E-learning uses digital technology to deliver a course curriculum outside a brick and mortar classroom. This technology can be used by companies in various ways to enhance their business and support their employees and clients. Here are a few tips for incorporating e-learning into your organization.
Onboarding
When new employees get hired to an organization, they usually have to file a series of legal paperwork from human resources, payroll and company benefits. A new hire orientation is a first step towards the onboarding process to integrate a new employee into the company culture. The tasks in the onboarding process can be automated incorporating e-learning technology.
A new employee may be expected to understand and abide by a company culture through a series of online courses that incorporate multimedia presentations and assessments. Role-specific assignments can also be presented as a sequence of study units in which the employee must take and pass. This channel of learning is beneficial to both onsite and offsite workers.
With companies offering more and more remote positions to skilled workers across the globe, automating the orientation step has become crucial as well. Job offers are being offered instantly online instead of through snail mail and the employee is expected to read and sign off a lengthy employee contract through a secured online medium. In addition, the new hire is expected to produce legal documents that are verifiable in person with an authorized witness and submit a scanned version of them by email. These steps can be integrated into an online orientation course through the company website with a strict deadline.
Continuing Education
Before the explosion of e-learning, many companies offered employees the perk of obtaining career advancement through obtaining a full-time graduate degree in a brick and mortar school. While this option was attractive, it meant that the company would subsidize an employee's higher education while the employee is on leave. With the advent of e-learning programs, an employer can offer this perk to more candidates while the employees remain working on-premises. A self-directed learning schedule can be arranged to obtain optimal employee productivity.
Many institutions of higher learning offer accredited online degree programs that can be completed without ever stepping into the school building. Recorded video presentations by professors are made available online with source sheets, online textbooks, quizzes, assignments, and proctored examinations. Professors and students interact mainly online through various communication channels, including Slack, Google Hangouts, Whatsapp, Zoom.
Leadership Training
Online learning technology affords an organization to train employees in mini-courses from a wide variety of offerings. Instead of sending employees to an offsite boot camp or a multi-day conference, an employer saves financial resources investing in appropriate e-learning programs. Graduates of these programs are given the opportunity to lead and train future students within the company reusing the same initiatives or starting a new one.
Leadership programs within a company can be packaged into an e-learning curriculum to train employees looking to advance in their careers in the management trek. Live conferencing with selected speakers known for their leadership skills can be incorporated into this program and recorded for future access within the company's secure computer network.
Global Training
Many companies offer remote positions for customer service to be available 24/7 to anticipate a global clientele. Customer service representatives from foreign countries require training to deal with the etiquette and culture of their international clients. These support workers must be trained to interact courteously with clients whom they have not had experience communicating with in-person in their home countries. Customized e-learning programs that provide this type of training can be deployed.
Recruiting
Many organizations screen potential candidates through online interviews that may last from a half-hour to a few hours. The recruiter has to be fully trained to conduct the interview process to present the company's best image to potential candidates. If the interviewing involves technical assessments, the questioner will be prompted with a series of guided questions to help the interviewee along. E-learning helps the interviewer to practice recruiting skills by video recording oneself and getting feedback from peer reviewers. Similarly, e-learning helps a potential candidate with practice interviews and receiving peer reviews and recruiter evaluation.
Positions for software engineering often require various levels of online interviews before a successful candidate is invited for an onsite interview. E-learning websites abound that train these candidates for potential interview technical assessments. These include HackerRank, LeetCode, and Codewars.
To be successful in the 21st century, a company can take advantage of the many digital learning technologies available to train its employees in all aspects of running an organization from recruiting to employee advancement and customer care.
