5 Key Reasons Why eLearning Is Essential And Not Overrated

5 Key Reasons Why eLearning Is Essential Αnd Not Overrated
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Summary: eLearning has become one of the buzz words in training in the Learning and Development domain. It has been praised for its flexibility and cost-efficiency. It delivers what it promises. The article throws light on the key points that talks about how eLearning supports both an organization's goals and learner’s development.

eLearning Is Essential And Not Overrated: 5 Reasons Why

More and more organizations are becoming actively involved in eLearning, as they are starting to realize how impactful and rewarding it can really be. It can help organizations become better and stand out from the competition, simply because it provides employees with outstanding opportunities to learn and improve their skills.

Learning and development are crucial because, as employees learn and grow, they become more satisfied with their jobs and they want to push harder and contribute to the company’s success. Before you know it, business is booming, and it’s all because of employees who were empowered to go the extra mile and help their organization thrive.

This is exactly what eLearning can help you accomplish and why it has become so important and popular in the business world, no matter the industry or niche. Here are the key reasons why eLearning is absolutely essential.

1. Speeding Up Employee Training

According to Brandon Hall Group’s HCM Outlook 2017 Survey, eLearning can significantly reduce employee training time. It typically requires 40-60% less employee time than learning in a traditional classroom setting. It enables much faster delivery because employees can access eLearning material anytime they want, and anywhere they are, setting their own pace and training whenever they have spare time.

Therefore, they don’t need to follow the pace of the group and, more importantly, they can easily skip what they already know, and focus on learning what they actually need. Also, they don’t need to travel to their training events or stay after work to engage in training, which additionally saves time and enables them to learn, and improve much faster.

2. Cost Reduction

Cost reduction is often the main reason why companies switch from traditional classroom-based training to eLearning. In-house training tends to be very expensive, primarily because of the need for a professional trainer who will deliver it and who will help employees improve their knowledge and skills.

On the other hand, eLearning requires only an online training software that is not just cost-effective, but also enables employees to train at home. This translates to much lower costs related to travel, training venues, learning material, and trainers, not to mention that eLearning almost immediately leads to lower costs by speeding up employee training.

3. Maximizing Knowledge Retention

Maximizing knowledge retention is one of the most rewarding benefits of eLearning. According to Brandon Hall (2001 and Rosenberg 2001), eLearning can increase knowledge retention rate by 25-60%, simply because it is much more engaging than learning in a traditional classroom setting.

Since eLearning provides employees with various types of interactive content and multimedia, they can retain much more of what they learn and improve their skills and performance quickly. You can include gamification and provide them with interactive quizzes and activities that enable real-time feedback, which will all create an effective learning environment where your employees can truly grow and improve.

4. Increasing Productivity

Self-paced online learning leads to much higher productivity since employees can train at home, and then focus on their core tasks while at work. Learning in their free time will lead to better performance and higher efficiency, especially because online eLearning software will enable them to revisit any information they need, whenever they need it.

According to IBM statistics, eLearning can increase productivity by 50%. By utilizing online learning software, you will provide your employees with an incredible opportunity to engage in their training courses at any convenient time (at home, during downtime at work, or even on-the-go). This will enable them to quickly get up to speed with everything they need to learn, and their training will not get in conflict with their core daily tasks.

5. Better Collaboration

Almost every online learning software provides useful communication and collaboration tools, which are essential for knowledge improvement and building a strong collaborative workforce. This software will enable your employees to communicate with you and among one another in real-time, which will lead to increased engagement and a comfortable and empowering learning environment.

Real-time collaboration and feedback provided by eLearning will help you effectively address everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, and deal with skill gaps, so that you can truly help your learners improve their skills and abilities, and ultimately enable them to improve and grow.

Why Has eLearning Become A Must-Have?

We can safely say that eLearning has become an absolute must in today’s world, because it provides learners with an exceptionally rich learning experience. But, how has eLearning become such an important part of corporate training, and why is it rapidly growing in popularity?

The previously discussed reasons show precisely why eLearning is essential, and why a growing number of organizations are adopting that particular approach to employee training. However, perhaps the most important reason why it has emerged as a must includes the fact that it significantly increases revenue and Return On Investment (ROI).

Over 40% of companies say that eLearning has helped them to boost revenue levels, and the companies that offer training using technology (including eLearning) have generated more than 25% higher revenue per employee.

Because of this, and all the other discussed benefits, it really doesn’t come as a surprise that eLearning has very quickly become an essential, especially in the last 5 years. The introduction of microlearning, followed by social learning, adaptive learning, Virtual and Augmented Reality, and SaaS LMSs, all of which have made it necessary for making flexible learning possible in an online environment.

This evolution of eLearning is precisely what has enabled organizations to embrace the full power of online learning, and take a huge step towards creating a strong workforce of high-performance and collaborative employees who truly contribute to the success and growth of their business.

Conclusion 

Given all of these facts and plentiful benefits that online learning provides, it really is clear that eLearning is absolutely essential in today’s fast-paced world. It represents the most effective way of learning and helps organizations create high-quality employee training at a lower cost, empowering their workforce to keep improving and be genuinely excited about learning. As a result, they are more engaged and satisfied with their jobs, and they greatly contribute to higher revenue and ROI.