What is enterprise learning?

Enterprise learning is a comprehensive set of learning principles and strategies that provide employees, partners, and customers access to training materials.

Enterprise-wide learning includes training, skills development, and other assets used to convey knowledge. It also involves the development of a framework that delivers this knowledge as efficiently as possible.

This kind of learning initiative aligns amazingly well with a user’s ability to quickly locate and consume learning materials before finding ways to integrate that knowledge.

Benefits of enterprise learning

Initiating enterprise-wide learning will help an organization meet its goals and maintain a competitive edge. You achieve this by creating an enterprise learning strategy that quickly integrates into your existing company structure and makes new information and training accessible.

Here are a few benefits your organization can expect to see from implementing enterprise learning:

Encourages self-learning

When employees have control over their learning, training, and development, they’ll be more inclined to learn on their own. This helps them become motivated, and sustaining, and stimulates growth within the organization. A bonus is employees that who learn on their own take the burden away from managers and leadership having to assign training to them.

Connects learners to training materials

A great benefit of enterprise learning is the ability for internal and external users to connect learners to learning resources. With “24/7 - 365” access to training materials, employees and outside users will have all the opportunities to increase their knowledge and improve their skills.

Consolidates learning resources

Having all of your enterprise learning resources in one single location provides a better learning experience for your employees and reduces spending on other tools. Plus, with the ability to search through multiple forms of content, employees can mix up the way they learn to whichever method they prefer.

Promotes blended learning

With enterprise-level companies adopting a workforce of both in-person and remote employees, the use of hybrid learning is crucial. Companies providing a blended learning approach have seen higher completion and employee engagement rates.

Improves organizational efficiency

Once your organization creates a solid enterprise learning framework, you can expect to see operations improve in each department. 

• Learning resources available to customers reduce support tickets
• Proper HR training leads to faster employee onboarding
• Better sales enablement materials increase deals closed

Uncovers valuable analytics

The good thing about enterprise learning is the amount of valuable data that comes from your learning and training initiatives. Your organization will be able to tell which learning resources are improving departmental performance and engaging with employees. From there, L&D professionals can modify any materials or courses not performing well.

Why is enterprise learning important?

Enterprise learning is important to an organization because it fosters self-learning between employees and external stakeholders. This corporate learning style promotes a culture where learners want to learn on their own rather than be forced to through directed learning processes.

With enterprise learning, employees and external members can access learning content proactively and independently.

Without an enterprise approach to training, people in an organization often take a passive approach to learning. Essentially, they learn when information becomes available to them

To meet this challenge, organizations partner with a modern learning platform to decentralize training and information. Companies give some of that power back to learners with things like personalized learning tracks and on-demand access to the resources they need.

Best practices for enterprise learning

After you establish how to create, store, and distribute your enterprise learning materials, you’ll want to follow a few best practices:

1. Develop flexible learning opportunities

No matter how big or small your company is, employees today want flexibility. This needs to extend to your training program. Training should be accessible across multiple platforms, especially mobile. Training modules need to be easily translated and understood if you employ international employees and users. This also goes for the flexibility to be able to access information regardless of time zone.

2. Design an effective training program

After you make your program easily accessible, you’ll want to focus on training program design. This not only includes the look and feel of your training system, but the components. People have short attention spans and have a hard time retaining what they’ve learned. So by adding training enhancements like quizzes, whitepapers, podcasts, infographics, and case studies, you’ll get vested employees who actually use what they’ve learned.

3. Provide multiple training methods

Every learner has their preferred method of consuming information through different learner styles. It’s important to provide your users with various ways of accessing, consuming, and retaining information. Try incorporating some of the following methods into your enterprise learning strategy:

• Videos
• Gamification
• Podcasts
• Whitepapers

4. Create a collaborative learning environment

Training has evolved over time from static modules to training systems to now collaborative learning. So to keep up with changing learning trends, you should add elements of collaboration to your enterprise learning program. It’s used to ask questions, give feedback and share common interests. So in training, you can set up online chat groups, peer Q&A sessions, and even onboarding groups for new employees.

5. Make accessing learning easy

To obtain higher completion rates for your training programs, make accessing your learning materials incredibly easy. This can be done using an effective search feature, assigning resources directly to learners, or curating content for different situations. An easier time finding and learning means a more learning-focused company culture.

Enterprise learning trends

Enterprise learning today is putting employees first. With the access of information from blogs to webcasts to social media groups, employees are learning new skills daily. And some of this learning is coming from outside sources. 

Here are a few enterprise learning trends to keep an eye on:

1. Enterprise learning needs to be planned with the employee top of mind. To accomplish this, there need to be clear learning objectives taken from the company goals. Then training modules should be created around these objectives. This should also take into account personal goals set for each employee.
2. Training needs to be easily accessible and clear. A great way to accomplish this is through learning tracks. They receive a personalized dashboard based on their job role, making it clear what training they need.
3. Employees learn more by collaborating with peers or other team members. So add in comments and chat groups to learning.
4. Each employee is different in terms of skill set, so training should be personalized. By creating training modules that meet these needs, but are also interesting, employees will be fully engaged.
5. Create learning materials that can be applied now. By creating content that can be used immediately, employees will see the value in retaining and actually applying what’s been learned.
6. Learning needs to be ingrained in your company culture. After all, this is the essence of enterprise learning. So training needs to be top of mind throughout the organization and not an afterthought. That way, employees will understand the importance of training and be fully vested in it.
7. Enterprise learning should be a team effort. Employees today want comradery and to be part of a company they are proud of. So by creating training groups or peer to peer learning, you’ll foster a learning community environment.
8. Allow employees who have taken training to either comment or add a rating for the training they just took. Not only will this help you further refine the training based on the feedback, but it helps other employees yet to take the training.
9. Put measures in place to study, analyze and get insight into how your training is working. This should include surveying employees and team leaders to get their perspectives on how effectively employees are putting these skills into action. Then based on your feedback, tweak what needs to be improved.

A platform built for enterprise learning management

Continu is a top-rated learning management system designed for enterprise learning by empowering teams to engage in training to create, track, and measure success. 

We’ve built an all-in-one learning management tool to meet your enterprise learning needs, such as:

• Providing access to internal and external users
• Storing and sharing information assets
• Creating a corporate wiki or knowledge base
• Developing courses and assessments
• Delivering information and training in different formats
• Training and attendance tracking
• Collecting valuable training data

Train your entire enterprise organization efficiently and effectively with Continu.