Learning doesn’t end when you graduate from school or college. You continue to pick up new information and adapt to various circumstances throughout your life, particularly in the workplace.
It’s not uncommon for people to carry out training during their job, either on their employer’s advice or as a self-made decision. Not only does this ensure a person’s knowledge and skills remain at the right level for their position, but it also allows them to branch out. The opportunity to take on new tasks or try for a promotion can increase quite significantly when people learn new things.
Of course, there’s more than one way to experience this, with e-learning being one of the most popular routes in the modern day. From online classes done through educational websites to training information made available in the cloud, digital learning is proving to be a huge hit. Precisely what kind of impact is that having on businesses, though?
The Pandemic Has Changed A Lot
2020 was an unforgettable year for a lot of the wrong reasons. With the pandemic forcing people to stay at home and worry about their health, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant time to live in.
One of the more significant impacts the virus had was on employment, with many people either having to work remotely or not work at all. With the fear of financial instability weighing over so much of the population, plenty decided to do something productive about their concerns – learn.
Online courses saw a dramatic increase throughout the year as people sought to improve their skillset. Some wanted to prepare themselves for a brand new line of work, aware that their industry wouldn’t be recovering for a long time. Others wanted to strengthen their current skills or develop new ones that would make them more valuable to their employer. That way, they had a better chance of helping the company thrive or escaping the firing line if redundancies became a necessity.
People Now Have More To Offer
This uptake in online learning hasn’t been a bad thing for business. After all, if people are improving their skill set to avoid losing their job, it means they’re now offering more than they did before.
The drive to maintain employment during such difficult times, coupled with the extra knowledge they now have, is making some people exceptional workers. Their ability to go above and beyond is really making a difference, particularly in smaller companies where the potential risk of financial trouble is greater.
It helps that remote working is largely proving beneficial too, with productivity either remaining consistent or increasing compared to previous years. This is likely tied to the fact that greater flexibility – including getting to work from home – was already growing in demand before the pandemic. People believed they’d be more motivated to get stuff done if they had somewhere to work that was more comfortable and didn’t require commuting. Evidently, they were right.
Businesses Have Greater Opportunities To Expand
The people who study online courses aren’t the only ones who can branch out. When an employee learns something new, it gives the business they work for the potential to explore different avenues.
Imagine that someone works for a content company that only deals with written content. However, in their spare time, they utilize e-learning resources to develop knowledge and skills in video marketing. Once they complete their course, they’ll have a skill set in something that’s still relevant to what they do but which their business doesn’t yet offer. They can then use what they learned to provide additional services to existing customers and potentially entice new ones to work with them.
Obviously, if everything goes to plan, then the benefits this provides the business are clear.
It Offers Businesses A Competitive Edge
With the availability of courses being so varied, employees can bring almost anything to the table with e-learning. That includes the ability to give their business a competitive edge.
Something like a business analytics course offers such a benefit because it teaches people how to interpret what’s happening and make more informed decisions. Given how much is changing at the moment, such a skill is vital moving forward. The wrong move could be devastating right now, but the knowledge and understanding that comes with a business analytics certification can significantly decrease the risk.
On a personal level, taking such a course is good because it can help with employability too. Many people are engaging with e-learning at the moment because they’re out of work or want to land themselves a better job. Anyone with this skill would be considered a valuable commodity throughout their employment, so it’s not a bad thing to pick up. Plus, any business that hires someone with such capabilities is obviously going to benefit from the insight that person can provide.
Remote Training Becomes Much Easier
The pandemic increased remote working significantly, and although people are now returning to offices, not everyone will be going back. Plenty of employees will continue to work from home post-pandemic, while many others will now split their time between there and the office. This means that businesses need to continue adapting to the demands of remote working situations, especially regarding training.
Face-to-face training was once considered essential for every new hire. Although, that was before the working landscape changed and technology developed to an exceptional level. Nowadays, training someone who’s not in the office doesn’t have to be a problem because there are systems in place that make onboarding easier.
Obviously, this isn’t perfect, and face-to-face contact is still ideal for building relationships between staff. However, it does mean that businesses now have a much easier time integrating new employees into the team, regardless of whether operations are in-office or remote.
It’s Also Helping Those In Senior Positions
You might think that improving your skill set is something that’s only for those who’ve yet to work their way to the top. However, everyone can benefit from such training, including those in more senior positions.
Over the last year, many business leaders have worried about getting their company through the pandemic and effectively managing people working remotely. As a result, some have turned to online courses to discover the solutions to their problems, and it’s improved their business as a result.
Those in positions of power might be more reluctant to engage with online learning because it could be viewed as a sign of weakness. However, the best way to run a business is constantly changing (particularly in times of COVID-19), and those who don’t adapt put themselves at risk.
That’s why regular training is so essential, and the convenience and availability of online courses is making e-learning the best option for this. Those who discovered that during the pandemic now have the upper hand because they’ve already learned how to cope with the new normal. Things aren’t ever going to completely go back to how they were before, meaning the businesses most likely to thrive are the ones whose leaders have trained for this.
Everyone should continue learning new skills and improving their knowledge throughout their employment, and e-learning makes that incredibly easy to do. It’s a valuable tool that all businesses should embrace moving forward because there’s no denying the benefits it can bring them.