8 Benefits Justifying The Importance Of eLearning For Business
As an entrepreneur or senior executive, it is vital to educate yourself on the importance of eLearning for business. In fact, eLearning is fast emerging as an important resource for businesses to flourish. And eLearning percolates down the echelons of an organization to make it more profitable. Here are the top reasons:
Importance Of eLearning For Business
Countless eLearning courses are available nowadays. Therefore, finding one that matches your business is fairly easy. Additionally, eLearning providers also customize courses to suit specific businesses. This article will educate you on the importance of eLearning for business.
1. Acquiring And Upgrading Skills
Understandably, this is the most important feature of eLearning. Employees and bosses gain vital skills from eLearning courses. These skills translate as higher productivity, better efficiency and greater profits for a business. Rapid changes and upgrades are common in almost every technology in the world. Hence, eLearning enables a business to steal that technical edge over its rivals. A business that innovates rapidly usually makes an indelible mark in its field.
2. Reduction Of Employee Attrition
Employee attrition and high turnover are lower at businesses that provide eLearning, according to various Human Resources (HR) experts, because eLearning serves as a superb resource for employee engagement. Employees genuinely believe the organization is interested in their services and wishes to further their careers.
Undoubtedly, eLearning can prove to be expensive. However, if you consider the costs of losing senior, skilled staff and expenses on training newcomers, the price of eLearning appears very affordable. Furthermore, employees will exert extra efforts to prove the skills they have acquired from any eLearning course.
3. Bridging Skills Gap
Not every job seeker you hire will have the same set of skills. A severe mismatch of skills can, therefore, occur within any business- small, medium or large. This skills gap usually impacts a business adversely. Those with lesser skills are unable to cope with demands that occur due to workers with greater talent.
In such scenarios, eLearning helps your business to bridge the skills gap effectively. Upon completion of an eLearning course, every employee will have been trained on using a particular technology or internal process. Hence, you can expect a seamless workflow and fewer hurdles while completing any internal and external task. It enhances customer satisfaction for your business.
4. Provides Equal Opportunities
By offering eLearning to your staff, you create a workplace where every employee gets equal opportunities for promotions and salary raise. Since an eLearning course will be available to all the employees of a specific department, it provides equal chances to learn and utilize newer skills. However, not every employee that undergoes an eLearning course will be able to utilize them to the fullest.
You will have a situation where some employees who have taken an eLearning course will excel at work with new skills. Others will lag behind. Therefore, eLearning becomes important when deciding for business in shortlisting high performers for promotions and salary raise. Nobody can accuse a business owner of not providing equal opportunities to compete for the highest posts and better pay.
5. Eliminating Gender Income Inequalities
Providing eLearning opportunities to employees also helps your community and nation. It directly helps to eliminate or at least reduce gender income inequality. Studies indicate women in the US earn about 5% to 6% less than their male counterparts in the same job. In the European Union, women earn about 16% to 19% less than men [1]. In India, women get about 30% less pay than men.
The skills gap is often known as the main culprit of gender income inequality. By offering eLearning to your staff, you contribute directly to lowering the gender skills gap and gender income inequality. This works miracles for your business and its reputation. Usually, most countries offer some benefit to businesses working towards the reduction and elimination of the gender skills gap and gender income inequality.
6. Standardizing Operations
An amazing advantage that eLearning offers is standardizing the operations of a business. This is possible because all employees in a department will have, at some degree, the same skills from an eLearning course. Thus, creating a standard operations procedure and its implementation becomes fast and easy.
Businesses with excellent standard operations stand a better chance of success in any highly competitive market. Nowadays, standardizing operations is extremely important for every business. It allows faster service and product delivery, innovation and rapid troubleshooting. Additionally, standard operations are something that suppliers and clients expect from any business.
7. Rapid Business Expansion
Another importance of eLearning is in expanding a business rapidly. You may wish to expand into a new territory or market. Obviously, no business will enter a new market with heavy investment on infrastructures such as office, warehouses, and other overheads.
Here, eLearning enables your business to hire remote staff that can work from home. Through eLearning, these remote workers will comply with your standard operating procedures. Moreover, if a business is expanding abroad, there are high chances that foreign workers may lack some skills. Hence, eLearning helps bridge this skills gap.
8. Flexible Learning Hours
When you offer eLearning courses, there is no need for training to impede with regular and routine work. Because eLearning courses can be taken by staff at home, during commutes or even on business tours and holidays. All it needs are a smartphone, a laptop, and a headset connected to reliable and high-speed internet.
This fringe advantage helps workers to enjoy their eLearning. They are not confined to a classroom or have to adhere to the strict schedules of a course. Also, eLearning enables employees to connect with peers in the industry and learn further. In some instances, they can learn about processes in use in foreign lands.
Why eLearning Matters
Education is a lifelong process, says an ancient adage. Education ranks among the most important features of our life as mortals. It helps us communicate, earn money, discover things, invent new products and avoid conflicts, among other things.
Since we attach great importance to education, it is also imperative to accord adequate significance to acquiring skills while working. This is possible through eLearning. While education teaches vital life skills, eLearning provides those necessary to excel at work.
In Conclusion
Indubitably, eLearning is here to stay and flourish. Projections are, global eLearning industry will touch the US$325 billion mark by 2025, according to a study by Research & Markets. In fact, major websites like LinkedIn now have their own eLearning portals such as LinkedIn Learning following its 2015 acquisition of Lynda.com at US$1.5billion. While businesses strive to be online, you will also need to implement eLearning for your enterprise to remain in the fray.
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