Here we look at how many of the most successful and forward thinking companies are using corporate elearning solutions to gain a real competitive edge. We also look at some of the top providers with proven pedigree in making a difference for large organisations.
The benefits of eLearning now reach far beyond onboarding, imparting knowledge and compliance training – it can be a powerful tool for engaging and retaining your best people, and for developing future leaders.
The bigger the organisation, the more disparate its staff, and the more competitive the business landscape, the greater the need for finding every possible competitive edge. If you need to reduce costs / waste, deliver knowledge and develop skills fast, and make your employees feel that they are valued and being given opportunities to grow, then eLearning delivers in each of these areas.
Rehumanising Learning
Much of the criticism about elearning until quite recently has been centred on lack of engagement. Many staff have had boring elearning thrust upon them – health and safety inductions and regulatory awareness training for compliance – all tick-box, robotic stuff.
These basics need to happen one way or another, but many employers who find themselves herding their staff into this training then blame the medium for what they see as a lack of engagement in training.
The generic, hygiene factors of onboarding and compliance will always be relatively boring because people know that it is not personalised for their needs and it probably won’t help their career beyond the current role.
Companies that understand the psychology of ambitious, high-value employees look for ways to demonstrate that appreciation of value and to give their employees opportunities to grow without leaving the company.
Making training available on demand can help your best staff to access learning at their convenience in order to develop their knowledge and upskill themselves. Improving abilities in areas such as customer service can deliver business benefits in terms of reducing both staff and customer attrition. However, some organisations are appreciating the benefits of nurturing softer skills to deliver results less tangible in the short term, but equally powerful.
Sky is an example of a corporation that has embedded learning, including elearning at the heart of its agenda, helping to fuel its impressive growth. Since his appointment as CEO in 2007, Jeremy Darroch has overseen Sky’s growth to 20 million customers in across the UK, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Austria. Throughout his tenure, he has focused on identifying and nurturing the company’s best talent.
In an interview ahead of the EQ Summit in 2017, he said:
“…traditional skills and responses we’ve relied upon as leaders are just going to give us diminishing returns. Some of the softer skills around emotional intelligence and mindfulness are going to be more and more important.”
This growing focus on a learner-led approach to knowledge and skills development has given rise to the Learning Experience Platform or LXP, where the employer acts as curator, as well as creator of elearning content.
Materials can be pieced together from a wide range of sources and much of it can be led by potential employee interests, as well as needs. Creating an experience in this way can help to make online learning a habit where staff go to develop themselves as well-rounded human beings, as well as improving their skills for their current or next role.
We’ll simply see engagement grow in importance and a blurring of LMS and LXP into a more complete learning platform.
In the meantime though, for any large organisation, a good learning management system (LMS) remains a must for rolling out essential training quickly, and in a standardised manner. Tailoring the platform for different user types, geographies, and even languages means that the requirements of a corporate learning management system can be far more complex than that of an LMS for small to medium size businesses.
It’s with this in mind that open source LMS, Moodle has been developed with a big-business focus, creating Moodle Workplace – a corporate version with ready to go functionality such as multitenancy and advanced learner analytics to meet the needs of large companies and organisations. Some elearning technology companies like Day One create custom corporate LMS solutions to meet the specific needs of an organisation, which can often bring a better fit and faster / better user adoption on rollout.
Training for Multinational Companies
Many large organisations operate across multiple offices nationwide – even worldwide, while many of their staff may be field-based, working remotely much of the time.
The more disparate your workforce, the more expensive and logistically complex it becomes to onboard and train them. For multinational companies, you then need to factor in timezones, plus cultural and language differences.
The best corporate elearning solutions allow you to roll out new or updated training to a global workforce as quickly and easily as you could to your colleagues in the next room.
Content is Still King for eLearning
Much of the debate within elearning revolves around the technology used to deliver it – what type of platform, what bells and whistles to make it more enticing etc. It is still the quality and relevance of elearning content that is still key though.
A good L&D manager and a diligent elearning provider will not lose sight of this and prioritise mode of delivery of what is delivered.
Making bespoke content for the needs of the individual learner, making it engaging and making it easily accessible at the time and place of need is what governs the success or failure of a corporate elearning project, and the larger your company, the greater the risk of that relevance element getting diluted across the organisation.
A good online learning provider will place a great deal of importance on understanding the differing needs of your various teams and individuals – over and above the slickness of their tech and the glossiness of their content. Look out for this attention to detail when discussing a corporate elearning project with a potential provider.
Top Corporate eLearning Companies
These companies have each demonstrated experience and expertise in delivering corporate elearning solutions with impact:
Sponge UK
Established: 2004
Location: Plymouth, London, Nottingham, Dublin, Bristol.
Clients Include: Tesco, Toyota, AXA, Coca-Cola, Specsavers
Website: https://spongeuk.com/
Day One Technologies
Established: 1997
Location: West Yorkshire
Clients Include: Lloyds Bank, TSB, ghd, NHS Scotland, Co-op
Website: https://www.dayonetech.com
LEO
Established: 1989
Location: Brighton
Clients Include: BBC, KPMG, American Express, Harrods, EDF Energy
Website: https://leolearning.com
If you’re looking for a top corporate elearning provider to help your organisation to improve remote training and staff development in 2021 and beyond, then one of the companies above should be able to deliver on your requirements.
Can We Help You?
If you need advice on choosing the right corporate elearning company to deliver on your needs, please get in touch with us here at Learning Light.
Av Srivastava
eLearning Marketing Consultant
About Av
Av Srivastava is an elearning writer and marketing consultant who has worked with a range of learning solution providers in the UK and worldwide.
He researches and writes about the latest and best elearning solutions to help buyers choose the ideal company for their needs.
He also helps great elearning companies to understand their perfect customers and develop steady streams of inbound enquiries.
