Even before the Covid-19 pandemic forced so many into remote working situations, eLearning was becoming increasingly popular for corporate training. Employees can use eLearning to train from anywhere, negating expenses for travel, training venues, learning material, and trainers. Known for flexibility and convenience, it also reduces training time while increasing productivity and knowledge retention. Read below for more reasons you should upgrade your corporate training to eLearning.
Save money by incorporating eLearning into your training
No more printing out tons of materials that may immediately be thrown out of simply filed away, never again to see the light of day. No more coordinating every participant’s schedule for in-person training. Such training is scalable, updatable, and available on-demand; when your employees have easy access to the information they need, they’re more likely to use and retain what they learn.
Create a flexible training system
According to Harvard Business Review, 96 percent of U.S. professionals need a flexible schedule.1 eLearning offers such flexibility to your teams – whether they work in an office or are literally out in a field. They can review training at their convenience, making participation as easy as possible. In turn, this leads to increased retention of the key concepts learned. Modules are often broken into small manageable portions, which also helps increase knowledge retention. Traditional forms of learning tend to dump overwhelming amounts of information on learners without checking how much employees truly learned and could apply in their day-to-day duties.
eLearning is incredibly adaptable
People are different, and the type of training that works for them also differs from person to person. While offering a range of training options that appeal to visual, auditory, or hands-on learners is difficult in a traditional setting, an eLearning environment is more likely to offer all these at once. eLearning is also easy to update, allowing learners to obtain the most timely and relevant information they need.
eLearning is better for knowledge retention and productivity
One of the biggest benefits of eLearning is that it improves retention by design, keeping the training current, goal-oriented, and interactive. By including small modules, immediate feedback, and a variety of learning methods, eLearning allows learners to easily apply training to working the job. As reported in Forbes, “The Research Institute of America concluded that e-learning boosts retention rates by 25 to 60 percent, compared to retention rates of 8 to 10 percent with traditional training.”2 Productivity and revenue also improve after employees use modern training methods.
eLearning participation rates are much higher than in traditional training
Group participation in classroom environments tends to be difficult; people often hesitate to contribute to a group discussion, which affects learner outcomes. eLearning, however, is interactive by design, boosting participation, confidence, and completion rates. Real-time collaboration and feedback help companies address their teams’ strengths and weaknesses and deal with skill gaps while increasing engagement and offering a more empowering learning setting.
eLearning offers both autonomy and standardized training
Standard training across the board is critical to the success of a company, especially when a workforce is spread out over several locations. Such consistency is challenging in classroom training but built into eLearning. Autonomy is also an important part of eLearning; employees who have control over their work are more likely to feel valued and produce better results. Through eLearning, learners can access courses when it best suits their schedules – and review them throughout the day.
eLearning simulates real life in ways classroom learning does not
Virtual reality plays a key role in eLearning, creating ties between theory and practice that are not replicated in traditional training environments. Virtual learning’s adaptability allows for a plethora of scenarios, customized to specific companies and situations, to ensure staff can handle challenges with confidence.
eLearning is the best option for the planet
Did you know that eLearning consumes, on average, 90 percent less energy than traditional print-based training? How incredible is that? It also produces 85 percent fewer CO2 emissions per learner. 3 Not only is this a huge cost savings (see #1) but integrating eLearning into your training plan provides the opportunity to include corporate social responsibility as part of your ROI.
Now that you see the incredible advantages of implementing eLearning, what should you do next? Contact MATC Group to talk more about how our experienced and knowledgeable team of instructional designers can transform your training and improve knowledge retention and productivity, employee and customer satisfaction, and your bottom line.
Related Blogs
Seven Myths about eLearning Debunked
Remote Employee Training and How to Make the Most of It
The Future is Here: 10 eLearning Trends to Look Forward to in the 2020s
Resources
1 Dean, Annie and Auerbach, Anna. “96% of U.S. Professionals Say They Need Flexibility, but Only 47% Have It.” Harvard Business Review, 5 June 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/06/96-of-u-s-professionals-say-they-need-flexibility-but-only-47-have-it
2 Pezold, Stacey. “LMS 101: Rethinking Your Approach To Employee Training.” Forbes, 14 Feb. 2014. https://www.forbes.com/sites/paycom/2017/02/14/learning-management-systems-101-rethinking-your-approach-to-employee-training/?sh=2761bc2a755b
3 Roy, Robin, Potter, Stephen, and Yarrow, Karen. “Towards sustainable higher education: environmental impacts of conventional campus, print-based and electronic/open learning systems.” 2004. http://oro.open.ac.uk/6816/
