Businesses saving time via online training

Training is one of the most difficult areas for companies to get right, but online learning is helping companies to plug the gap.

With the job market more competitive than ever, organisations are having to work increasingly hard to attract the best workers. But with the economic recovery still sluggish, offering higher salaries is not necessarily on the table.

Providing a high level of training can therefore be a good way to attract potential staff members, with personal development high on the wish-list for a lot of jobseekers.

Cloud-based training offers a solution for those business owners who are concerned about having the necessary resources to train their members of staff effectively in-house.

With research from call handling firm Penelope recently finding that micro-business owners are working an average of 52 hours a week - which is 63 per cent longer than an average employee, any way to squeeze more time out of the business must be considered.

According to Phill Robinson, chief executive officer at the IRIS Software Group, cloud-based training can help company owners to get the most out of the working week. Online learning is particularly appealing for both employers and staff members as they can set their own pace of learning, fitting in their courses around their other commitments.

Writing for the International Business Times, Mr Robinson explained online cloud-based training is "the most cost effective and flexible training method" available for smaller businesses.

He added: "The flexibility of cloud-based training means that it can be split up into bite-sized modules, some as compact as five minutes, to allow key information to be digested incredibly quickly, without taking up hours which could be spent on business critical activities."

Training can easily slip to the bottom of the list of priorities for companies due to the high level of resources it can use up to carry it out effectively in-house. This is why online learning is becoming so popular, with advances in technology making it easier and quicker than ever for members of staff to learn new skills and advance their knowledge in their own time.