Unlike conventional economies, the knowledge economy drives production and consumption activities using intellectual capital. Most businesses these days operate in a knowledge economy. You cannot boost your business’s financial performance and beat the competition in a knowledge economy without making employee learning and development (EL&D) an ongoing process. Several studies have highlighted the effectiveness of EL&D in boosting employees’ performance and business’ financial performance simultaneously.
According to Washington State University,
“While the return on investment of employee training programs may be difficult to measure, training employees has the potential to improve their quality of work and productivity, thereby minimizing company losses and maximizing company revenue.”
Your business can increase both revenues and profits by creating and implementing a variety of EL&D programs. In addition to improving employee performance, EL&D programs will help your business to boost employee satisfaction and employee retention. But your business cannot implement, manage, and monitor multiple EL&D programs without using must-have eLearning solutions.
The eLearning solutions differ from each other in many aspects including design goals and use cases. Some of these eLearning solutions enable employees to learn at their own pace, while others provide employees with access to a wide range of digital content. Your business must buy and integrate multiple eLearning solutions to run EL&D programs effectively. However, you need to ensure that your business adopts these must-have eLearning solutions in 2021.
7 Must-Have Elearning Solutions for Your Business Needs to Improve EL&D in 2021
Learning Management System (LMS)
No business can make EL&D an ongoing process without investing in the right learning management system (LMS). As specialized software solutions, learning management systems (LMSs) are developed with native features to simplify and automate the delivery of EL&D programs. You can leverage the features and tools provided by LMSs to deliver, manage, and monitor multiple training programs without investing in extra resources. Also, the new-age LMSs help your businesses to personalize the learning experience and improve learner engagement by supporting many EL&D trends – microlearning, gamification, mobile learning, and social learning.
Virtual Classroom Software
Your business can easily curtail EL&D costs by launching online employee training programs. But you cannot get a higher ROI on the EL&D initiatives without ensuring that employees retain and apply the knowledge. You can easily promote knowledge retention and transfer by adding a human touch to the online EL&D programs. The virtual classroom platforms help your business bridge the gap between self-paced training and instructor-led training. In addition to accessing a variety of digital content over the internet, the employees can use interactive tools provided by the virtual classroom software to connect and interact with instructors in a number of ways.
Digital Libraries
Your business cannot develop a culture of learning without creating and updating content and training materials regularly. The content authoring tools provided by LMSs help you to create training materials by integrating a variety of digital content – ebooks, videos, audio clips, presentations, charts, and infographics. But you have to invest in extra resources to create content and training materials regularly. You can curtail content development time and cost by subscribing to the ready-to-use cloud-based digital libraries. Your employees can gather a wide variety of information by accessing digital libraries on demand. Also, you can launch new EL&D programs easily by integrating the digital libraries with your LMS.
Writing Assistant Software
Just like problem-solving skills, written communication skills are extremely important for professionals and employees in a knowledge economy. While training, reskilling, or upskilling an employee, your business must focus on honing her written communication skills. You can ensure that every employee writes emails without any spelling or grammatical errors by investing in writing assistant software. Your business can curtail costs by encouraging employees to leverage free online writing assistants. But you can improve the quality of written communication by subscribing to a premium digital writing assistance tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
Product Adoption Tools
The disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have made work-from-home the new normal. Businesses from various industries adopt new software solutions to ensure business continuity and boost operational efficiency. But no business can leverage the new software solutions without providing real-time training and assistance to employees. The product adoption tools help your business to ensure that employees can use the new software solutions without putting in extra time and effort. Also, they enable employees to learn important features and functionalities of the software without interacting with instructors.
Microlearning Platforms
Microlearning is currently one of the hottest trends on EL&D. The technology-driven learning approach emphasizes breaking down information and instructions into small learning units. The small learning units help employees to acquire, retain, and apply knowledge as part of their daily work routine. Also, they make it easier for you to keep the EL&D programs flexible and personalized. You can leverage the benefits of this skill-based workplace training approach by investing in the right microlearning platform. However, you must remember that the new-age LMSs come with native features to support microlearning. Hence, you can choose the right LMS to boost EL&D programs without investing in microlearning platforms.
Learning Record Stores
According to Scorm.com,
“A Learning Record Store (LRS) stores learning records, allows reporting against the records and allows for exporting of raw learning data. LRSs are a new type of storage system that allows the Experience API (xAPI) to offer a lot of new capabilities.”
Your business can enhance the core functionalities of an LMS by investing in an LRS. You can leverage the LRM to make EL&D programs more effective by analyzing skill gaps, manage competency, and tracking compliance requirements. The LRS will make it easier for your business to use multiple training methods and track multiple training initiatives.
Mintbook helps your business to make EL&D an ongoing process by providing must-have eLearning solutions like a learning management system, virtual classroom software, and digital libraries. Your business can leverage these cloud-based eLearning solutions without escalating upfront and ongoing IT infrastructural costs. Also, your business can boost ongoing EL&D programs by integrating these cloud-based eLearning solutions seamlessly.
