Learning can be the center point of an organization’s growth and success. When you empower employees or external users to gain information effectively and efficiently, you’ll see the positive results of enterprise learning almost immediately.
The goal of enterprise learning isn’t just to make learning accessible and impactful to employees. It also often involves providing customers, partners, and clients with the extended enterprise knowledge they need to thrive.
Enterprise-wide learning includes training, skills development, and other assets used to convey knowledge. It also involves the development of a framework that delivers this knowledge as efficiently as possible.
This kind of learning initiative aligns amazingly well with a user’s ability to quickly locate and consume learning materials before finding ways to integrate that knowledge.
Benefits of enterprise learning
Initiating enterprise-wide learning will help an organization meet its goals and maintain a competitive edge. You achieve this by creating an enterprise learning strategy that quickly integrates into your existing company structure and makes new information and training accessible.
Here are a few benefits your organization can expect to see from implementing enterprise learning:
Encourages self-learning
When employees have control over their learning, training, and development, they’ll be more inclined to learn on their own. This helps them become motivated, and sustaining, and stimulates growth within the organization. A bonus is employees that who learn on their own take the burden away from managers and leadership having to assign training to them.
Connects learners to training materials
A great benefit of enterprise learning is the ability for internal and external users to connect learners to learning resources. With “24/7 - 365” access to training materials, employees and outside users will have all the opportunities to increase their knowledge and improve their skills.
Consolidates learning resources
Having all of your enterprise learning resources in one single location provides a better learning experience for your employees and reduces spending on other tools. Plus, with the ability to search through multiple forms of content, employees can mix up the way they learn to whichever method they prefer.
Promotes blended learning
With enterprise-level companies adopting a workforce of both in-person and remote employees, the use of hybrid learning is crucial. Companies providing a blended learning approach have seen higher completion and employee engagement rates.
Improves organizational efficiency
Once your organization creates a solid enterprise learning framework, you can expect to see operations improve in each department.
- Learning resources available to customers reduce support tickets
- Proper HR training leads to faster employee onboarding
- Better sales enablement materials increase deals closed
Uncovers valuable analytics
The good thing about enterprise learning is the amount of valuable data that comes from your learning and training initiatives. Your organization will be able to tell which learning resources are improving departmental performance and engaging with employees. From there, L&D professionals can modify any materials or courses not performing well.
With enterprise learning, employees and external members can access learning content proactively and independently.
Without an enterprise approach to training, people in an organization often take a passive approach to learning. Essentially, they learn when information becomes available to them
To meet this challenge, organizations partner with a modern learning platform to decentralize training and information. Companies give some of that power back to learners with things like personalized learning tracks and on-demand access to the resources they need.
Best practices for enterprise learning
After you establish how to create, store, and distribute your enterprise learning materials, you’ll want to follow a few best practices:
1. Develop flexible learning opportunities
No matter how big or small your company is, employees today want flexibility. This needs to extend to your training program. Training should be accessible across multiple platforms, especially mobile. Training modules need to be easily translated and understood if you employ international employees and users. This also goes for the flexibility to be able to access information regardless of time zone.
2. Design an effective training program
After you make your program easily accessible, you’ll want to focus on training program design. This not only includes the look and feel of your training system, but the components. People have short attention spans and have a hard time retaining what they’ve learned. So by adding training enhancements like quizzes, whitepapers, podcasts, infographics, and case studies, you’ll get vested employees who actually use what they’ve learned.