
The standard HR process is to do the following:
- Immerse the new person into the context of your business;
- Introduce your products/services;
- Explain your company terms and policies.
This way, the person will fit into the company culture more quickly and begin to work effectively.
However, if a large corporation hires hundreds of new employees every month, you need to get all the necessary information to them in full as quickly as possible, as well as check how well they have absorbed it.
With eLearning, you don’t need to read an introductory course to hundreds of employees and test them manually; they can install your company app, complete your initial training courses, and take the test at the end.
3. Broad Coverage and Cost Efficiency
Convenient access to the educational process allows students to choose the form of training, location, and even time. Therefore, e-learning technology makes it possible to teach and test the knowledge of thousands of students simultaneously.
Despite the higher cost of developing full-fledged eLearning courses compared to traditional ones, the cost per student here is still much lower than that of full-time education. The financial efficiency of online learning is especially significant when a large number of students participate in training.
E-learning is cheaper primarily because of lower transportation costs, the cost of living in another city, and the organization of the courses themselves (rentals, staff salaries, additional costs for managers, etc.). On average, eLearning can save up to 50-60% per employee.
4. Personalization of Learning and Uniform Standards
The introduction of eLearning systems combines the benefits of personalized learning (in terms of effectiveness) and mass learning (in terms of efficiency). The software of the learning system should allow for individual adaptation of the curriculum to the needs and characteristics of students, trainers, or learning environments. From a set of independent training courses (modules), you can form a specific curriculum that meets individual or group needs.
If your business is expanding and has many branches, how do you make sure that employees in each store or restaurant are operating to the same standards?
Online courses are a powerful tool that clearly and quickly allows you to:
- Train all the employees of the chain equally effectively;
- Regularly tell them about changes and innovations;
- Check how well they have learned everything.
At the start, this can be a simple, uncomplicated online course (just to quickly and promptly help the business with the tasks at hand). This does not mean that you should put a hundred-page document on slides; this is where the pedagogical principles and instructional design theory are invaluable.
5. Enhancing Employee Loyalty
The task of the HR department is not just to hire employees but to help them find their place in the company and learn to work as efficiently as possible for years to come. Therefore, it’s crucial that at the very beginning, new employees are not confused, continue to grow, and take on more tasks. With the help of an online training platform, you can build a trajectory for employee training.
For example, after an introductory welcome course at the startup, they get the additional knowledge and skills the company needs to meet its business goals. If some employees have been promoted or moved to another department, the platform provides access to courses that will help them understand their new responsibilities.
Also, there are companies that allow employees to choose their own courses and create their own learning path on the platform, and then, based on their interests and skills, offer them different options to advance in their careers.
Principles of Quality Online Learning
With all the advantages of eLearning, it can be both an effective tool in education and a serious barrier to learning. Get acquainted with the following principles of quality e-learning:
- Quality of educational materials. This is the first and most important principle of quality eLearning. It’s important that the information is presented consistently, and all course materials, such as photos, video, audio recordings, notes, and presentations, are informative and clear;
- Multi-format. This involves the use and alternation of audio recordings, text materials, videos, presentations, and other tools to help keep students engaged throughout the educational process, regardless of the complexity of the topic, and allowing for better information delivery;
- Simplicity and accessibility. All course materials should be accessible to students and easy to use. For example, if a manager uses a learning management system (LMS) for remote education, all students should have access to it. Moreover, it’s essential that the registration process and site navigation are simple and fast. Difficulties with access often become a reason for low involvement, loss of interest, and students dropping out;
- Effectiveness. Each course has a key goal, which can be achieved only if you move towards it step by step, solving intermediate tasks. Therefore, there’s a good reason to divide your training course into parts, between which students will consolidate the material covered through practical assignments and tests;
- Personalization. Quality eLearning requires a clear focus on the target audience. The level of preparation, which is necessary for the course, and the complexity of educational material have a great influence on the progress and motivation of students in learning. Therefore, quality e-learning is always a personalized approach to students and segmenting them according to their level of knowledge and skills;
- Socialization. This principle implies the interaction of students among themselves and with the trainer. It can be groups or online discussion chat rooms where students ask questions, share their opinions about lessons and achievements, and support each other. Socialization increases students’ motivation to learn, helps provide support to those who need it, and, most importantly, allows for the collection of feedback to improve the course and its quality.
Bottom Line
The development of eLearning using the latest technology leads to the democratization of educational processes, encouraging self-learning, and increasing employee motivation. In addition, the work of the training personnel in identifying students’ needs and providing support is facilitated.
