Everyone wins with eLearning these days! Of course, eLearning is not the best option for every training need; some companies may require face-to-face classroom sessions to encourage discussion on very specific types of training. However, online training courses are becoming increasingly adaptable and very appealing to deal with many different kinds of training needs, because they presents so many worthy benefits. Not only is it a solution that offers companies a lot of profitable advantages, it is also very convenient and positive for the learners. Following you will find 6 advantages online training courses offer learners:

1. They save time

Elearning solutions save learners a lot of time because they are not required to travel or commute to participate in the training. Learners can take online training courses from their workstations, and they can plan for study time that does not interfere with their work schedules.

2. They have flexibility

When taking an online course, learners can access its content no matter what time it is and no matter where they are. Every learner can study at his/her own pace and whenever his/her professional and personal schedules allow.

3.  They can track their progress individually

Every learner has a tutor who will help him/her complete the course to make sure the skills being taught are attained in the most effective way. These tutors are chosen based on their professional profiles, training capacity, and interest in joining in the eLearning adventure.

4.  They have a new opportunity to communicate and exchange

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If your company has been considering employing online training and development solutions, it is doing some intelligent planning. Here are 12 advantages eLearning solutions offer every company that gives them a try:

1.  Fewer indirect costs

Think of how much money your company can save if it does not have to pay for transportation and accommodation fees for the employees attending training.

2.  Opportunity to train many employees at once

Online training courses allow you to hold mass trainings in a very efficient way.

3.  No traveling or commuting required

Your employees won’t have to take time out of their work schedules to travel or commute for training reasons since they are able to take the course sitting at their desks.

4.  Active participation

Your employees are active participants of the training, since they will be able to assess and correct themselves, creating in them a sense of personal responsibility and independence towards future training.

5.  Transfer of corporate knowledge and experience

Online training encourages learners to be active acquirers and appliers of knowledge and experience specific to their company.

6.  Flexibility

Elearning gives a lot of flexibility to a company, since it can be tailored to fit within the company’s time and space availability. If your employees are scattered around a large geographic area, online training courses allow them to be coached from wherever they are without the need to travel.

7.  Recognition for initiative and innovation

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Today, eLearning solutions are offering new ways to reach difficult audiences. It has been very convenient for many companies and individuals to have this option available to offer courses that, for one reason or another, were out of the reach of many before.

Here we give you 6 examples in which an eLearning solution could be an excellent option:

1.  When you have to train many employees

Let’s say your company is introducing a new product and you have to train everyone on it. In this case, you will save yourself a lot of headaches by creating an online training course that could be accessed by everyone at the same time instead of having to organize different sessions to train every employee in person.

Through e-Learning you can reach a very large number of people at once and in a very affordable way.

2.  When the audience is scattered in several geographic areas

It can be very complicated to gather a whole group of sales personnel working throughout a region, because everyone has different schedules and the costs can be high; however, online training courses solve that problem by allowing flexible training times and locations.

3.  When the learners have very different skill levels

Online training courses can be easily modified to match an employee’s specific skill level. Just by asking a few questions, you can determine if that employee needs to reinforce some basic concepts, allowing you to adapt the course’s content to achieve this.

This is a very practical approach to deal with a big group of learners that have different profiles.

4.  When the learners can’t commit to a fixed schedule

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Have you ever felt well prepared for an exam only to get there and freeze? Well, this happens because getting ready to take a test requires more than just knowing the material, and this is especially true when talking about the electrical exam you have to pass to get your electrical license renewal. Besides knowing the Code, the concepts, and the calculations, you have to know how to take the exam the right way. You develop this skill with practice, and designing a strategy.

Here we give you 7 tips to help you develop a winning strategy to pass the electrical exam:

1.  Do not change your answers

It is a big temptation to change answers when you are checking them before handing back the test. Even if you’re not sure, most of the time your first choice is right. Change an answer only if you are certain it is incorrect.

