The benefits & advantages of online training

Online training is provided when an individual works through training material that is published online.

This is an increasingly popular means of providing training, and here we examine some of the reasons why.

1. Online training reduces the cost of lost productivity

   Traditional training is timetabled for a set time - when the trainee(s) and trainer(s) will both be present.

   Online training is more flexible and can be fitted in around the individual employee’s workload – less hours of productive work will be lost, thus reducing the cost of lost productivity.

2. Online training eliminates travel & venue costs

   Traditional training requires employees to leave the workplace, often collectively. This means incurring travelling time and expense, as well as incurring the cost of an alternative venue in which the training will take place.

   Online training avoids these costs. Employees do not need to leave the workplace – they can access their training from the shop floor.

3. Online training is easier to manage

   Online training is easier to manage than traditional training. Because online training is done on the computer, it can more easily be scheduled, recorded, assessed and reported on online via a Learning Management System without the need to ‘input’ results or course details, all of which exist online as a by product of doing the training.

4. Flexible course schedules

   Online training allows trainees to complete course modules conveniently, over a period time and at a pace that suits each individual trainee.

5. Eases the process of change management

   Online training makes it easier to introduce new skills or systems to staff – for example a new computer system, work place procedure or a new product for staff to sell.

   Because a Learning Management System can be used to manage online training so cost effectively, online training can actually facilitate the introduction of changes that might otherwise had to have been foregone.

   

6. Low cost of reuse

   Once created, online training can be re-used for any new employees without any further creation or delivery cost other than the time the individual spends training.

   Repeating traditional training requires the production of materials & content, and more often than not the cost of a tutor.

7. Eliminates the cost of unnecessary training

   Online training can be preceded by assessment questions that the trainee completes online before starting on the training material.

   Once they complete their pre-qualification assessment questions, the online material they are subsequently offered is automatically targeted only at those areas where a deficiency of knowledge has been established. They will not be offered content related to material for which they have already demonstrated understanding in the pre-assessment questions.

   This means employees do not waste time covering material that is already familiar to them.

8. Learn at your own/individual pace

   Traditional training timetables have a fixed duration that is applied regardless of whether or not each trainee has assimilated the material within that time.

   This means that either the whole group must move at the pace of the slowest trainee, or the group moves faster, and slower trainees miss out on it.

   With online training the trainee can work through the material at their own speed – faster or slower than others, and either not waste time, or actually assimilate what they might otherwise not have done so.

   Trainees can repeat or redo any sections of the training that they were not sure about until they are confident of it.

9. Training can be easily customised

   With an online training content editor you can quickly and easily customise training courses for particular groups of staff, for example by job role, geographical region or division, so as to target the training at the needs of the group.

   This customisation needs only be done once, and is then available for subsequent benefit without further work.

10. Train any number

    Online training is flexible enough to allow any number of staff to learn at any one time.