How To Build A Business eLearning Strategy
Here are 5 practical steps to help you build and implement a great business eLearning strategy for your organization.
- Define your goals.
It's safe to say that the most efficient eLearning programs are constructed with specific goals in mind. Before you start to prepare the learning materials, think well about what you'd like to achieve with this training. Analyze the need for a particular training course at your organization. If a training doesn't meet the strategic objectives of a business, it's not worth pursuing. Once you decide that the training is relevant to corporate goals, define its requirements – the specific focus or perspective. For instance, a marketing training can focus on social media marketing. - Design the course.
How shall you design an eLearning course that will be interesting and efficient, and will bring a real value? Keep it relevant by offering high-quality content to engage and motivate your audience. Don't stray away from your topic and provide lots of information to make learners more knowledgeable about the subject. An interactive eLearning strategy offers many components, which are hard to build in other types of learning. Reality-based scenarios are perfect to show your audience how the knowledge offered at the course can be applied in real life. A short quiz or test at the end of each module will keep workers on their toes, allowing you to check which parts of the learning material should be repeated. - Create a learning environment.
eLearning resources are just technologies and won't bring you real benefits as long as they aren't situated in a learning environment. Among your top choices are blended learning environments, which combine live eLearning with self-paced learning, as well as other technologies and face-to-face elements. Sometimes, your audience might benefit from a live instructor – the interaction between learners, mentors and the learning community is crucial to add a sense of humanity to the learning process. A collaborative learning environment will be perfect for testing the knowledge gained through eLearning in group exercises. - Keep your program on track.
Most people think that training is finished when an event – a class, workshop or course – comes into completion. This is a major mistake – especially in business, where it's your job to make sure all the skills and knowledge gained during training are now being implemented in the organization. And this usually takes practice. The vast majority of workers will require a reinforcement or the newly gained skills will simply be lost. What you need is an active follow-up on the course, including group support or an automated e-mail sent to all training participants reminding them about their progress toward learning objectives set by the organization. - Test and evaluate your eLearning strategy.
Once the training cycle comes to an end, it's time to evaluate your business eLearning strategy and change its components to make it even more relevant and effective when used next time. Try surveys and employee feedback forms to gain a deeper understanding of the benefits brought by the course. Test your employees to see how much of the newly acquired knowledge they managed to retain. Have a close look at how the trained skills are being used on-the-job. If they are actually being incorporated into the daily routine of your employees, you can consider your strategy successful.
Training is essential to keep your workers qualified and help them achieve new skills – following these tips will help you make the most from the potential of your business eLearning strategy.
