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The internet helped revolutionize many aspects of life, from smartphones, to smart tv’s and others to the idea of eLearning, not having to go to a certain class to receive education. Distance learning has exploded and become widely popular in the years.

The concept of Elearning is often related to to the classroom and the benefits for teachers and students. However, this form of learning is also very useful for companies. Additionally, it is cost effective and can produce great results Docebo’s report of Market Trends & Forecast 2014-2016 showed that business that use eLearning are more productive and subsist longer , but what is it that employers or companies really think about this education method?

Employers are aware that the majority of college students have a job during their time in school, whether it is part time or full time, it consumes part of their daily hours. On the other hand, companies need competent workers and the employees often seek to gain valuable degrees in order to increase their own marketability. And more and more people are opting for an online degree due to the facilities this method offer. Zogby conducted a survey about the perception of executives about eLearning. The survey showed that 83% of executives and business owners feel online degrees are as credible as traditional degrees.

In terms of training, most companies realized eLearning has a positive impact on both, the employee training and the prosperity of the company itself. Overall, companies have a good perspective about eLearning for several reasons related to reduction of costs, better management, easy access, optimization of systems, etc.

First, the improved training costs. Each time a course is accessed through eLearning platforms, the return on investment improves because the fixed production is divided by the costs of users. Producing learning content is always time consuming. However, with eLearning there is less use of resources, there is reduction of material, etc.

Furthermore, increased productivity is also a factor that companies value about eLearning. Since it is not bound by geography or time, companies have absolute control of the impact of training on production. eLearning is a great way to give employees the tools and skills needed their performance. Therefore, they also end up optimizing their work and improving their overall performance.

Another factor companies value is the decreased material costs. Having to use a certain area for a class or a training session suppose costs. For example, if employees need to be trained in how to arrange equipment in a sterile environment like an operating room, the real environment would most likely be used, with can be quite costly. Or even when setting up a fake environment, there are costs related to labor and materials used. If, on the other hand, the environment recreated online  can also offer practice for the learned and it is less costly. Besides, companies do not have to worry about indirect costs like clean up or set up.

Standardization is also an important advantage of eLearning for most companies. No matter how skilled is the facilitator; there is no guarantee that the courses will be presented the same way across sessions or in different turns. Whereas traditional training cannot assure the same scheme for classes, ELearning allows companies to create a standardized process and consistency in the delivery of the content. Moreover, it compresses delivery time and makes it accessible for employees from anywhere and at anytime.

Besides, the combination of multimedia and instructional design can help produce a rich learning experience and companies are aware of this. Compelling good practice activities with engaging content and feedback creates an optimized learning environment that helps learners retain the content of the course so they can apply it later. eLearning constitutes a great way to update employees’ knowledge in the different work areas and has a positive impact on their professional development and the company per se.

Furthermore, companies do not only use training methods, instead they look for new and advanced techniques of delivering information to their employees. This is basically what lead enterprises to the use of eLearning, because those platforms can be done and developed according to the company’s needs. It also results useful because it keeps the company immersed in new ideas and changes that the industry may suffer, while assessing the employees and evaluating their professional progress.

Another important aspect for companies about eLearning is that it encourages sharing. It is developed as a community where people can share what they know with others. In fact, forums or discussions incorporated add value to the whole experience and even when it depends on the structure of the course, encouraging the sharing of resources is also good.

Besides, companies that aim to reduce their impact on the environment are moving to an eLearning  approach. A study of Britain’s Open University showed that “producing and providing distance learning courses consumes an average of 90% less energy and produces 85% fewer CO2 emissions per student than conventional face-to-face courses.”

But the advantages go beyond this, it has been proved that the use of Elearning also helps with the employees’ engagement with the company because they perceive an enterprise worried about their formation and constant capacitation. It works as a good non-financial benefit to keep workers motivated and aligned with the company’s philosophy.

Even though companies are aware of the advantages of using eLearning and despite the obvious evolution of online education, there are some hard core traditionalists that insist their employees have a traditional training. However, more and more enterprises are inclined to choose digital and experts agree that it will become widely popular around the world.

However, there are still some challenges companies face for developing an effective and optimized eLearning experience. First, in order for it to be effective, the way companies manage the courses and access to resources has to be fully planned. And there are two options: giving the final user more control or have specific, closed systems.

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