In the first part of the knowledge series, you learned how to successfully establish e-learning in the company and who benefits from it. Now the journey continues to learn about the important role your employees play in this and how e-learning can be seen as a corporate Wikipedia.

From the employees’ point of view, e-learning should represent further training opportunities in addition to the actual work. Their satisfaction depends on whether they are regarded by the company as fully-fledged employees and are also supported by further training measures.

Your employees do not value their own company until they are supported in their work and invested in their continuing education. In most cases, however, not enough focus is placed on the actual target group.

Josh Bersin of Bersin of Deloitte on learning as a retention tool:

Personal development is one of the most important basic human needs. Since we spend a third of our lives at work, professional life should also be a development. Further training measures promote this development – and this turns employees into satisfied employees who gain an enormous advantage with the knowledge they have acquired.

At the very beginning, try to pass on the most important information on how to use e-learning training to employees. There are various topics that employees are not comfortable with – and you should respond to them. Also provide information on why and what data is stored and what benefit this brings.

Use reward systems in training sessions. In good e-learning with gamification, this is already covered. Official certificates from the company can also help motivate employees.

Remember that e-learning is mostly done without any social contact. While this is an advantage of e-learning, it is also the most important disadvantage. Try to counteract the lack of social contact. Build additional interaction capabilities using the learning management system. You can solve this, for example, through a forum or chat, so learners can exchange with other learners.

Certain elements in your continuing education measures will most likely only be able to be handled with a blended learning approach. You have to take this fact into account when digitizing a classroom training. It is part of the learning design for a course.

No one can tell you better what you need to prepare than your target group – and that is the employees in your company! Do you want to offer e-learning to your end customers as well? Then clarify the necessary information with your marketing department regarding the external appearance.

What this can look like?

• Interviewing employees: What do they expect? Where are fears still anchored?
• Trainer: What can they deliver? What do they see as the advantage? What fears do they have?
• Start pilot project: you already have the needs analysis ready, then start a small pilot project such as a safety training / product training and learn from it

Even if you have already figured out your target audience, there will be one critical factor, and that is the very individual prior knowledge that your employees bring with them. Therefore, it is important to address the Learning Journey. It provides information on the individual touch points of employees when using your digital training offering.

Therefore, it is important to deal with the usability of the training and the learning management system. Jakob Nielsen, one of the most well-known personalities around interaction design, shows you 10 important principles for building web applications. Test the entire digital learning journey for its process to inform where issues might arise for learners.

Additional suggestions include:

• Creation of a crash course on how to use the digital training elements
• Test courses that can be attended – generally accessible trainings – create awareness for e-learning
• Get new employees engaged with digital training right from the start – use high-quality e-learning with gamification.

Rejection or skepticism towards certain things is mostly due to ignorance. Your employees may fall into the situation where they simply do not understand new developments for continuing education and therefore resist them. The transparency mentioned above provides clarity for employees.

Many negative feedbacks concerning e-learning say that digital trainings cannot establish a practical relevance. All digital learning approaches certainly have a disadvantage in terms of practical content, but only because they are compared with PowerPoint or similar training courses. For some time now, we have had the technological advantage of producing digital training courses with a high level of practical relevance. However, blended learning will always remain part of a training strategy, depending on the learning content.

Only when e-learning becomes part of the company’s daily routine can it be part of the corporate culture. Think of e-learning as a kind of internal corporate Wikipedia or YouTube channel with how-to’ s for your employees to ask questions and share.

Be part of this exchange and collect data! Always question the learning methods. This is the only way that e-learning can become anchored in your company as a flexible element of continuing education. So that the right information is delivered to the right target group.

Learning is a process that we encounter every day, even away from e-learning, and it is very much in line with societal changes.

Now you are well prepared for how to establish e-learning in your company and what benefits it will have for you. skillbest offers comprehensive consulting services for the establishment of e-learning in your company or educational institution. From learning management systems to didactically valuable e-learning trainings, we bring individuality to your digital training measures.