2.  Review your work

Make sure you marked each answer in the right spot. You might mix the questions, or mark the test booklet correctly but not the answer sheet.

3.  Guess

If you’re running out of time and haven’t finished the questions, make a guess. Do not leave questions blank.

4.  Make sure you have all the supplies you need

Buy everything you will need several days in advance, and make a list. This is an example of a good list:

• 6 sharpened #2H pencils.

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Today, to work in the United States, almost every state requires that electricians have a license and electrical continuing education. To know exactly what your local government demands, contact the building department of your area to find out about the requisites.

Basically, to get the license you have to pass a test, which is composed of questions founded on theory, common knowledge, and the National Electrical Code (NEC). This is a document that is valid throughout all the United States, so it applies to every state.

The exam is different depending on the state you live in, though, because there are state and local laws and regulations that do not apply at a national level and that will be evaluated depending on where you live. Some states today are even demanding applicants take a Business and Law exam to get a contractor’s license.

The test is difficult, and the main reason for this is that the questions come from many disciplines within the electrical field and are not necessarily restricted to the kind of electrical work you do, so make sure you prepare well for it.

The most important reason for enforcing a license is to look after public health and safety by stopping people without the right qualifications from practicing a particular profession or occupation.

When you have a license you are saying in an official and legal way that you have a certain profession, and you are guaranteeing you have the required knowledge to work without putting other people in danger.

You have to understand that having an electrical license is more than just passing the exam and paying a fee. A license makes you responsible and accountable for lack of skill as well as for illegal and/or immoral acts.

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There is a lot of misunderstanding when talking about studying for the electrician exam because it is not like studying for other types of tests. It is very normal to see the common approach of teaching the material, but the electrician exam requires that the students be taught the test. To pass this exam, electricians must know how to apply the knowledge, and this makes sense, since the majority of the people taking the test already have a general knowledge of the material. But there is a difference between knowing the material and knowing how to apply it on the test; so you need professional guidance and most probably electrical code training if you want to pass the exam with flying colors.

Here we show you the 6 principles that every study guide for the electrician exam should have:

1.  The study guide has to have been written by experts.

You should choose a study guide that you know has been written by people who are very knowledgeable on the topics and concepts required to pass the electrician exam.

You cannot study efficiently from material that has been created by someone who is not an expert on the electrician exam.

2.  The study guide has to be easy to understand.

You want to study with a guide that speaks your language. You don’t need fancy words or sentence structures to grasp the National Electrical Code (NEC), much to the contrary, you require a guide written in simple and clear English so that you can focus on the content.

3.  The study guide has to be direct.

You should study with a guide that goes to the point and does not distract you from what is truly important with unnecessary information.

4.  The study guide has to address what matters.

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Today, the majority of states require that anyone doing commercial electrical work be certified as a journeyman or specialty electrician. In order to become certified and be on top of your electrician continuing education, or to get an electrical license renewal, you have to pass the electrical exam, which requires a lot of knowledge and effort. Here we give you a list of the essentials you have to know to pass without a problem; this will ensure you have the skills and know-how required to work in a professional way:

1.  You have to know the National Electrical Code (NEC), your state’s laws and rules, and possess basic knowledge of electrical theory.

Every law, rule, and code question within the exam is based on the most up to date version of your state’s codes and the National Electrical Code.

2. You should take electrical code classes.

To pass the exam, just your work experience is not enough nor is it that you study on your own. There is a right and wrong way to study for this exam; so, you need proper classroom or online guidance to learn the material in an effective and comprehensive way. You must understand and practice with the type of questions the exam poses as well as to work your way through the NEC in an efficient way, and just reading the material on your own is not going to give you that opportunity.

3. You must have knowledge about general copyrighted electrical publications, telecommunication publications, and math and electrical theory calculations.

The exam’s theory questions are normally of general nature and are based on data from general copyrighted electrical or telecommunications material. These may also include questions regarding math and electrical theory calculations.

