If you have a series of Learning and Development programs, consider developing, delivering, and tracking those courses on a Learning Management System (LMS), accessible through a high-profile spot on your intranet. Having information available quickly to those who need to access it will drive involvement and investment from your user base.
To make sure people can easily find the courses they want and to promote an environment of continuous learning, place links to your LMS from relevant areas.
eLearning can be very cost-effective compared to face-to-face programs, despite the seemingly higher initial investment. An eLearning program means you no longer have to rely on and pay for travel, real-world training locations, on-site facilitation, and printing training materials. The scalability of your subject matter experts is greatly enhanced across a much larger user base very quickly.
Plus, with eLearning, your people spend less time training and more time at work. They learn more material faster, have access to it if they ever need to revisit it, and the information has stronger staying power, which means less re-training. You can easily update information. And you have automatic and accurate monitoring and reporting tools.
A simple ROI formula is determined by the investment made (or cost incurred) over the value returned. In other words:
ROI = Gains - Costs
To determine the Costs, consider:
- Development of the eLearning course, including contributions by team members and subject matter experts, LMS and/or infrastructure costs, delivery and maintenance costs, and administrative costs.
To determine the Gains, consider:
- Costs recouped through a less disruptive delivery of training (the person-hours gained by not having learners and trainers leave their workplace for Instructor-Led Training), training more people on the same content at the same time, reduced retraining, and reduced travel and administrations costs.
In addition to the above simple ROI formula,
Level 1. Reaction: Measured by getting feedback from learners.
Level 2. Learning: Measured through course assessments.
Level 3. Behavioral Changes: Measured through improvements in efficiency, manager feedback, or compliance monitoring results.
Level 4. Business Impact: Measured through productivity gains and quality measures.
