After years of reduced spending during and following the recession, corporate training budgets finally increased over the past few years. In 2014, for example, training expenditures jumped 11.7 percent, according to Training Magazine. Many companies are finding themselves with more money to apply to training initiatives, with the hope that employees who are more knowledgeable will also be more productive. In other words, more training equals more profits.
Though budgets may be up, most organizations don’t have the green light to spend like crazy. Return on investment is perhaps more important than ever, and training budgets must demonstrate that they are saving, and making, money in the long run. As a result, many companies might be hesitant to adopt the latest training technologies out of fear that a new solution will potentially be too costly. The concern is valid but overlooks how efficient today’s solutions are. Consider tablet training technologies—using devices such as an iPad or Surface to teach requisite skills to employees. This burgeoning approach is innovating corporate and retail training without breaking the bank. Here are some ways tablet training technologies can help save money in the long run:
Abandoning the Paper Trail
For decades, many companies have relied on (and are still relying on) the tried-and-true printed training manual, which often resides in a thick, intimidating three-ring binder. Get a few hundred of these manuals together and you will need space to store them and a hefty copier budget to print them. Tablet training technologies allow you to bypass this antiquated method by going digital with these materials, as well as encouraging the use of video instead of the printed word. You will save money on printing and storage costs, as well as save a few trees.
More Effective Training
To really get a good ROI on your training initiatives, employees must learn the content more effectively and in less time. Tablet training technologies achieve this goal in multiple ways. First, video-based content has been shown to be far more impactful than written materials or spoken lectures; the quality of learning improves, and as a result, productivity does as well. Second, this more efficient training approach allows workers to complete it in less time, thus quickly getting them back on the floor or in the field to apply those skills or return to their other job duties.
Updates and Fixes Are a Snap
Training processes often must be refined, improved, corrected, or overhauled. Doing so with printed content can be expensive, requiring time and money. Not doing so possibly leaves incorrect or inefficient processes in place, which can also be expensive as productivity suffers. Tablet training technologies eliminate these headaches by delivering updated content almost as soon as you hit send. The revision process requires no effort from the employees receiving the fixes or improvements—the updates automatically arrive on a worker’s iPad, even if it’s asleep.
Rollouts Without Delay
The debut of a new product or service is an exciting event for a company, but it also requires plenty of preparation time before it reaches the local level. Therefore, individual stores can’t dawdle on a rollout, especially if it’s timed with a nationwide marketing campaign and the introduction at other locations. Tablet-based training technologies get the information that employees and managers need to make a rollout a success in their hands quickly.
What training technologies has your organization tried in an effort to improve results and save money?