4.

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In the past, not everyone used or owned a computer, so when someone came in contact with one, they had to be taught everything, starting from the basics.

The same is true for elearning courses. When these started appearing, logically people had to be told how to use them, because they hadn’t been in contact with something like it before. Nevertheless, today it is a different story.

Almost everyone today owns a computer and knows the meaning of the symbols and icons, and also, most e-learning courses have a similar structure, making it easy to know what to do. So, it seems kind of a waste of time to include a fast course on how to navigate the course you created.

Most courses though, have this fast navigation course included; however, it could be easily removed or shortened. In many cases, the navigation is obvious, and you can make the learners’ experience a lot smoother by taking advantage of these 6 tips to get rid of an unnecessary fast course:

1. Remove navigation directions

Do you think you would have problems figuring out how to play a video on your computer? Could it be hard to find the ‘play’ button or forward arrow?

No, right? Everyone knows how to do this; you don’t have to teach people what they already know.

2. Respect the standards

You don’t have to make everything different on every course you create. You can be creative with the look and feel, but respect the structure standards that everyone knows.

In this way, your learners will know where everything is and how to look for help, and it allows them to center on the content of the course.

3. Offer clear directions if your navigation is different

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The answer to this question may be simple and may seem obvious to many; however it is always good to remember why a company should always train new employees during their first month in the organization.

To incorporate a new employee within a group and help him be successful, it is crucial to get him rolling with the least difficulty.

You don’t want to see a new person inactive and doubtful about trying new things and about actively learning from his errors and from the others around him.

In the same way, you don’t want your new employee to start doing too much only to make a mistake that can really impair his reputation early on.

New employees know everyone is watching over their performance, and extensive early training is the only way to make sure they do not get eaten up by unnecessary stress and are capable of showing their full capacity.

If you’re reading this, you probably know what the hiring process is like, right?

You know what it is like to post a position, read hundreds of resumes, choose the group of qualified candidates, assess their capabilities and skills, interview them two or three times, get feedback from others, and finally make a decision…

What happens if during the first day at the job you discover you hired the wrong person? How do you make up for that?

When dealing with new employees, there has to be someone to help them understand the new environment. They are being bombed with new information coming from everywhere; it is just hitting them too fast and hard. So, they need a source of solid knowledge to help them identify their place and comprehend how they fit in this new environment.

And here’s where an elearning training program becomes very valuable.

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If something is clear nowadays, is that a company’s long-term success is directly linked to the efficiency and capacity of its personnel, and how efficient people are depends on the personal growth opportunities and career supervision they get.

Companies are always looking for the best way to control their future without spending in an unsustainable way; however, they are in constant danger of losing key personnel, the one with the talent and unique skills, which could mean the difference between succeeding or going under in such times of hard competition.

When it focuses on the training and development of its staff, a company will begin to understand the advantages and future profit that can come from e-learning and learning management systems (LMS).

LMSs take care of the management of employee training, certification, expert training, and career path supervision, and they can do this as a portable self-study system, as an online or onsite approach, or in the way of virtual corporate training sessions imparted by knowledgeable instructors.

Through an LMS, you can train large groups of employees in very little time no matter where they are located, you have the capacity to generate several comprehensive reports for completed courses and test results, and your people can learn at the speed they feel is right for them.

Obviously, e-learning poses an important economic advantage for several reasons:

• The more people you can train, the lower the cost per person.
• There is no need for hiring instructors and paying for their stay.
• More is learned in a more efficient way; so, there is less waste of resources.

There are 4 things you have to think about before choosing an LMS:

1.  The skills your personnel needs to cultivate
Can these be taught through e-learning or would another method work better?

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There is no question about it! Training and development are key when talking about making your team more efficient. They are the best way to guarantee everyone has the skills needed to work in a productive, safe, and effective way. Nevertheless, even though training makes your staff more efficient … do you have a 100% efficient training method? Have you confirmed it gives you the return on investment you expect? Are you able to control every aspect of the process? Can you confirm everyone is learning what and how they are supposed to be learning?

Well… let us tell you…

Your company is very lucky to be operating in the era of technological improvement, because now you can polish up your training approaches to take advantage of custom learning, improved engagement, and far-reaching performance analysis.

Today, Learning Management Systems (LMS) use the Internet to supply employees, who need to learn or perfect a skill, with online training courses directly on their desks. In this way, you achieve two things:

• You make sure any employee in need of developing a skill has access to top-quality training, and
• You can train big groups of employees in a fast, dependable, and coherent way.

These let your company assess, register, deliver, and track skills in a very efficient way. You can send a course to employees across the organization, manage, and track their progress, and you don’t have to install any hardware of software, making it a highly cost-effective solution.

Many LMS’s give employees access to large libraries of corporate training courses that can improve and benefit their jobs; they don’t have to travel or leave the office to attend class, which simplifies the learning process for everyone, employees and managers, and they can sign in and take the courses at their own pace and when they have the time to focus.

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Experienced trainers use a variety of training aids throughout their training programs. These include models, simulations, diagrams, mnemonics, reminder cards, templates, and so on. All of these are designed to assist trainees in the learning process. However, learning does not finish at the conclusion of the training program. In fact, for some training programs, work quality and efficiency will actually worsen immediately after the training. This is normal as employees stumble in their first applications of the newly learned skills.

Unfortunately, at this point, many managers give up and either overtly or covertly discourage further employee practice and experimentation. By providing and encouraging the use of job aids, you can help ease the anxiety felt by employees and get them up and running more quickly. Many training aids that are used during training are ideal for replication in the work environment. Think of these job aids as a way of extending the training room into the workplace.

Implementing job aids is especially useful when the task is complex, performed infrequently, carries high risk or uses an extensive or changing knowledge base. On the other hand, do not implement an on-the-job aid if the employee is required to perform the task automatically, without conscious deliberation or assistance.

Below, I have categorized ten types of training aid that you can usefully export from your training program. I have also included examples from previous programs that I have conducted or have seen others use successfully. If you see a job aid that you feel could be useful and it is not currently used in your training program, then make it so. You could even turn the creation of the job aid into a learning experience itself. At a suitable juncture in your program (following a theory session, for example), lead participants into an exercise in which they create the aid that they will use in their own workplaces.

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Imagine if earning a living, or getting an education, or developing talents of any sort was just a game. Imagine if every smooth move, every good choice, and every new relationship you developed earned you a virtual (or real) reward. Imagine if work had a payoff as well as a paycheque. Well, imagine no longer. Through a computer, mobile device, or interactive television, you will soon find your work and life being gamified. Read on to find out how you will soon be levelling up the gamification way.

Gamification means applying gaming techniques to non-game activities, such as education, job performance, or life in general. It’s a new buzzword that you are going to hear a lot more about in the coming years. Why? Because it has very real potential to transform how we live, work, and play.

Of course, games have been around forever. And, most of us actually experience gamification on a daily basis. We are applying gaming techniques when we challenge ourselves to do an extra rep during our workout, seek a promotion at work, or encourage our kids to finish their meals in return for a nice dessert or a star on the refrigerator.

Common activities and characteristics of gaming include:

• fun
• activity-based
• being challenged
• setting goals
• earning rewards
• monitoring progress
• trial and error
• risk-free experience
• collaboration
• “leveling up” to bigger challenges and rewards
• and more.

How will gamification affect our lives in the future?

Companies are already applying gamification to all sorts of industries. My company MediaSparks.com has been doing it for over a decade in education. Here are industry-wide examples that will emerge in the coming years:

Education

Games are already transforming the way we learn.

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No matter how long we have been training employees, it helps occasionally to go back to the basics. We all tend towards repeating what has worked for us before, and sometimes we forget the wider organizational context of our training efforts. By focusing solely on what goes on in our training room or what we put into our e-learning content, we can miss appreciating our trainees as people who will go back to their jobs with the purpose of winning goals for the organization.

I have cemented what I see as the basic principles underlying effective instruction as the five “rights” of training. These five “rights” are:

1. Right Trainees
2. Right Learning
3. Right Time
4. Right Method
5. Right Environment

Let me explain below each of these five “rights” and illustrate with examples how easy it is to ignore them. I want to stress at the outset that none of what I say here is new or astounding. What is surprising is how quickly we can forget the basics to the detriment of the organizations we work for and their employees.

1. Right Trainees
-employees genuinely requiring skill development are nominated for training

This first principle is about ensuring that the people requiring training, and only those people, are conscripted or invited. Here, conducting a proper performance diagnosis is the key. I still see many organizations committing one or more fundamental errors in this first step of analyzing their training needs. One such common error is prescribing training as the solution to a problem when there exists no knowledge or skills gap. When this happens, the upshot is that no trainees nominated for the training are the right trainees.

Some managers fail to grasp that poor performance is not always attributable to lack of training.

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For those of us who have been involved in online education for a time, the growing public acceptance of the Web as vital tool for training and learning has been a welcome development.

It’s become conventional wisdom that online learning offers an affordable and effective alternative to traditional classroom education. That wasn’t always a widespread viewpoint. The benefits of online learning are becoming clearer over time. The U.S. Department of Education recently released a meta-analysis that concluded on average that students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. Further, the study found that online learning represented an effective option for graduate students and professionals in a wide range of academic and professional studies.

The economic downturn has also served to focus attention on online education’s accessibility and affordability. In several cases, our compnay has been asked to convert classroom training to Web-based programs because of concerns from organizations about the expense and lost time involved in getting employees to-and-from physical training spaces.

Educators, instructors, and trainers need recognize those elements of learning which work best on the Web, and those that are best suited in person.

The average instructor speaks at about 120 words per minute, while the average student/learner writes only 20 words per minute. Lectures can be translated into much more learner-friendly mixed-media online presentations with transcripts and outlines to enable note-taking. 

The key is to engage learners. That’s why we focus on developing the tools and techniques that appeal to adult learners, employing simulations, non-fiction graphic techniques like cartoon narratives, video, interactive exercises, and other pedagogically-driven methods.

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This may not be the first time that your CEO has sliced your training budget and I am sure it will not be the last. If you already run a lean and mean training function, then congratulations on your efforts. You may find, though, that your previous good management will not slow the CEO from asking you to shed some more expenses. Whether you have already optimized your training function in the past or you realize that you have a long way to go, here are ten practical steps that you can take to weather any financial storm.

1. Provide more self-help workbooks and on-the-job aids.
Replace some of the high cost training sessions with materials and aids placed where people do the work. Laminated procedures, checklists, tips’n’tricks, lists of shortcut keys, ready reckoners, and so on, may be effective replacements for full-blown training sessions. If somebody is having difficulty handling angry customers or using Microsoft Excel, check out your local training publishers for self-paced workbooks.

2. Conscript local experts or coaches to take the place of some training sessions.
If people have some knowledge and skills about the subject, identify one or two local experts in each area to act as a central point for all questions. Make sure that the experts and coaches you nominate have the required communication and interpersonal skills.

3. Cut training sessions that do not add value to the organization.
Does your organization really need that assertiveness skills training course? What tangible benefit did your organization achieve from it? Drop courses that do not show a demonstrable advantage to your organization. I’m not saying that these kinds of courses are never worthwhile. During difficult periods is the time to review whether they are of real benefit to your organization now.

4.

