Do you remember when you were still a student, how frustrating it was to have to choose between one pathway and another? To feel like you didn’t have the information or the guidance you needed on your educational journey?

In today’s world of work, various proposed learning and development (L&D) models help employees continuously develop their job-related skills – and stay in their positions. But what if we could think of L&D without these established boundaries (i.e., position, hierarchy, job, etc.)? What if we made training more efficient and cross-functional? What if acquiring new skills allowed each employee to find his or her place at work?

E-learning: A Necessary Step in the Evolution of Education at Work

Thanks to the internet, we no longer need to physically go to the bank, the post office, do our grocery shopping or book a vacation. The web has taken over many business services and facilitates our day-to-day life. As such, it has become an integral part of our professional and personal lives.

If you thought that professional training wouldn’t also be affected by the internet, think again.

In 2015, the global e-learning market was worth more than $107 billion, according to Callimedia. While certain companies still seem to hesitate, numerous organizations have already begun to experience the benefits of e-learning, such as:

• Streamlined costs and smooth organization: It’s no longer necessary to move your learners from one place to another.
• Easy implementation and management: You can create training content with an authoring tool and make it available via a learning management system (LMS) to several thousands of users.
• Custom creation of statistics: Collect data such as time spent per module, course or session, number of logins, and assessment results.

Keep in mind, however, that the acquisition of an authoring tool and LMS doesn’t by itself revolutionize your employees’ professional lives. To implement an e-learning program effectively, focus on creating content that’s centered around the user experience. Experiment with modalities, integrating interactive activities, videos, tutorials or augmented reality features.

Disrupting Existing Models

Companies often struggle to align their talent with the responsibilities that they’ve been given. Management – HR and L&D in particular – plays an important role in approaching this problem. Keeping talent on board means helping them to develop themselves and giving them missions that boost their motivation and productivity. Faced with this challenge, the digitalization of training can be a springboard to promote professional development and investment in human capital.

Let’s start by removing the job description as we know it from the equation – at least for internal vacancies. In their quest for personal and professional success, today’s employees possess ever-changing and even unexpected skills. It’s a waste of energy to expect your employees to bend to job descriptions and discourage creativity.

Start by implementing an e-learning platform, and keep in mind the growing skill sets, interests and preferences of your employees. That way, they not only develop job-related skills but are able to work on their other interests, as well.

E-learning also creates a closer connection between people by highlighting the potential contributions of each person to the development of their colleagues: the man sitting next to you, or the woman on the third floor whom you run into when you go for a coffee, or the one based in the office on the other side of the country whom you only know from the emails you send her. E-learning enables learning without borders.

The equation is simple: a developing employee equals a fulfilled employee, which equals a competitive company.