Nuances of ILT and Online Training Programmes for Employees

Posted by sophiasmith on December 12th, 2014

With the advent of the internet, learning and training has risen to a different level. These days, there are many online training programmes for employees, which have become very popular in the corporate world. Online training programmes have several advantages and most of them are discussed below. Companies find that online learning is a fantastic learning platform for employees who are at different locations. Let’s take an example to understand this better.

A company with 1000 employees has implemented SAP CRM in its head office and branches that are located all over the country. To train all these employees on SAP CRM is paramount. The first and most traditional method is the instructor led training platform. In this, the employees are either called at one location or the trainer moves from one branch to another to train the employees. What do you feel is the drawback of such as training plan? Well, there are three main challenges that the training department will have. First, training 1000 employees will take a very long time considering that there are different branch locations. Second, there are huge costs involved in training employees at different locations by the instructor led training platform. Third, there are operational concerns with the cross location training.

To save time, money and effort, most organizations are using online learning as the best platform for training their employees. In continuation with the CRM example, the company will host the elearning modules on a learning management system and then broadcast the courses. With online learning, the employees can take the courses at their own pace. With instructor led training, the companies look for training courses for employees  but with elearning, they don’t have to be worried about the costs. Companies can opt for a training program at different levels. Level one being the lowest and level six being the highest. Level one and level two courses are generally good candidates for online learning, whereas level three courses are more hands-on or trainer driven.

Given the two options, training managers can easily select the best training platform for their employees. Training managers need to chalk out a training calendar and choose the right mix of training pedagogies. The training manager has many responsibilities and one of the major responsibility is the preparation of the training calendar. There are some challenges for management course that most training managers are facing these days. With proper planning and execution, the training manager will not have any problem in getting all the employees trained on the desired courses. There are two types of skills that the training department focuses on—soft skills and hard skills. By and large, most organizations use instructor led training platforms for soft skills and online learning for hard skills.

Online training programmes for employees are very effective if the training content is relevant for the employees. If the employees feel that the training will help them in their jobs, then they will be more interested in the courses—online or instructor led.         

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