Banking. It’s what makes our modern economy tick (and, perhaps, tock), and a big enabler of the business and innovation progress we’ve had in the 21st century.
It’s, to paraphrase the proverb, a lucrative job, but somebody’s got to do it.
It’s also a demanding job, one where books of regional, national, and international rules and regulations can be stacked as high as the Empire State Building. Add to the mix operational guidelines and procedures internal to your financial organization, and what you have is informational overload.
In a sector where information is leverage and mistakes can cost billions (and trivially DO cost millions), continuous training is par for the course, and an eLearning solution is a no brainer for multiple reasons we’ll delve into below.
The cost factor
One factor in favor of eLearning in most industries is cost, namely that an eLearning solution costs less to deploy and run compared to traditional learning. This is probably not as much a concern in the financial sector, as the money involved for both options are small peanuts related to the average budget of a large financial institution.
So, while the reduced costs of eLearning is a nice to have, it’s not a deciding factor in this case. What does matter in finances is the overall efficiency and return of investment of the training, and that’s something were eLearning also helps a lot.
In the fast-paced world of finance, where working long hours is the norm, classroom based education, with its rigid schedules and its commuting requirements, is disruptive.
eLearning allows employees to educate themselves at their own pace, between customer and board meetings, when work winds down, or when NYSE is closed for the night. Even commuting time, on a plane or train, can be used for training, with an eLearning platform like eFront which can work both with and without an internet connection.
With eLearning your employees waste less time going to and out of classrooms and spend more time learning and being productive, which in turn translates to huge savings and less disruptions to the operation of your organization.
Privacy and control
Financial organizations have all kind of internal procedures and training material to use, and not all of it should ever be outside of the company.
With internet based eLearning you can deploy your courses in a tightly controlled manner, providing fine-grained access only to the right employees and securing the whole thing behind your company’s firewall or VPN.
And for financial organizations operating in multiple cities, countries, offices and branches, an LMS (which is required for eLearning) allows you to deliver training to all your locations from a single deployment, that your IT department can easily manage, monitor and secure.
Staying up to date
The financial industry is not a static environment. In fact it’s perhaps the most dynamic sector of the so called knowledge based economy, with each day and week bringing unique challenges and changes (especially in areas such as compliance training).
When it comes to training, this means that a lot of the learning material has to change frequently to adapt to new developments.
This is another area were eLearning beats classroom based classes that need printed textbooks, specialized instructors and a predefined lesson schedule.
Central, web based, deployment makes updating eLearning material quick and painless, and compatibility with third party and external sources means that all kinds of pre-packages and already available content can be incorporated to your eLearning courses in a heartbeat.
Employee Onboarding
Employee orientation or onboarding, the task of introducing new hires to their working environment and giving them the basic information they need to start being productive, is another great fit for eLearning and eFront.
This includes your organization’s operating procedures, policies, restrictions, compliance regulations and guidelines, as well as the ever more important education in professional ethics, and sexual and racial discrimination issues.
Training Insight
The last major benefit of eLearning we’ll cover in this post is that it gives managers and decision makers quick and comprehensive insight over the status and progress of your organization’s training programs.
Instead of delivering seminars to your employees and hoping for the best, or waiting for some instructor to grade and deliver employee progress reports at the end of the learning period, with eLearning you get automated and fast insights on how your employees are doing and how well your training material has been absorbed.
eFront, for example, includes advanced reporting capabilities that enable supervisors and management to keep track of courses, groups of learners and even the learning progress of specific employees, across all of your organization’s departments and branches.
Conclusion
For a fast-paced, knowledge-driven industry like finance, where training is a matter of survival, adopting eLearning is a no-brainer.
Take eFront for a free test drive, and talk to our representatives about how you can leverage eLearning to take employee training in your bank, financial institution or related organization to the next level.
