According to research by Deloitte, organizations believe that virtual learning has emerged as the preferred method of learning and narrowed down the space between learning and work. Thus, virtual delivery should be given top priority in every organization owing to the advantages of online courses.
In this fast-paced world, with new inventions and developments surfacing consistently, online learning helps your employees stay at the top of their game.
The professional development of your employees through online learning – in the form of courses, webinars, workshops, etc. – renders a huge positive impact on your company.
This is just the beginning of the benefits for your company.
Next, let’s look at ten more advantages of online learning or online courses for employee development and their positive ripple effects on your business.
1. Online Courses are Easy to Scale
When your company consists of more than 100 employees, online courses make it much easier for your Learning and Development (L&D) team to train them for the implementation of more effective working strategies.
In addition, training recruits physically can consume a lot of time when you hire recruits. This is also where the scalability feature of online courses comes to the rescue of your L&D team.
A Brandon Hall Group study corroborates this by revealing that online training courses consume about 40-60% less employee time than physical training.
2. Increases the Loyalty of Employees
When you provide your employees with access to accredited online courses that help them improve professionally and impact their personal life, it imbues in them a feeling of loyalty for your company.
You make them feel your company is dedicated to their growth and values them individually. Companies that use online learning courses can boost about 18% in employee engagement.
3. Online Courses Allow for Flexibility
With the Work-From-Home culture here to stay, access to online learning courses at any time can make things very convenient for your employees.
Online courses can help your employees manage office work and their personal affairs and, at the same time, work on enhancing their skills.
You can also easily track their progress with the help of a learning management system – but if you don’t have one – here are five reasons why your company needs it in 2023.
4. Online Courses Provide a Safe-learning Space
Everyone wants to develop skills by learning new things, but competition can sometimes get in the way. Only some employees can flourish in a competitive environment.
Here, online courses can help by providing a safe, competition-free environment for your employees to learn new things at a pace that suits them. An IBM study has found that online courses help employees learn five times more material in a short amount of time.
5. Helps to Beat the Forgetting Curve
According to research, people must remember about 75% of learning material in hours. But with online learning courses, your employees can revisit them repeatedly until they have thoroughly understood the concept.
Further, the Research Institute of America states that online courses have boosted retention rates by about 25 to 60%.
6. Provides Immediate Feedback
Some learning management systems (LMSs) curate online courses that provide immediate feedback to your employees after they have completed the course.
This lets your employees know where they are lacking and need to improve so that they can easily apply the knowledge they have gained.
Since there are so many LMS out there – here’s how you can choose the best LMS provider for your organization.
7. Reduces the Harmful Impact on the Environment
When learning courses are taught online, your employees don’t need to travel physically to the workplace.
A Britain Open University study found that online learning courses use up less than 90% of energy and produce about 85% fewer CO2 emissions per person than traditional (not online) courses. Thus, online courses are good for the environment.
8. Helps Take Care of Direct Business Needs
According to Deloitte, organizations realize the value of a personalized learning design approach.
For instance, say an employee in your organization is excellent at selling products but needs to possess the appropriate knowledge about the products.
In this scenario, through a personalized online learning course, they can gain the much-needed theoretical knowledge about the products so that their sales don’t suffer at any time.
9. Available in a Variety of Formats
One of the top advantages of online learning courses for employee development is that they are available in different formats – short videos ranging from 4-5 minutes, a combination of videos and PowerPoint presentations, instructor-led online courses, etc.
All these types of learning are very effective in increasing the productivity of your employees at the workplace. Click here to learn in detail about the five types of online learning that increase employees’ productivity.
10. Online Courses Save Costs and Boost Sales
Online learning courses for employee development don’t require using any printed material, unlike traditional learning courses. So, they help save the expense that traditional courses would have otherwise consumed.
According to an IBM study, every dollar invested in online courses or training leads to a $30 increase in productivity. In addition, online training has contributed to around 22% faster rollouts for products and processes and, in turn, increased sales.
Conclusion
The advantages of online courses for employee development are endless – they help save costs, boost productivity and revenue, create a stronger and more loyal workforce, etc. But, to avail of them, how do you curate and provide access to online courses to a large workforce of employees?
This is where Hurix Digital comes into play. Hurix provides e-learning content solutions to enterprises. With our customized online teaching platform, state-of-the-art technology, and software infrastructure, we provide enterprises with tailored corporate learning solutions.
To know more about the e-learning services provided by Hurix or get in touch with us, click here.
