According to Josh Bersin, contributor to Forbes, American businesses spend more than $60 billion per year on employee development (i.e., corporate training programs).¹ The value of corporate training is obviously not underestimated. Such training is, in a word, crucial to the success of individual employees, and contributes to the wellbeing of entire organizations.
“...in today's skills-constrained workplace, corporate learning is not just a program to improve productivity and reduce errors. When managed well, it can be one of your most important sources of competitive advantage.” -- How Corporate Learning Drives Competitive Advantage2
Is LMS-Based Corporate Training Best?
There are a couple different models of corporate training that businesses use to deliver L&D programs to their employees:
- Traditional (in-person, live, classroom-style training)
- Online (training delivered through a learning management system/LMS)
Each of these modes of training has its pros and cons, but LMS-based corporate training tends to be most effective. The main reason for this is simply that it is more convenient than traditional training..jpg?width=600&name=action-3399519_1920%20(1).jpg)
Employee training that is delivered via LMS can be accessed 24/7 on any device with Internet access and a Web browser. This means employees can access their training materials from any place, at any time. This drastically differs from live training that happens in a specific space at a set time. Convenience is king in the workplace today, therefore companies will likely increase their online corporate training options in the future.
Related Reading: Best Practices to Create a Best-in-Class Corporate L&D Program
2 Reasons Why Corporate LMS Training is Crucial
Corporate training offered through an LMS accomplishes many things, most fundamentally the expansion of an employee’s knowledge base. Here are two additional reasons why this type of training is more important than you may think:
- It is exactly what employees want more of -- It is an incorrect assumption that employees dislike learning and training. On the contrary, a contributor to Entrepreneur.com stated, “...a major research project by Middlesex University’s Institute for Work Based Learning found that 74% of UK workers felt they were not reaching their potential and wished they had received more job training.” When you train workers, especially through a convenience-promoting LMS, you are giving them what will make them happy long-term.
- It promotes “now” learning -- Due to their increasingly hectic pace of life, most of your employees probably want on-demand, “now” training that can be accessed instantly. Corporate LMS training definitely falls under this classification. Our blog article Why Online Learning is Important in the Workplace quoted Andy Lancaster, head of learning and development at CIPD:
“Many organisations and individuals are now looking for learning that is just in time and not delayed. With a face-to-face model, you may have to wait weeks or even months to be able to go on a course. With online learning, we are able to interface through live classrooms and through a range of innovative and exciting resources which you can access when you want. This opens up a whole new environment where you can learn exactly how and when you want to – at work, at home, or even on your commute to work, providing an incredibly flexible way of learning.”
Only LMS-based corporate training is this flexible and appealing to employees.
References:
1, 2. Forbes. How corporate learning drives competitive advantage. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2013/03/20/how-corporate-learning-drives-competitive-advantage/#1c443d5f17ad.
3. Entrepreneur. How investing in employee training benefits your business. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/275842.
