With technological strides and encouraged by the need to get the best out of domain experts, corporate training has come to gain its own place in the sun. Organizations now feel the need to move to a high-paced zone of learning speed which is effective to learners and comes at a reasonable price to organizations. This new form of learning now prevalent in companies is called e-learning. For companies seeking big time change, to outsource the learning function is a tried and tested approach.
Since the earliest times, education has been classroom based and taught by an instructor or teacher. However, these days it has been found that individual study in an interactive environment gives more far-reaching benefits than the earlier method. In fact, already one-on-one training has proved it can give higher worker productivity.
Until now, however, companies could not afford to give such customized training to its key workers, but due to technological progress, this is now possible. What began with computer teachers training students was followed by having PCs in the classroom with students working on them at their own pace. After this came the merits of multimedia, which helped to vary the learning experience by using video, audio and animation, and the written and spoken word.
Now, with robust and fast networks, students can break free of their classrooms and access e-learning modules wherever they may be—at home, in internet cafes or at work. Besides speed and convenience, e-learning offers other benefits too-it is cheaper than having an instructor in a classroom environment, students learn faster and at their pace and retain more because they are fully immersed in the program.
With technology, corporate training is changing from the traditional classroom-based, instructor-led practice to a better and more productive model-one that is self-paced, distributed and replete with multimedia and simulation.
To reach this level of sophistication has not been easy-it has meant struggling with technological issues and resolving them by upgrading infrastructure, among other things.To make the best use of current technology and the new e-learning environment, the need for an outsourced service provider has been felt, who would be an expert in training and cutting edge technologies.
To make the leap to a faster and more robust level of technological sophistication is easy as the outsourcer is familiar with the learning technology and has the expertise. Costs benefits can accrue from this, but so can risk be lowered.
Here, workers can deliver a higher order of work and reap good benefits, such as higher revenue and shareholder value and low training costs. If companies align their individual learning objectives with their strategy, they can measure their level of success in terms of earnings which become part of the company's bottom line.
Pratibha R. S.
Executive - Instructional Designer
