Why eLearning is Critical to an Organization

By: Justin Ferriman July 5, 2012
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eLearning has been around for quite some time now, but now more than ever is it essential to the future of business, in more ways than one. It doesn’t matter what industry an organization is in, they all have the two same objectives:

  1. Increase revenue
  2. Decrease cost

Any organization that can do these two things successfully is going to find itself in the black and well ahead of their competition. One way to get there is through a comprehensive eLearning strategy, such as a “Corporate Online University”.

The natural benefit of any eLearning initiative is the decrease in travel and production costs associated with live training events. There is an economies of scale that eLearning enables companies to obtain. This is one of the reasons why eLearning, and the industry in general, has been growing steadily year-after-year.

However, beyond the revenue/cost model, eLearning is essential for another reason – the new workforce. While eLearning is somewhat novel to seasoned veterans of the corporate world, most of the young men and women entering the workforce today have been there-done that for quite some time now.

eLearning, mobile learning, and other blended learning methods are not just the norm, it’s the expectation. Heck, high schools across the nation are incorporating an online portion to their classes through robust LMS systems and dynamic lesson plans that require interaction through social media beyond just the classroom.

Companies today that understand this concept will go a long way in effectively developing their workforce. A more competent employee is often a higher performing one – and this is only good for the company.

Often implementing eLearning, or a learning program in general, as a foundational part of a company is seen as a “nice-to-have”. Organizations looking to survive in the long term will need to realize that humans are always learning. Tapping into, and empowering, the natural human impulse to learn shouldn’t be seen as a last priority, but instead as a core foundation.

My intention here is not to say that those of us who didn’t have eLearning in the classroom “missed the boat”. I never had the luxury of such dynamic learning during my grade school years (and I make a career out of this stuff)! I am simply pointing out that any organization that continues to ignore, or discount, the intrinsic benefits of eLearning is leaving money on the table.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter