The Best Home Study Institutions

With a changing business environment and the fast paced nature of technological change, it is important for companies to maintain or improve the skills of their employees to keep them at a competitive advantage. Demographic upheavals have resulted in over half of the total workforce now being comprised of millennials, and by 2025 this figure is expected to rise to three quarters. They bring with them high expectations of a rich and rewarding working experience, including constant learning and development opportunities. One way in which companies can match these expectations is via home study institutions or platforms, which provide self-serving career development for employees. Understanding which institutions to use is an increasingly useful skill for employers to have.

There are many different organizations that offer corporate training programs. One such platform, currently popular with payments processing giant MasterCard, is Degreed. This is a platform which enables personalized career development, and allows individuals to create their own learning ‘playlists’, by mixing and matching internal and external learning content of various types, including articles, videos, MOOCs, podcasts, web seminars and so on. Other options include Skillsoft, which offers online courses, videos, and books for a wide variety of skills. Licenses for employee use can also be purchased for Lynda. Taken together, both online libraries contain thousands of courses. Pluralsight offers online technical and soft skills training, and Jhana offers courses on management skills.

The above listed learning platforms are reputable examples, and are used by leading companies including MasterCard and Verizon. However, the decision to fund employee access to these courses (which come at a price) must be determined based on how the skills on offer correspond to the needs of the company. In addition, another point of consideration is the impact of not investing in employee development. According to Harvard Business Review, “Dissatisfaction with some employee-development efforts appears to fuel many early exits”. It is possible for a company to offer courses themselves, but this can often end up being costlier than using an external platform. Furthermore, it is reasonable to trust the expertise of a dedicated institution with a rich online library of courses, rather than trying to build something similar from scratch. Precedents are not hard to find. MasterCard has made particular use of Degreed as part of its employee-training program.

Employee development is a continuing enterprise. This means that it is important to always keep an eye on the future. Industry changes can be fast and detrimental to the unprepared. A company that invests in its employees is in a better situation to respond to such changes than a company that does not. In addition to offering access to the above home-study platforms, it might also be worth considering offering access for individual employees at their request, so long as the platform has courses that are reputable and are relevant for the company. Online learning platforms are coming into their own, and now is the best time to take advantage of them.

Adam Watson

Sources:
• http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/generations-demographic-trends-population-and-workforce
• https://get.degreed.com/
• http://www.skillsoft.com/
• https://www.lynda.com/in/general2?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=l1-US-SEM-Brand&cid=l1-us:en:ps:lp:prosc:s0:0:all:bing:mbm-lynda.&utm_content=%7Bcreative%7D&utm_term=%2Blynda.
• https://www.pluralsight.com/
• https://www.jhana.com/
• https://hbr.org/2012/07/why-top-young-managers-are-in-a-nonstop-job-hunt