Reasons Why You Need To Adopt eLearning In Your Corporate Training
Corporate training, for a lot of organizations, means traditional classroom training, where a trainer gathers up employees in a room once a week and delivers lectures on developing skills or qualities that the organization desires in their employees. A whopping $164.2 billion is spent on training and development by companies in the U.S. alone, and around $100 billion is spent by companies in India. However, according to LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report, only a meager 8% of CEOs believed that corporate Learning and Development actually make a business impact, and even fewer, about 4% saw a clear ROI. This much expenditure, with so little ROI? Something’s wrong and needs to change.
What these organizations need to understand is that traditional learning strategies, like the one mentioned above, do not work, and there’s a simple enough reason for that. Around 30% (and almost 50% in most cases) of information provided during such a classroom session is lost on the learners/employees, and it continues to erode as they walk out of that classroom and go on about their daily tasks. Unfortunately, 78% of learning and design teams still rely on traditional, classroom, Instructor-Led Training, as mentioned in the workplace learning report. Although this report is two years old, things haven’t changed as much as they should have.
When the upper management of such organizations is ready to throw such money down the drain even when they don’t expect much ROI (their own words), why do it at all? Or, if they want to continue doing it, better do it in a way which actually offers them a substantial ROI. A lot has changed in the corporate training market, and CEOs and CLOs need to embrace modern learning strategies or continue to bleed their organization’s money.
Case in point, eLearning. More specifically, custom eLearning, tailored to the organization’s needs. Each organization is different, and each organization’s employees are different. Generic eLearning doesn’t work as well as one created specifically keeping in mind the needs of an organization, and that’s what most organizations require these days. But, what makes eLearning any different from traditional classroom training? Well, a lot of things actually! Using eLearning in corporate training has been shown to:
- Require 40%-60% less employee time as compared to teaching the same course content through classroom training.
- Increase retention rates from 8%-10% to 25%-60% depending on person to person.
- Allows learning of 5x more material than classroom training, in the same timeframe.
- Increases revenue up to 42%.
These are not made up statistics!
When eLearning can make so much of a difference why doesn’t every organization use it? And the answer is inertia.
Huh? Yes, you read it right. Inertia. Change in organizations is never easy, and making a switch to something new can't happen overnight. Creating eLearning programs for all the organization’s employees is in no way an easy job. There needs to be a minutely detailed analysis of what’s needed, known as a ‘need analysis’, then there is the actual stuff, i.e. building it, and finding a delivery mechanism to deliver it in a timely fashion to all employees. Nothing that can’t be done, but most difficult tasks are like that.
However, organizations can’t use the above-mentioned summary as an excuse anymore, because there are countless eLearning solutions providers nowadays who can help organizations make this transition from classroom training to full-fledged eLearning easily. These eLearning solution providers can help by building custom eLearning modules for organizations specific to their needs, and help them set a delivery mechanism using the technology available, or by suggesting another, newer technology (for those of you who already know and those who do not, they’re called Learning Management Systems or LMSs).
So, to conclude, if your organization is still using the same old, outdated method for corporate L&D, it is time you let the higher-ups know that they cannot afford to keep blowing money like this. And if you’re a higher-up in an organization yourself, well, I think you know what to do. The question isn’t whether eLearning can help you or not, that question has already been answered. The question is that, in this world, where cut-throat competition is the norm, can you really afford to not have eLearning? If you want what’s best for your workforce and your organization, you’ll give this serious consideration.
