professional development
Online Training Targets Tight Budgets
With more bad news regarding the economy every day, Plum Solutions, a Sydney-based financial analysis training company, has developed a new way of attracting more business. By converting their courses online, they are able to attract a new market with a low priced training option. Introduction to Financial Modelling in Excel is now available for the introductory price of AU$99.
The demand for Plum Solutions’ face-to-face workshops is restricted to a those participants who live near a major city where the course is offered. A lot of students travel interstate to attend a course to because it was not offered at a time or location which suits them. “Elearning is not for everyone, and some people still prefer the face-to-face method,” says Danielle Stein Fairhurst, Principal of Plum Solutions, “When participants are completing a course online, we give them as much opportunity as possible to interact with the presenter, but of course they don’t get the intensity and camaraderie that exists in a full day training workshop.”
Many participants, however, find the cost savings and convenience of online delivery outweigh the disadvantages. Being able to complete the course in their own time is invaluable, as many are not given time off work to undertake professional development courses. With corporate budgets tightening, employees are also finding their companies reluctant to pay for their training. With redundancies on the rise, many people are paying for their own training to improve their skills and marketability. By offering the courses online, costs such as room hire, catering and printing of manuals are reduced and these savings can then be passed onto the participants.
By offering their courses online, Plum Solutions are expanding their product offerings as well as appealing to a new market. Social Networks such as Linkedin and Twitter are an important part of promoting the online courses. A “Financial Modelling in Excel” special interest group was recently set up on Linkedin and within ten days over 100 people from 28 different countries had joined the group. Online courses open up a whole new international market as long as they are written in such a way that they are not specific to Australia and are reasonably easy to understand for those with English as a second language.
More information about Plum Solutions Online Training can be found at: http://www.plumsolutions.com.au/elearning/
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Professional Development Training – Making Do In A Recession
Contrary to conventional business wisdom, most organizations – including non-profits – have very similar professional development needs for basic skills not offered in the curricula of most schools and universities. These are the nuts and bolts type skills used daily in the workplace. They include skills like customer service, conflict resolution, listening, planning, budgeting, basic finance, ethics and other fundamentals. These are the skills that make companies grow and succeed.
Elearning can be combined with instructor-led training when needed to be more effective for improving skills that require interfacing with people. Examples of this are facilitation, conflict resolution, listening and sales to name a few.
Elearning classes can be very cost effective. In the past, eLearning was expensive to produce and costs prohibitive for delivery to a small number of people. Today, training companies, Universities, and professional associations offer eLearning on a pay-as-you-go basis. Therefore, companies, especially small businesses, no longer need to make a significant up front investment to implement their own training programs; eLearning courses are cost effective and readily available.
The costs for eLearning classes are the areas of general knowledge and skills and for company specific or tailored classes are reasonable. The company only has to pay for development of the class while at the same time it receives the benefit of utilizing the class for years. The delivery cost per person is zero.
Costs increase, by comparison, for instructor-led and tailored classes for two reasons. The first is that they take a considerable amount of time to develop, as they are totally unique to the company. Second, costs for an expert trainer are significant primarily because they can be very effective in transferring complex information and skills to employees.
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