Almost half of the most successful companies, those from Fortune 500 list, already use e-learning. E-learning takes 40 – 60% less time than instructor-based programs, saves up to 50% of costs and makes employees significantly more productive. Experts say that every 1 $ invested in e-learning brings back 30 $ in better and faster service and customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Last but not least – new employees are 42% more likely to stay when receiving the training they need to do their job properly. In hospitality industry, with high turnover rates, this is particularly important. Especially when you know that the total cost of employee replacement can cost up to 200% of an employee’s annual salary.
E-learning is very convenient way of learning for number of reasons. It is always available, so your employees can learn when it best suits them, lessons are divided in a small chunks that are easier to understand, remember and learn. Video, illustrations, text, test and animation make knowledge simple to understand and easy to apply. According to a study conducted by The Research Institute of America, e-learning increases information retention rates by up to 60%.
When you compare elegance and simplicity of e-learning with all the troubles of organizing instructor-based programs, such as lost working days, high cost of trainings, employees overwhelmed with too much informations at once – it is not difficult to understand why is e-learning on it’s way to become irreplaceable element of every successful business.
Hospitality Challenges and E-learning Solutions
Hospitality industry depends largely on it’s staff’s ability to provide consistently great user experience. But, high turnover rates, seasonality, skill shortage, often changes in compliance legislation make it difficult for companies to maintain high standards, no matter how much money, effort and working hours they spend on standard, live trainings.
Is there a better way to train your people, making sure that every single person gets all the training he or she needs? Yes, there is – e-learning! For the last few decades experts have been developing methods, tools and learning approaches that are now great and trusted way to transfer broad range of skills, from how to provide a great customer service, to manual handling, food safety and even managerial and leadership skills. One of the best features that e-learning can offer is availability of all the courses in the cloud, which enables your people to learn anytime and anywhere using smart phones, tablets or computers, or simply check something when in doubt. Absenteeism from training? – with e-learning is not even possible anymore. Everyone, anytime and anywhere can get highest-standard training. (At only half of the price you normally pay for the live-training.) Create it once, use it zillion times.
Reality-based Expectations and Microlearning Magic
Hospitality industry can get very hectic, fast paced and intense and the best format for learning in that context is microlearning. In microlearning we create short units of course that can be completed within just a few minutes. It is not only practical, it is well known that this approach has higher retention rates than long (sometimes boredom inducing) long sessions. Your stuff is busy, so they need a learning program that they, actually, can complete in given circumstances. Taking few minutes here and there to learn will, eventually, create great results with minimum friction and effort.
Your company can offer to employees access to all the courses you have, helping people to gain a variety of soft, leadership and managerial skills or other knowledges that can help them become better workers, understand processes and structure of your business on a higher level or eventually get the chance to further develop their career in your company – not needing to go elsewhere to get better chances and better education.
IBM research reveals that only 21% of new hires intend to stay at companies that do not offer training for their current jobs. However, the study reveals that 62% of new hires intend to stay when training is provided. This nearly three-fold increase is a powerful example of the positive impact of training on new hire retention. Employees who do not feel they can achieve their career goals at their current organization are 12 times more likely to consider leaving than employees who do feel they can achieve their career goals.
E-learning is the best way to constantly provide high-value education for each one of your employees, while saving tons of money, time and resources for you and your employees.
E-learning system tracks progress and course completion. For every completed course it issues a certificate, stored in a cloud. Everything goes automatically, so no need for paper work or additional work load on behalf of your team leaders. At any time certificates can be checked when necessary for audit or your internal needs.
Grown-up Learning Principles – Make it Useful, Adaptable and Meaningful… and Don’t Forget Some Fun
E-learning is not only practical, cost effective and highly effective for your organization – it is also very suitable medium for high-quality adult learning. Adults do not learn the same way as children – in fact, they learn much different (and live much different, too) and it is very important to take that into the account. By it’s very nature, e-learning is self-paced, has immediate application and engages multiple channels of communication – video, text, audio, illustration. That way it resonates well with how adults like to learn and how they learn better, with higher retention rates.
Small chunks of time needed for completion of microlearning lesson can be easily fitted into the daily routine, enabling your team members to learn continually without pressure or exhaustion. E-learning promotes culture of development, creates organization’s readiness to absorb new informations fast and efficient and gives you number of options that builds even more profitable, strong and well-structured organization.
In the middle of these serious business considerations please don’t forget that grown-ups need some motivation, playfulness and a bit of challenge, too. With all the technological wonders it is so easy to add a spark of quirky, great, engaging, funny and gamified to your program and move it from good to amazing. Let the dough be great, but don’t forget some icing on the cake. Employees are people and people like it fun. A bit of gamification, funny animation, maybe a VR will do (don’t be afraid of the price here, it is really noting to be afraid of).
Equip Your People with Knowledge, Win the Game of Business
Experts predict that as soon as 2020. main challenge hospitality industry will face is drastic skills shortage. We can help you develop high quality, to-the-point courses that will make sure you will have enough well educated and skilled employees to stay ahead from your competition. As an accomplished team made of trainers with 20 years of experience in old-school live training and high-tech specialists in e-learning we can provide you assistance in all the steps of developing and implementing of the e-learning for your company.
Feel free to contact us about more information about what we can do for you and your organization. Our experts will gladly answer all your questions and offer wide spectrum of high-quality solutions with reasonable prices.
In the next episode of eWyse blog:
Next blog post will tackle maybe the most important thing to take into the account when implementing e-learning – how to really engage your employees in learning and what to do to make sure that e-learning will have the desired effect. Sneak peak preview – make it rewarding, fun and give feedback, implement “what’s in it for me” thinking and make success shareable. And, of course, create a culture of learning. We will teach you how!
Read the next topic about e-larning in hospitality – Implementing Hospitality Online Training