Continuing education as strategic investment in today's environment

Continuing education. Once seen primarily as an employee benefit, employers should re-examine continuing education as a strategic investment in sharpening your firm's edge in today's competitive business environment. Continuing education for your employees can provide big paybacks to your company from improving business processes to employee productivity and job satisfaction.

Although most people think of traditional university classes led by an instructor, distance learning is transforming the continuing education landscape by offering students more course options and flexibility than ever before education is truly becoming an anytime, anyplace possibility.

Although many students still gather in traditional classrooms, or on-ground as many providers are now describing these classes, on-line and blended (mixed on-ground and on-line) instructional models are also becoming increasingly popular. But, the options don't end there! One-line courses can be either be offered live, where students gather in virtual classrooms and are led by an instructor in real time, or asynchronously, where students complete assignments independently and interact through a messaging systems and chat rooms.

Selection the right training option

While these options make it increasingly convenient to allow employees to pursue continuing education, how can an employer determine what option is right for their company? While the technical content will not vary significantly due to the method of delivery for most classes, there are differences that your should consider before selecting a class.

Perhaps the most obvious consideration is timelines. A major limitation of the instructor-led model is that the student must be able to participate at a specific time and at a specific place (for on-ground courses). If the need for training is immediate, or if an employee is unavailable for the training at the time the course is offered, asynchronous on-line courses should be considered. These courses offer substantially more freedom in scheduling while still offering the opportunity, in many cases, to interact with an instructor and other students in the class.

Another factor to consider is what type of interaction with the instructor will be needed to master the skills presented in the class. As an example, many introductory courses are most effective when an instructor can interact with a student, correct basic mistakes quickly, and keep the lesson plan on track. Without this support, a student that is working independently may waste time using trail-and-error to correct mistakes, or simply give up until help is available.

Along with the direct support of an instructor, a related factor is the support tools that will be needed during the class. Online programs have made significant improvements in the type of instructional resources that can be offered virtually to an online student. While textbooks, training software, and evaluation tools can now be delivered to student through the Internet, factors may reduce the course's effectiveness.

For example, is your company's Internet connection speed fast enough to support an interactive course? Also, will the capabilities of the computer the student will be using have enough power and memory to run the courseware? Beyond the technology, you should also consider whether the environment in which the student would be working would be conducive to their studies. For example, if they work at their desk, will they be interrupted with phone calls or other work-related questions? If any of these are true, on-ground, instructor-led training solutions may be a better solution for your company.

Benefits of continuing education

Although there are many choices to consider about the delivery method for your company's continuing education program, the bottom-line benefits you obtain from supporting continuing employee development are clear.

Especially in high-tech fields, continuing education is an excellent way to offer your employees a chance to learn and work with new technologies. As your employees learns new skills, they will become more productive, efficient workers, and have higher personal job satisfaction. And, as employees return to their day-to-day activities, their new skills will encourage them to explore ways to improve their existing business processes.

Finally, another opportunity for leveraging a continuing education class is to encourage your employee to train a co-worker after the course is over. This offers an excellent opportunity to assess their ability to mentor other employees from a supervisory position, while extending the investment you've made in the training to another employee.

Creating a program of employees knowledge transfer also partially addresses the concern that supporting continuing education may encourage employee to seek another job. By using the student as trainer approach, employee will view the training not as a way out of the company, but rather as an investment in their career with the company.

Bill Neumann is director of projects in the Department of Management Information System at the Eller College of Business and Public Administration. He may be reached at wtn@bpa.arizona.edu.