In any economic situation employee development and skills building remain an essential requirement for success. But how can we avoid the inevitable reduction in the training budget being viewed by staff negatively. Does reducing the training budget always mean that lower quality training opportunities are on offer?

In today’s economic climate of huge savings having to be sourced from public sector and the knock on effect that has on the private sector, can any organisation afford to ignore the benefits of e-learning in their training and development strategy?

E-learning has been embraced by thousands of companies in the UK, all hoping to create a blend of options available to staff. Most organisations that are experiencing huge success with e-learning are those who have deployed it as part of the wider business strategy.

These organisations see the many benefits of e-learning as a necessary component to their strategy. The personalisation of learning to the individual is seen as vital in offering training solutions to meet the needs of all members of staff. In addition, employees no longer have the time and resource to attend costly classroom-based learning, where a 3 day course may only deliver the knowledge and skills they need in one of the 60 minute topic segments covered. Moreover, the e-learning option not only allows the member of staff to competency map their existing knowledge, but also to undertake their learning and development at a time and in a place which is suited 100% to their needs, and not to the needs of anyone else.

So many organisations are only now starting to realise that e-learning can be deployed cost effectively and efficiently whilst also offering many topic areas and solutions that wouldn’t otherwise be offered due to the current economic climate.

The business case for these organisations new to e-learning needs to be aligned with the goals of the management team who have asked for solutions to their problems. Cost saving is an easy question to answer. Classroom based learning strategies are costly in terms of sourcing the venue, trainers, content, travel & accommodation, maybe even organising cover. The e-learning course is completed in a quick and efficient way once a competency assessment is conducted, therefore productivity back in the workplace is restored. The employee themselves are still onsite for any emergency situations that may occur. 

Another must-have benefit to e-learning is the management system that collects and stores the data gained during the learning experience. This information is invaluable to the organisation as well as delivering data that no classroom based training course can compete with. The success of many classroom courses are based upon learners turning up, staying and completing an obligatory evaluation form. Whereas e-learning, through assessments and testing mechanisms gives powerful statistics to the organisation on the knowledge gained by its employees.

The quality of content, and pedagogical theories applied to e-learning, are developing at an amazing rate. The technology available to deliver rich interactive learning scenario’s which allow the learner to embrace the topic and redeploy their newly acquired knowledge, means a win-win situation for all. In this current climate, any business option that makes employers and employees winners really shouldn’t be ignored.

Do you agree with Lesley?