ROI: an overview
According to Forbes, ?return on investment (ROI) is a metric used to understand the profitability of an investment, which compares how much you paid for an investment to how much you earned to evaluate its efficiency?. In other words, when you invest money in a product or service, this metric helps you understand whether it?s profitable or not.
We?ve already talked over and over again about the benefits of eLearning, from saving money and resources to upskilling employees and increasing the rates of retention. But do eLearning also have a word to say in an organization?s ROI when it comes to online learning?
The short answer is it depends. Not any eLearning platform delivers the same results, and not any eLearning platform delivers the results you need for your business. So what should you take into consideration when choosing an LMS, while also keeping in mind the ROI?
eLearning and the ROI metrics
On a general note, eLearning should be complementary with an increased ROI, as it is both cost and time effective, it decreases the level of employee turnover, while increasing the employee engagement and it keeps employees up-to-date with the knowledge and skills they need to perform their job. However, the ROI implies more than that, and there are various aspects to be taken into consideration when choosing an eLearning platform.
Moreover, according to the eLearning industry, ?the ROI for your LMS ultimately comes down to how your business and its bottom line are impacted by your training programs, and monitoring the Learning and Development ROI of your LMS solution?and working to improve these results long-term?is a key factor in helping your organization to mitigate wasted resources and track the effectiveness of training?.
In-depth analytics and reports
In order for you to know if the organization?s learning and development objectives have been met, you need to be able to keep track of the learners? progress, the level of outcomes achieved, the changes at the level of skill gaps.
In other words, you need in-depth reports and you should go for an eLearning platform which helps your organization assign user roles and business rules, while delivering relevant reports to the management. Keeping track of the learning progress is as much a necessity as it is delivering knowledge to your people.
Multilingual support
If you have multiple clients, partners or employees to train and they are spread all over the world, it would be helpful to take into consideration a multilingual LMS, which ensures that all of your learners have access to training materials. This way, everyone has access to the same learning opportunities and you do not have to use other tools to translate your content.
Multi-tenancy
According to Gartner, ?multitenancy is a reference to the mode of operation of software where multiple independent instances of one or multiple applications operate in a shared environment.? Basically, multi-tenancy refers to an application that is shared by various users.
Thus, extrapolating from here, a multi-tenant LMS serves multiple users from the same organization, such as employees, external partners, clients, each with their own workflow and learning journey. This is really helpful when you are an organization which has to deliver training programs to different groups and you want to have everything centralized under the same application.
Certification management
This tool would save the organization time and they would not have to worry about manually assigning certification to employees after finishing a specific course, especially the mandatory training programs. As we like to say, a LMS should let the organization bring its learners, while the eLearning takes care of the training process.
Gamification
Gamification is linked with increased employee engagement, satisfaction and productivity, which lead to increased active participation rate, a metric which should be considered when calculating the ROI of eLearning. