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E-LEARNING: A COST-EFFECTIVE APPROACH TO TRAINING
As posted on Retail Industry Leaders Association website.
By Jim Bunn
You can add employee training to the long list of areas where technology can offer a solid return-on-investment to progressive companies.
Retailers and other organizations using traditional 'on-the-job training' practices are not only spending needless amounts of money, but they fail to utilize labor - their most valuable resource - to its greatest advantage.
By contrast, e-learning, under which educational content is delivered via Internet, intranet/extranet (LAN/WAN), audio- and videotape, satellite broadcast, interactive TV, CD-ROM, and other methods of establishing a virtual classroom, can deliver a more consistent, efficient and cost-effective approach to training.
E-learning provides a consistent training approach by presenting all employees with the same instructional material, through the same channel rather than in different ways in different locations or in different ways by different individuals. These virtual classroom materials demonstrate what it takes for associates to properly perform activities and, in turn, be successful. E-learning also allows employees to learn quickly. Within as little as an hour, personnel can become fully educated on companies' customer service, loss prevention and/or sales techniques.
As for cost-effectiveness, with e-learning initiatives in place, employees can spend more time assisting and interacting with customers. Training expenses can be significantly reduced. In addition, there is a significant opportunity for increasing sales. While e-learning development costs can seem high at first, over time the investment is returned many-fold. With strong collaboration and focus, a basic e-learning tool can be developed and deployed in less than a month.
Once an e-learning tool has been deployed, it can be accessed over the Internet or at a standalone terminal. With a custom interface and dynamic content, employees are equipped with the techniques needed to help grow the organization.
In short, e-learning works. Consider the example of a specialty retail chain that, in less than a decade, had grown to more than 50 stores spread over various regions of the U.S. As it continued to grow, the company faced the challenge of standardizing storewide operations. The company decided to develop an e-learning tool in hopes to improve and homogenize chain wide processes. Within five weeks an e-learning curriculum was developed and available to all associates for a cost of less than $50,000.
The tool was designed to guide employees through the ins and outs of customer service, sales, loss prevention, product knowledge and daily operations. The material was presented in the form of video, text and images, making it a visually stimulating experience for store associates.
After the tool was implemented, the retailer experienced immediate improvements in employees' knowledge of products carried by the stores and their familiarity with operational procedures practiced there.
The chain's vice president of stores calls the tool and the manner in which it has changed the retailer's training procedures "revolutionary." She relates that it has allowed employees to garner the necessary knowledge in less than one hour, increasing productivity and decreasing time spent in training. Associates are able to easily comprehend the videos presented, making the return rapid.
Jim Bunn is a Partner and Managing Director of Clear Thinking Group. |
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