1. More efficient use of employees’ time
According to a study by Brandon-Hall, online training takes 40 to 60 percent less employee time than learning the same things in a classroom. When your employees are completing training on their own time, there are fewer distractions.
You don’t have to pull employees away from their work or set aside specific days for company-wide classroom-style training. Of course, online training is also frees up administrative man hours.
Administrators no longer have to coordinate employee schedules, find instructors for every training session, and track down classroom space.
The training captain at Monroe County Sheriff’s Office remembers a time when Monroe County officers had to sit through three 12-hour days of redundant classroom training. She says deputies dreaded the training days, which ate into the time for hands-on training.
When Monroe County started using PowerDMS for their training management, they were able to do all the redundant training online. Instead of spending 36 hours sitting in a classroom listening to lectures, officers complete those courses on their own time.
Monroe’s in-person retraining now takes just four hours, all of which is devoted to practical, scenario-based training. Officers take the information they learned in the online courses and practice putting their skills to use.
2. Cost savings
Classroom training is expensive. The costs quickly add up—paying for classroom space, printing materials for every employee, paying trainers for each session, providing food for everyone who attends.
Not to mention the potential travel and overtime costs, and the administrative work that goes into maintaining training records. Your training budget can be gone before you know it.
Online training eliminates most of these expenses. It can save your company thousands of dollars each year—money you can use to offer additional training or reinvest into other areas of your company.
For example, online training saves Monroe County $87,000 each year in overtime costs.
Plus, online training offers large return on investment. Research has found that revenue generated per employee is 26 percent higher for organizations that offer online training.
One survey found that 42 percent of companies say online training led to increased revenue. A study by IBM found that online training increased productivity, because employees could resume their work faster and immediately apply the skills they learned.
3. Better information retention
When employees do training on their own time, they often retain information better. According to the Research Institute of America, online training increases information retention rates by 25 to 60 percent.
IBM found that employees who participated in an online training program learned almost five times more material than they did in the same amount of time in-person.
Using an online training software, your organization can make training more engaging than just listening to lectures. Online training can include videos, PowerPoints, and other interactive multimedia content.
This ensures that the training content appeals to employees with different learning styles.
Training management software also lets employees review training materials as often as they need to. This ensures that they can remember concepts they learned long after they’ve completed the initial training.
Online LE training software like PowerDMS also lets you create customized tests to make sure employees understand the concepts in training.
4. Convenience and flexibility
Set training hours in a classroom leave little room for flexibility. If an employee is out sick on the day of training, it may be difficult for them to get the information they need.
Even employees who attend the training may be tired or distracted, unable to really engage and take in the information. With online training, employees can complete the training at any time from anywhere.
PowerDMS lets them access online training materials from any mobile device.
They can choose the time that works best for them, when they’re not distracted and can really engage.
Instead of sitting through hours of training at a time, employees can do training in a way that works best for them. Even if they only have a small window of time, they can log in and complete a quick training session.
And if something comes up, they can pause the session and come back to it later. PowerDMS will automatically save their spot.
5. Immediate results/feedback
Monroe County experienced the frustration of trying to gauge the effectiveness of their classroom training. After officers completed the training, administrators would issue a paper test.
However, the test was the same every year and every test had the same questions. There was no way to tell whether officers really understood the training or were simply copying one another’s answers.
When Monroe got PowerDMS, they created a question bank that the software would pull from to make every test unique. Instead of having to grade tests by hand, administrators could immediately see how each officer scored.
They could see which questions officers missed the most and beef up the course content in that area. Online training software like PowerDMS also lets organizations gather feedback more directly.
Administrators can issue a post-course evaluation or survey to see what parts of training officers enjoyed and what they thought could be improved. This helps make sure that employees enjoy and engage with training.
6. Easy to keep relevant and updated
No matter what kind of training your organization does, you’ll have to regularly update your training to keep up with industry standards. With an online training software, all your training content is in one place.
You don’t have have to reprint employee manuals, training workbooks, and other important documents. Once you update content in the training software, you can rest assured that all your employees are seeing the most up-to-date documents.
This gives you a lot more flexibility with your training content. If you get feedback that a particular aspect of training is confusing, you can make immediate changes.
A system like PowerDMS helps you integrate your updated policies into your training.
Adaptable training also helps keep you up to date in your industry. According to CertifyMe.net, 72 percent of organizations said that online training gave them a competitive edge by helping them adapt more quickly to change.
7. Good fit for the modern workforce
The modern workplace is fast-paced and flexible.
More people are working flexible hours or working from home. According to globalworkplaceanalytics.com, regular remote work has grown by 103 percent since 2005. And 80 to 90 percent of the U.S. workforce say they would like to work from home at least part time.
Younger generations of employees especially want flexibility. Online training is one key way to make things more flexible for your staff. Plus, it lets you keep your employees trained without having to stop operations to do so.
Employees of all ages are also using technology in all aspects of their lives. They are used to communicating and engaging information through technology. Online training only makes sense.
Thorough training is an essential part of making your organization great. Online training makes training process more effective, saves you money, and helps you arm your employees with the information they need to do their jobs well.
No matter what industry you’re in online training software is a worthwhile investment.
