The global eLearning industry will be worth $325 billion by 2025. The introduction of technology-enabled systems has boosted online training. They provide continuous and active learning at optimal costs.
Some of the factors that’ll contribute to the growth of the market include the advent of cloud infrastructure. Open content creation and peer-to-peer problem solving have also created opportunities for eLearning service providers.
Read on to learn more!
Table of Contents
What’s Online Training?
Online training refers to the transfer of knowledge through the internet. Learners can get learning content from anywhere around the globe without leaving their location. Professionals who’ve excelled in particular fields can choose to train students willing to take up online classes. Even in the medical field, online classes for specific courses such as phlebotomy are being conducted. Visit to know more.
The online courses are available in free and paid versions. As you can expect, the paid versions provide more content than the free ones. Certifications and certificates are awarded to students for their understanding capabilities.
Most organizations highly value these certifications. Some give preference to candidates who hold the certificates. Some companies will recommend some online courses before offering permanent job opportunities.
The training doesn’t end here as some companies will continue to train online for new concepts and technologies.
As organizations embrace eLearning, they’ve also enjoyed the benefits that come with it. Let’s look at the advantages that come with online training.
1. Cost Effective
Online training is a cost-effective way of passing information to your employees without spending much. It works best especially if you have a large employee audience. You save a lot on time for employees and fees for trainers.
It also helps cut down on travel, training rooms, and catering costs. With eLearning, trainees only need to have access to a computer or mobile phone, and enough time to complete their course. Learning materials like books are available in eBooks formats, which can be saved in a hard drive.
Certifications are provided online in printable form. Reference videos, course materials, and examination scores can also be saved in a way they can be viewed multiple times.
All the money the company saves can go into better use like improving the working environment.
2. Accessibility
Online training materials are easily accessible by the workforce from a central online location. It’s highly unlikely that the materials will get misplaced. As such, it becomes effortless for the learners to understand the content, since they can refer to it with a lot of conveniences.
The online support, downloadable online notes, online interaction and everything else is readily available. The easier the learners can access their learning materials, the easier it is for them to achieve their goals.
3. Flexibility
One advantage of technology is that it demands regular updates and faster systems at all times. This is only possible with constant training and learning. It can be tiring to work a 9-5 job and still have to go to a training center after work.
Physical classes can eat into a lot of your time, denying you your free time and weekends.
With online classes, you can take them anytime from anywhere. The only requirement would be an internet connection. You can listen to audio files while traveling to and from work or during your coffee breaks. This gives you the flexibility of time and effort.
4. Better Retention for Most Topics
ELearning provides better training for employees, especially on specific topics. The content is interactive, with videos that increase the learners’’ engagement and retention levels. This works well especially for a concise and particular topic like software training or reference guides.
Employees can use online learning tools to match their competencies with their learning goals. Online learning helps with the use of personalized study materials and interactive formats.
5. Enhances Collaboration
Medical institutions are in the front line of embracing online training. The use of video conferencing infrastructure has boosted medical, technical training. In return, it has doubled the number of graduates produced by colleges each year.
Online training has, therefore, been useful in helping institutions gain an instant reach to staff and trainers from around the world. Teams from different geographies have collaborated to solve various challenges in the current time, ensuring instant connectivity.
6. Variety of Course and Programs
Online learning has opened up numerous learning opportunities. Unlike the traditional four-year university courses, higher education is today more diverse. It means that no matter what students study, they can find a variety of programs and courses to choose from.
Some of the course available online are not offered in traditional class settings. Taking the courses is also less prohibitive since learners can determine their learning schedule. It’s now effortless to earn every academic certificate online, from the lowest to the highest.
7. Career Continuity
It’s not uncommon for employees to apply for study leave when they want to pursue higher education. With eLearning, you can complete your degree while still working. It’s no longer necessary to interrupt your career and make the company incur the cost of hiring again.
It lets you take up studies while pursuing your career goals. This is particularly true for those enrolled in medical technical training. The flexibility it offers also reduces the pressure of studying while working.
8. Improves Communication and Community Building
Online classes will let employers share training content with their employees using customized email notifications. When it’s well scheduled, it’ll allow you to feed everything that’s happening in the organization for ease of access.
This improves the enterprise social network. When there’s new content to share, the employer can update it through the social feed. This ensures there’s visibility for all.
Since learning can be lonely, eLearning makes it livelier by converting it into a social exercise. Employees are better in learning through interaction with peers than reading books. This online interaction brings them together, often leading to debates and discussions that propel innovations.
Online training doesn’t have to be a personal journey. Community building and collaboration are other benefits of online training. Features like discussion forums and live tutorials are available for employees to connect with others in the learning community.
Online engagement with other employees enhances collaboration and team culture. The resulting collaboration creates more benefits for the organization beyond the training environment.
9. Widespread Standardization and Connection
Organizations with many departments, teams, and offices, or geographically dispersed teams can struggle to connect. With online training, it becomes possible to create a standardized training program. It enables all employees across the board to get the same information regardless of their location.
The delivery of content is hence done the same way to all employees. The learners will attend the same live sessions and get access to the same videos. They’ll also be able to interact with other team members, whom they may never meet physically.
10. Suitable for Millennials
One of the less-talked-about benefits of online training is how it suits the younger generation of workers. Employees today are interested in more than just making money. They’re looking for workplaces that provide them with an opportunity to learn more and enhance their expertise.
With a classroom setting, it can be a little limiting for employees to take up more training programs. There’s only so much that they can do in any given quarter. With eLearning, however, learning materials are always available at the learner’s disposal.
They can choose how many programs they want to take up at any given time. This gives them better access to the subjects of interest. It doesn’t limit them to only those courses necessary for their career.
With this kind of access to learning materials, companies will have better employee retention. The employees will become more loyal due to the greater sense of accomplishment at their workplace.
11. It’s More Personalized
The benefits of online training can’t be exhausted. As a bonus, we’ll look at one more advantage. Advanced systems can help push for more helpful content. This is developed by addressing individual training needs, based on any “incorrect answers” from the learner.
The online systems also allow managers to push for specific training based on the results of the reports. It hence becomes easy to streamline the learning journey, providing employees with what they need. Employers can, therefore, avoid bogging down employees with what they don’t need.
Take Away
As the percentage of tech-savvy employees continues to rise, there’s a need for employees to embrace eLearning. This is important because learning never stops. New content keeps coming up, and it’s only fair that employees are given access to this information.
Instead of having their employees attend physical classes, employers can introduce online training. These classes come with a myriad of benefits, like being less costly. They also save time for employees to work and learn at the same time.
Online classes are more personal, hence an investment in the employees. Systems can develop new content depending on the learners’ weak points. Through online interaction, teams with a department become better and enhance their communication skills.
Employees who are exposed to more than work-related content for self-development become better versions of themselves. You could be worried that the employees may spend too much time online.
To deal with this, stipulate the specific time they can access the content, out of the working hours.
For more information, here are handy tips for educational travel courses.
