Top 5 Benefits Of eLearning

Top 5 Benefits of eLearning
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Summary: The ease and accessibility of eLearning make continuing education and professional development undeniably more attractive to a larger audience. But if your organization is still on the fence, here are the top 5 reasons why you need to adopt online courses into your Learning and Development program today.

What Are The Top 5 Benefits of eLearning?

Today's employees work not just for money but also to continually learn and grow professionally. But with a costly brick-and-mortar classroom environment, learning is severely restricted by the availability and location of offered courses and programs, the pace of each course, the cost, and ultimately, the effectiveness of each course, as it disrupts an employee’s day-to-day productivity.

With eLearning, however, the information is always available, at any time, from any place – right at their fingertips. This on-demand learning provides greater access to subjects and courses which interest employees, even beyond those that would immediately benefit them professionally.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were close to 80 million people born between 1976 and 2001. This number, mostly comprised of Millennials, makes up 36 percent of the U.S. workforce in 2014 and is expected to represent nearly half of the workforce by 2020. So, as the percentage of the tech-savvy Millennials in the workforce increases, the integration of eLearning opportunities should increase too.

Still on the fence? Here are the top 5 benefits of bringing eLearning to your workforce.

1. Accessibility

When learning is made available at the exact moment of need from countless devices, it makes learning, training and career development possible for employees. They get to learn at their own pace, on their own time and in the place of their choosing. And unlike conventional learning methods in a brick-and-mortar classroom, eLearning ensures that learners complete their training sooner in order to enhance productivity regardless of time zone, schedule, level of expertise, pace, interests, and goals.

2. Engagement

Employee engagement is of importance, as it is equating to the emotional commitment that employees develop for their work, their employer and the goals of the organization. eLearning – and the professional growth opportunities it affords – makes increased engagement possible. How? The results of a Dale Carnegie survey suggest that companies with engaged employees outperform those lacking in engagement by up to a staggering 202 percent. Why? Reciprocity. Simply put: Employees who feel that the organization they work in has invested in them both personally and professionally will do the same. That is, invest themselves in the organization in return.

3. Employee Retention

Losing an employee costs money – and that doesn’t even include losses that are harder to quantify, like lost productivity. But eLearning can stave off such losses. Better yet, according to a Skillsoft survey, close to two-thirds of employees replied that they would like workplace training to continue throughout their career, regardless of their seniority. Another survey, among over 400 employees spanning three generations, found a 70% of respondents citing job-related training and development opportunities to have influenced their decision of staying at their job. 87% of Millennials cited especially the chances of professional development or career growth opportunities as ‘very important’ factors as to deciding on staying or leaving.

4. Personalized

Traditional learning is, quite simply, a one-size-fits-all solution, whereas eLearning suits literally everyone, as its content can be accessed, consumed, discussed, and shared as each individual learner sees fit to their own benefit. From selecting to learn on weekends or evenings, to accessing content as many times as needed, dictating a personalized pace of learning, learning in the comfort of home or the office, or selecting the exact course material of interest or relevance, eLearning is virtually limitless in how it can be customized to meet the needs of every learner.

5. Efficacy

One of the most demonstrable benefits of eLearning is its superior effectiveness. Because, beyond eLearning’s positive impact on an organization’s profitability through increased retention and productivity, it also facilitates the processing and retention of the course material itself. In fact, according to a Towards Maturity Benchmark survey, out of the 600 companies asked, a 72% backed the statement that learning technologies, such as eLearning and mobile learning, assisted their business greatly in adapting more quickly to change, by an increase of 11% over the previous year. The same survey found an 18% reduction in cost, a 27% increase in reach/volume of learning delivered, and a 27% reduction in training delivery time. Furthermore, eLearning is proven to increase information retention by 25 to 60% – whereas the average content retention rate for an instructor-led class is only 58%, placing a higher value on every dollar spent on eLearning.

The landscape of businesses changes rapidly. Today’s organizations are realizing that once-and-for-all employee training isn’t enough to stay productive, competitive or retain employees for life. We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Pound-for-pound, dollar-for-dollar, very few educational resources – if any – compare to the inherent value and long-term impact of eLearning in the modern workplace.