What is e-learning?
E-learning is an increasingly popular method of ensuring a practice or company remains compliant, as well as continually improving the knowledge and skillset of employees. This strategy is an alternative to the traditional method of face-to-face training; instead, training is carried out digitally, most of this being online.
Benefits of e-learning for care homes
Like most things, staff training is evolving in the modern day along with the advancements in technology, making it possible for staff to undertake their core and mandatory training online, without the need to travel to an overcrowded conference room just to sit and listen to someone speak all day.
Accessible anytime, anywhere
One of the best things about e-learning is how accessible and flexible it is; it caters for everyone’s schedules and allows staff to fit it around caring responsibilities, as well as minimising disruption within the care home.
Additionally, regardless of schedule, people simply have different learning styles; some are slower than others and take longer to absorb information, so they may choose to spend longer taking in the information to feel confident that they’re benefitting from the course.
Cost-effective
E-learning enables your staff to do their training from wherever they are, whether that be in the workplace itself or even at home. As a company, this method of training is much more budget-friendly, as it cuts out the need to buy learning materials as well as the added costs of travelling to a training venue. With e-learning, courses can be updated easily, ensuring that the user always has the most up-to-date information.
Furthermore, you’ll save money on travel and expenses not having to send your employees out on training courses, which not only costs money itself, but may hinder regular business operations while they’re out of the office doing training, which in turn may affect revenue if you have to close the business for however long training would take.
Pay per organisation, not per person
Another monetary benefit of e-learning is that you can pay for online training platforms per organisation, rather than per employee. This means that if someone leaves, you don’t have to spend more money on training up a new starter.
Managers can track and analyse progress
From a manager’s perspective, having staff do their training on an online learning platform is extremely convenient. For example, on our own platform, iLearn SME, care home managers can monitor their staff’s progress to see where they’re up to, with results and certificates stored in one centralised location. This saves time by taking away the need to keep chasing up your employees for updates.
Furthermore, managers can assign certain courses to certain people accordingly. There may be a particular course that a care worker needs to have completed before they can carry out the relevant duty, so the manager can simply go into the online learning platform and assign the course to the employee.
Helps to meet industry standards
Of course, industry standards are always crucial, but especially in the healthcare industry when other people’s wellbeing and care is at the forefront of what care home workers do. With e-learning platforms such as iLearn SME, care home managers can ensure that they are meeting regulatory requirements by making sure all staff undertake the required training to complete their job roles safely and appropriately to those in care.
Easy to update
Briefly mentioned earlier regarding cutting costs, another great benefit in itself is the fact that content can be easily updated on online training platforms. Our care home training courses on iLearn SME are reviewed and updated regularly to ensure they are always providing the correct training to your practice. Before the days of e-learning, organisations would have to spend time and money retraining the training staff so that they can teach the most up-to-date information, or they’d have to buy new textbooks to replace out-of-date ones.
E-learning helps identify required improvements
As a care provider, it’s important to closely monitor the progress of your employees and know what their skills are. With e-learning, you can track the performance and progress of all your workers and easily see which areas they need to improve on. Plus, you can then assign certain courses to certain people accordingly to ensure they are all on track with their training.
Eco-friendly
Although less obvious, online training is eco-friendly. This is especially important nowadays as awareness of environmental health is rapidly growing and many companies are trying to do their bit. Unlike face-to-face training courses, e-learning lowers the carbon emissions related to travel, as well as reduced paperwork. This is another benefit that relates to the lack of textbooks as well, as the amount of paper used is drastically reduced when e-learning is the chosen method of care home training.
Clearly, e-learning can make many aspects of training much easier when it comes to care home workers, giving them the most up-to-date skills, providing managers with easy access to monitor and analyse progress, and ensuring you stay compliant.
All of this is possible on our online training platform, iLearn SME.