Four Efficiencies Created by Using Custom eLearning Solutions

Is your organization expanding use of custom eLearning solutions for training and development purposes? If so, you’re not alone. According to the most recently published ATD State of the Industry report, surveys are showing most organizations are expecting that eLearning use will increase over the next five years.

That makes sense, considering that use of eLearning creates efficiencies that save organizations time and money, and often improve learning outcomes. How? Use of custom eLearning solutions, ideally developed with the unique needs of your organization and learning audience in mind during the design process, can shorten seat times to increase productivity and enhance employee performance. It’s a great way to personalize training. Moreover, an investment in the right training solution has also been shown to improve employee morale and encourage motivation, which increases retention rates and helps to attract talent.

But staying within budget and planning wisely is the name of the game. So, how do you create efficiencies using custom eLearning solutions? A simple content conversion to digital delivery methods won’t be enough to accomplish the upgrade you’re seeking. The efficiencies are created with thoughtful design as the first step of the process – even if that process starts with digitizing older content.

All custom eLearning courses developed should be designed with business objectives, performance metrics to measure outcomes, and the user experience for the learner in mind. Even if that development is a content conversion, rather than design of wholly new courses, there should be thoughtful consideration about how the content will be useful or may need updating in the new delivery format.

Here are four key areas in which you will see a benefit in using custom eLearning solutions, with ideas to enhance your offering to further increase the value.

Areas in Which You Can Create Efficiencies with Custom eLearning Solutions

1. Increased Organization. On the front end, eLearning delivery methods may improve organization of your learning offerings overall if you make use of landing pages and systems to make courses and supplemental materials easy to find, access, and refer back to later. On the back end of the system, use of eLearning will provide you with user data that makes reporting a much simpler process.
2. Self-Paced Learning. One of the major benefits of eLearning is the ability for remote users to access courses, on their own schedule. This benefit extends to in-office workplace environments as well, as your learners can use any downtime to access courses for asynchronous learning activities when desired. Employees in fast-paced, busy environments often appreciate the ability to access courses around other key responsibilities when it makes sense to do so in the course of their workday.
3. Time Efficiencies. eLearning can reduce seat time and fit more flexibly within a larger schedule. It can also be used, such as with the onboarding training results generated during our project with Delta airlines, to improve the courses so that representatives taking onboarding training reach proficiency earlier in the process by building in opportunities to take on responsibilities incrementally in a safe environment to progressively learn skills. Once content is digitized, it may also be easier to update courses and learning opportunities are highly scalable.
4. Better Data Tracking. As alluded to earlier, use of digital sources for eLearning can create efficiencies in data collection, tracking, and reporting. eLearning courses are a source of user data, including number of users, time spent using each course, completion rates, and metrics around assessments. You can also attach user surveys to the courses to gather feedback. Use of these data fields can provide windows of insight initially, and later give you the information and evidence needed to make good decisions about how to update courses when needed to include new skills training, eliminate inefficiencies and redundancies, and improve employee motivation by enhancing activities that encourage engagement.