9 Reasons to Invest in E-Learning Now

If you haven’t used e-learning to train your team, when is the right time to start? A similar question applies if you have used off-the-shelf e-learning in the past – when is the right time to develop custom e-learning content?

In most situations, the answer to both questions is now. Whether you are a small or large business in the UAE or Saudi Arabia, you will benefit now from implementing e-learning modules into your training strategy. Here are nine reasons why this is the case.

1. Employees Want You To

Some of your employees might groan and put up resistance to some training, but when they understand the benefits of the training course and they can complete it in a convenient way, you will find they are much more enthusiastic.In fact, many members of your team will crave training that helps them improve professionally and achieve their career development goals.

This is demonstrated in research. A survey by LinkedIn, for example, found that 94% of employees questioned said they are more likely to stay at companies that invest in their learning and development.

Companies are getting this message loud and clear. In the same survey, 57 percent of companies that took part in the research planned to spend more money on e-learning content in the coming year. Only 21 percent intend to spend more money on classroom-based training.

2. It’s Not as Difficult as You Think

One of the barriers that many business owners and senior managers/executives face when considering e-learning is the complexity of getting a course or module created.The reality, however, is that creating e-learning modules is not as difficult as you might think. The key is to work with an experienced e-learning developer in KSA or the UAE, wherever you are based. Your e-learning developer will guide you through the process and will do all the heavy lifting.

3. Helps You Stay Competitive

The reality of modern business and the times we live is that nothing stands still. To stay competitive, you need to continue pushing forward, making improvements while also constantly being on the lookout for ways to become more productive and efficient.

In relation to training, this means investing in e-learning to enhance your training activities and initiatives.

4. Reduce Training Costs

You need to invest in e-learning to get professional and effective modules and content, but the cost of using e-learning as your training delivery method is almost always lower than the cost of running classroom-based training sessions.

5. Improve Performance

The purpose of training, however that training is delivered, is to enhance the skills and knowledge of your team. You don’t do this for the sake of it, however. Instead, the training you deliver ensures your team has the skills and knowledge required to improve the performance of your business.

As e-learning typically delivers better outcomes and results than alternative forms of training, the performance gains you will achieve will be greater.

6. Ensures Training Consistency

One of the big challenges of training is ensuring the delivery is consistent with all members of your team. After all, whenever you have multiple trainers and/or multiple training sessions, there is always the risk that the quality of the training can vary. In fact, it can vary considerably.

With e-learning, however, you eliminate that inconsistency as everyone, regardless of where they are located or when they do the training, receives the same standard of content.

Note in the above that it mentions the same standard of content, not the same content. This is because it is very easy to customise e-learning modules for different groups of learners while maintaining consistent quality standards.

7. Makes Your Training More Flexible and Adaptable

One thing that has become increasingly apparent over recent years is the need for businesses to be flexible and adaptable. Circumstances can change very quickly: your business needs to be able to react to those changes.

This applies to all areas of your business, including training. With e-learning content and modules, you will have the training flexibility and adaptability that your business needs.

8. Enhanced Analysis of Training Activities

One often overlooked area of training, particularly when planning new training, is how you will measure success. One reason for this is that measuring the success of classroom-based training is often a subjective exercise.

With e-learning, however, you get quantitative as well as qualitative analysis. This will give you more information to help you plan future training modules and it will give you a better understanding of the true skills and capabilities of the people on your team.

9. Achieve Goals

All the above are important but the bottom line with e-learning is that it works. In other words, whatever your business goals for the coming months, year, or multi-year period, e-learning will help you achieve those goals.

Examples include ensuring your business can meet future demands, improving Net Promoter Score or Customer Satisfaction Score, moving into new markets, increasing profitability, enhancing market share, and more.

With e-learning content, your team will be more engaged ensuring better knowledge retention and accelerated behavioural change, all of which are required to achieve your goals.

E-Learning Return on Investment

Here is a bonus reason for investing in e-learning now – you’ll get a better return on investment than you will from other forms of training.

You will still need other forms of training as e-learning can’t replace all your training activities. That said, where e-learning is most effective, you will get better results for lower costs, i.e. a higher return on investment. The time to invest is now.