Corporate elearning vs. educational elearning

From students to executives, digital technology is empowering everyone to learn anywhere, any time. But elearning can offer much more than convenience. Read on to find out why corporate elearning should be part of every business strategy and how to ensure it delivers real impact at speed and scale.

What is corporate elearning?

Corporate elearning can come in different formats and take all kinds of approaches. So, before diving into its key characteristics and benefits, let’s get clear on what we mean. Corporate elearning is online learning that helps employees develop the skills required to meet the needs of businesses.

Digital learning is just one method for corporate education. It’s used alongside face-to-face learning formats, such as instructor-led training, mentoring, and on-the-job coaching. Whether online or in real life, this corporate training is managed by the organization’s Learning and Development (L&D) team.

Find out more about the role L&D play in corporate training in our article What Is L&D And Why Is It Important? 

Differences between corporate elearning and educational elearning

Elearning is increasingly popular with both corporate and educational institutions. However, it can look quite different in these two settings:

• Content: The education sector focuses on the transfer of general, long-established theoretical knowledge. In contrast, corporate training provides the specific knowledge and skills an organization needs to operate.
• Duration: Corporate training is time-critical and needs to fit into the busy schedule of employees. Educational courses often run over a longer period.
• Measurement: Traditionally, exams assess the success of learning in an academic setting. The success of business learning initiatives is commonly assessed by measuring the impact on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Once the impact is assessed, an enterprise can calculate the Return On Investment (ROI) of the elearning.
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Want to find out more about measuring the success of corporate training? Explore 5 Ways Elearning Can Influence Your Business KPIs.

8 benefits of corporate elearning

Elearning offers some unique advantages in a corporate setting.

Here are our top 8 business benefits of digital learning:

1. Responsive: An authoring tool empowers you to quickly create and update online training. This means you can respond to emerging skill gaps and new development needs at pace.
2. Cost-effective: Online courses can replace more expensive classroom training and face-to-face mentoring. So, you can use these learning methods where they have the most impact.
3. Convenient: Digital learning can be completed by employees at their own pace – wherever, whenever, and on any device.
4. Efficient: Digital learning is quicker and easier to fit around other work. This reduces the hours employees spend away from their everyday duties for training.
5. Relevant: You can provide a range of online training and different routes through it based on employees’ knowledge and confidence. This creates a more personalized learning experience.
6. Consistent: Online courses can be rolled out across locations, sectors, and departments to create consistent skills and knowledge on a global scale.
7. Tracked: Corporate elearning accessed via Learning Management Systems (LMSs) provides an audit trail. This is essential to prove compliance with regulations.
8. Continuous improvement: Using the feedback, data, and analytics available from online training courses allows you to continually improve your approach.

If you’re interested to learn more about why training your employees is so important, here are 5 key reasons.

Examples of corporate elearning

If you’re going to maximize the benefits of your corporate elearning, you need effective course content. All your corporate elearning programs have specific goals and audiences. Understanding these will help you determine the approach that will have the biggest impact on your business.

Here are three examples of successful corporate elearning approaches to inspire you.

Short, structured modules for process training

When employees are learning new processes, the theory isn’t enough. To help learners apply processes effectively, they need to recognize why the process is needed and understand the practical steps to put it into action on the job.

This in-depth process training example breaks down a complex procedure into manageable chunks, explaining the ‘why’ as well as the ‘how’.

Branching scenarios for soft skills

Branching scenarios immerse learners in a story and allow them to make decisions that control the outcome. This approach allows users to learn through experiencing consequences rather than being informed of them.

This simple branching scenario example puts the learner in the driving seat in some challenging line manager situations. A number of decision points allow them to explore the impact of their choices.

If you are interested in more, we put together a soft skills training guide.

Microlearning for performance improvement

Bite-sized and easy to digest learning content can fit around an employee’s busy schedule. By providing a structure to this self-guided journey, microlearning ensures your corporate training program has a real impact.

This microlearning example focuses on improving a particular skill with five top tips and an action-focused plan to takeaway.

Want to see more great examples of corporate elearning? Check out our blog on corporate elearning trends.

Summary

With businesses and employees embracing flexible hybrid ways of working, it’s no surprise that convenient online courses have become indispensable. From cost savings through to continual improvement, corporate elearning offers a wide range of benefits.

If you’re going to maximize your impact, you need to avoid taking a ‘one size fits all’ approach to online corporate learning. From microlearning to branching scenarios, there are lots of different learning solutions to choose from. Start by considering your goal and audience for each piece of training or learning program. Use this to design effective corporate elearning that will see real business impact.

You can see what the experts think about corporate elearning in this trends article.

Start creating impactful corporate elearning for your learners

Want to find the perfect tool to help you build successful digital learning. Check out our comparison of the top elearning authoring tools for corporate elearning.

Ready to start creating impactful elearning that generates real business results? Book a personalized demo of Elucidat to learn more.