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Buy Business, Profit Now – Get MBA, Profit Later?
Recent college graduates and those contemplating the completion of their studies in the near future – specifically those majoring in business – are often torn between two disparate choices.  The question asked most often is, “Should I stay in school and earn my MBA (Master’s of Business Administration), or head out into the world and buy a business?”  There are four factors that come into play when buying a business or continuing in school – the money one needs, the amount time to be expended, the potential return on that investment, and the state of the market.  Most people who go on to do a MBA do so under rather stressful circumstances.  They work part-time at low wages, making just enough to get by while taking classes full-time.  They use up personal savings, borrow from relatives, and go into debt via student loans.  At the end of the two- or three-year process, they have a substantial educational advantage over their peers who did not take the MBA path, but they’re also that much behind the curve in the professional world.

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No matter where you are in your career, you can always benefit from keeping up with the latest literature related to career and professional development. Whether you would benefit from learning how to land the job of your dreams, how to get a promotion, or just how to function more effectively in your current career, there are excellent career development books that can be of great benefit to you.  

As a professional it’s important to continue learning and growing throughout your career, and keeping up with the latest professional development literature is a great way to stay ahead of the curve. The time you spend reading career development books is an investment in your long-term career success.  

Reading career development books enables you to learn from leading experts in the field from the comfort of your own home. No matter what professional or personal challenges you face related to your career, you’ll be able to find books that can provide valuable insights and tips regarding your employment-related concerns.  

Suggested Topics Include:

The following list includes a selection of current career development literature. These books are great tools for individuals seeking to grow as professionals. They are a great starting point, but just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the many publications that can provide guidance for building the career of your dreams.  

Career Advancement: Whether you are just starting out in your career, seeking a promotion, or are thinking about taking your career in a new direction, you will benefit from the practical tips and suggestions in Stepping Up: 12 Ways to Rev Up, Revitalize, or Renew Your Career by S. Gary Snodgrass. 

Take Charge of Your Career: Have you ever been faced with a difficult career situation that literally seemed to come out of nowhere?

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As a small business owner, it’s important to take proactive steps toward making sure that your employees are ready and able to handle the technological and environmental changes that are likely to impact your business. It’s important to remember that employee training doesn’t stop with your new hire orientation procedures. Organizational training needs are ongoing, particularly in the rapidly changing 21st century workforce.

Needs Assessment for Strategic Planning
The best way to make sure that you are providing employees with the training needed to position your business for long term success is to engage in an ongoing needs assessment process at both the organizational and individual levels. The process of needs assessment involves developing an understanding of where your organization is now, in terms of employee skills, and where it needs to be in the future.

Individual needs assessment involves looking at your employees’ current skill levels and identifying any gaps that exist between their current abilities and what they need to be able to do, now and in the future. At the organizational level, strategic needs assessment involves identifying gaps between the skills that exist across the organization and the skills that need to be in place to accomplish the company’s long term strategic plans.

Targeted Training
Once you have conducted a thorough assessment of your organization’s training needs, you can identify which gaps are actually training issues.

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Do you want to learn more about project management? Are you interested in preparing to sit for the PMP certification exam? Many people whose jobs involve project management want to further their skills and knowledge, a well as earn the PMP credentials that will help them stand out from others who work in the profession. However, finding the time to get the training necessary to advance in the field isn’t something that’s always easy for busy professionals to do. Fortunately, there are learning solutions that make it possible for even the busiest project management professionals to get the training they need.

Project Management Training Solution
Have you found that the available training programs are offered at inconvenient times or would require you to travel or spend several days out of town? Does your busy schedule prevent you from being able to participate in the only available options for PMP certification prep training? These are common problems faced by many individuals who want to pursue advanced project management study and professional development to improve their skills and advance in their careers.

If you’re like most people who want to improve their skills and knowledge in the field of project management, you already have a hectic schedule that involves juggling multiple professional and personal responsibilities. That’s why hybrid mentored learning project management training is such an excellent option for individuals interesting in improving their skills or preparing for the PMP certification exam. This type of training is the ideal solution for busy professionals who need flexible training solutions that go beyond the basic type of online learning programs.

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