Fed up with having to train new hires time and time again? Or is your company unable to keep up with the repeated training costs? Worse still, is your boss frustrated that the employees are not retaining the knowledge and skills that were painstakingly taught to them? These are all common complaints that companies have when it comes to training and educating employees. Be it theoretical knowledge or new skills that have to be acquired for the job to be done satisfactorily, the traditional approach of manually training employees is often highly time-consuming, costly, and inefficient.

While some hands-on training is inevitably required for the development of certain skill sets, this article recommends that companies adopt a blended learning approach that incorporates both e-learning and conventional classroom teaching. This article breaks down the top 7 reasons why a company should move towards e-learning when it comes to educating and training employees.

1. Long-Term Cost Reduction Strategy

While the initial investment in an e-learning courseware might be high in comparison with the short-term costs of conventional classroom training, this investment is one that is no doubt more cost efficient in the long-term. Consider the costs involved in conventional training methods: paying the trainers multiple times over an extended period of time, paying for training material, as well as the opportunity costs – the time and money that could have been used in other ways to improve the business. E-learning, on the other hand, is a one-time investment that can be used and reused for multiple batches of trainees and employees. This allows a company to have significant cost reductions in the long-term, as it does not have to spend on multiple training sessions for each new batch of new employees. In short, investing in a high quality e-learning courseware is a smart long-term cost reduction strategy that can save companies significant amounts in their expenditure on training programmes.

2. Greater Flexibility

Besides cost reductions, e-learning allows for a greater flexibility when it comes to training employees. In conventional training approaches, a significant amount of time is lost, which translates to a loss of potential revenue for the company. Traditionally, employees even had to miss work to receive training. This no longer remains the case when e-learning is incorporated to corporate training. Due to the fact that e-learning can be done in employees’ own time, significant amounts of time are saved – such as traveling to and from the training venue – and that time can instead be spent on producing more quality work.

Moreover, there are no geographical constraints with e-learning, and employees can participate in e-learning from the convenience of home or their mobile devices. Through the more flexible blended learning approach, employees can grasp the theoretical knowledge aspects through e-learning, while still participating in hands-on training at the workplace.

3. Standardised Training Across the Board

Besides having the flexibility of learning from their own homes, employees located in different parts of the world will also be able to access the same e-learning courseware as those located in the company’s home country. As such, e-learning ensures that employee training does not vary from country to country or city to city, as a standardised training will be available across the board. This, in turn, ensures a consistency in employee training, and upholds the performance standards of the company.

4. Improved Knowledge Retention

In contrast to traditional classroom teaching, corporate e-learning can developed to be more engaging, interactive and relevant to real-world scenarios, hence improving the knowledge retained by learners. For instance, Three Learning’s Instructional Design process incorporates relevant scenarios that employees in a particular field might likely encounter. For example, employees would be exposed to customer personas they typically encounter or compliance issues that they must overcome in their specific workplace to enhance their productivity. As these scenarios are more relevant and relatable to each targeted field, employees retain the information more effectively. As a result, they’re more likely to remember the takeaways because it resonates with them and addresses their needs.

Moreover, e-learning courses enable employees to revisit and revise their training. As compared to traditional training that ends once the training session is over, employees are able to relearn things that they’ve missed or did not manage to grasp by revisiting the e-learning material. E-learning courses, once developed, will always remain accessible to the companies that invested in them, in turn allowing their employees to have continued access to training resources.

5. Engage Younger Employees

Having grown up in a technology-infused environment, Millennials and those in Generation Z are familiar and well-versed with using the internet for both entertainment and obtaining information. The incorporation of features such as gamification and progress badges into e-learning courses provide rewarding and enticing learning experiences. By substituting mundane seminars and wordy PDF documents for engaging e-learning courses, younger employees can better interact with the company’s learning material.

6. Measure Performance and Gain Insight on Employees

E-learning coursewares are often managed through the Learning Management System (LMS). Administrators can use the LMS to find out more about their employees’ performance on the e-learning courses. Three Learning’s Learning Management System (LMS) enables administrators to glean insights on users’ progress in the content and understanding of the material. Quizzes and assignments reveal employees’ understanding of the content, while more qualitative assessments such as surveys allow employees to provide the company’s management team with feedback on their work and learning experience. Through e-learning, companies will likely be able to find out more about employees’ learning performances, as well as discover ways to improve the training content and methodology, based on employees’ responses.

7. Improve Overall ROI

The most essential reason for companies to move towards e-learning is to improve overall ROI. E-learning provides employees with the resources to absorb new knowledge and learn new skills, which in turn enhances the company’s performance and relationships with clients. By accessing e-learning, employees improve their work performance, which translates into greater productivity, better results, and in turn, more sales and clients.

Investing in e-learning is ultimately investing in your company’s future, and the ROI on e-learning is infinite. Contact us at [email protected] to learn more about how you can move your company towards e-learning and improve employee training programmes.

Written by: Wong Shao Hao
Three Learning Intern