Why is e learning important? What are its benefits?
The e-learning market has seen phenomenal growth in recent years. Statista found the global market had reached a value of $200 billion U.S. dollars in 2019 and is projected to be worth $400 billion by 2026.
The e-learning option has become much more prominent for businesses interested in corporate training, but what is its popularity? What has made it such a significant force, and what are its benefits?
A large part of e-learning’s importance comes from the current Digital Age. Developments such as gamification and cloud hosting have made e-learning more accessible, viable, and engaging. The pandemic may also have impacted the market, which saw more people than ever working remotely and utilizing previously unused online resources to carry out tasks. And yet, even with so many of us returning to office work, the online training market doesn’t seem to show signs of slowing down.
The truth is that the ‘importance’ of e-learning is directly linked to the value of corporate training in general. e-Learning makes the benefits of employee training easier to access and realize, so more businesses are taking notice!
In this article, we explore the true importance and benefits of e-learning!
Why is corporate training essential?
Developing employees is an important aspect of business strategy and daily operations. Onboarding new staff members are often required to help them fulfil their roles and hit the ground running with key terminology, practices, and workplace culture. Over time, employees may also want to enhance their capabilities, learn new skills, and qualify for more responsibilities and career advancement.
In this case, having them participate in a structured training program is far more efficient than simply learning on the job. It can also boost the odds of them achieving the level of competency you require.
Supporting this plays a crucial role in a long-term strategy for several reasons:
- Retention – Employees who feel they do not have development opportunities at a company are more likely to look for new roles elsewhere. IBM found that employees are “12 times more likely to consider leaving than employees who feel they can achieve their career goals”.
- Talent acquisition – These days, potential staff are more likely to care about a company’s training and development strategy when considering roles. Another IBM survey found that 52% of Millennials feel this was “the main attraction in an employer”, even beating competitive salaries, which scored 44%. Attracting the best talent is essential in an increasingly digitized business environment reliant on newer skills and ways of working.
- Capabilities – Over time, an organization may need to update its capabilities to deliver expected levels of quality and stay ahead of competitors. This has been apparent in recent years, which have seen multiple advances in compliance, cybersecurity, and so on, though it can also apply to ways of working such as Agile management.
Of course, a common alternative to training employees is to hire the talent you need. However, this can be a far more expensive option. Shiftlearning found that hiring someone can cost up to 30% of the job’s salary, which can be excessive for anyone in high demand. Rehiring can also represent around 12%-40% of a company’s expenses, depending on its turnover rate. Compared to this, training individuals is relatively cheap.
So, why is corporate training necessary? Developing staff can:
- Help retain top employees
- Attract valuable talent
- Deliver required capabilities
- Save money
Why is e-Learning important?
Now that we understand the importance of corporate training let’s move on to e-learning. What makes it the standout option?
Over the years, the online training market has grown for several reasons:
- Accessibility – Most online training courses can be accessed on any web-enabled electronic device. This allows candidates to return to studying at any convenient time rather than having to follow a strict schedule.
- Convenience – Having training be accessible in this way makes it easy to find time to study without disrupting key work tasks and deadlines. This lowers the burden of training on the business and can also help employees find a good balance between work, training, and home life.
- Cost – Traditional learning can be pretty expensive, even for businesses. The costs of hiring qualified instructors, alongside other elements like travel, accommodation, hard materials, and so on, can all add up quickly. In contrast, online training courses only need to be paid for once per candidate.
- Scaling – A successful training program may be scaled up over time to include more courses or a higher number of students. This is far easier with online training, as a Learning Management System (LMS) can accommodate as many students as necessary and consistently deliver the same quality of training to each of them.
With the inherent value of corporate training, e-learning has grown in importance simply because it is a far more viable option.
What are the benefits of e-learning?
It is worth mentioning at this point that e-learning is not always the best option. Flexibility and cost only matter so much if the quality of the product is poor. Online training also had a bad reputation for a while due to e-courses that offered endless slides or scanned documents.
It is also important to take learner preferences into account. Many employees may still prefer programs that allow them to interact directly with tutors. Others may refuse to commit to training outside of work hours, lessening the value of LMS access.
Even so, e-learning offers several significant benefits over traditional training:
- Convenience – As we have already mentioned, e-learning courses can be accessed anytime and from any electronic device. This makes it easier to fit training around work and other commitments and to achieve a work/ life balance. As most e-learning courses come with months of access, candidates can also avoid fitting all their training into a short space.
- Quality – Online courses have come a long way over the years, offering a high level of quality and many unique training features that traditional courses cannot match. You can ensure you get the quality you need by choosing an accredited course or reading online reviews. Unlike traditional training, the quality of e-learning is also consistent as it does not depend on the instructor in question.
- Knowledge retention – You may be surprised to hear that employees can be more likely to retain what they learn online. Tools like bitesize quizzes and knowledge checks can boost retention daily, as can returning to resources for a few minutes at a time during the workday. Interactive resources can also help tremendously by preventing users from simply skimming through training materials. By investing in online training, you will significantly increase the odds of the training impacting employees and your business.
- Variety – Online courses typically feature a wider variety of training resources and media than traditional programs. They can support instructor-led videos, gamified quizzes, practice exams, whitepapers, and more. This helps keep users from getting bored and encourages them to explore resources elsewhere, such as in online practitioner communities.
- Performance tracking – When investing in a corporate training program, it is important to monitor its success. Typical metrics can include course access rates, exam pass rates, and so on. Keeping on top of this is much easier with an LMS platform, as they allow managers to quickly extract metrics on teams and individuals. This can also help managers be proactive in assigning help to anyone who is struggling. With these metrics, L&D managers also have a much easier time explaining the tangible impact of a training program on organizational performance.
- Customization – e-learning courses and LMS platforms often have white-label features that can be customized with an organization’s branding. This helps reinforce that it is a specific business’s training program without having to rebuild anything from scratch. It can also help newer employees get used to the workplace culture.
- Blended learning – One benefit of online and traditional training is that they are not mutually exclusive. A ‘blended’ training program uses both, mixing elements like online resources and instructor interaction to get the best of both and suit everybody’s learning preferences. Online training can support traditional programs, such as pre-skilling candidates, so they do not have to spend classroom time covering the basics.
Getting started with e-Learning
Good e-Learning is an award-winning online training provider. We cover many of the most significant topics in e-learning, offering fully accredited courses in project management, IT management, enterprise architecture, DevOps, and more. As each of our courses is produced in-house, we can guarantee a market-leading level of quality.
Each of our courses comes with a variety of training assets to help keep users engaged. These include instructor-led videos with industry experts, practice exams, gamified quizzes, and more. Our world-class support team can also offer a FREE exam voucher and resit for every candidate.
The Good e-Learning team also specializes in corporate training. A team member will work with you to understand your goals and training requirements and ensure you have everything you need. Our award-winning LMS, the Learning Ecosystem, can accommodate any number of users and your own personal company graphics and branding.
Want to find out more? Visit the Good e-Learning website, or contact a member of our team today!
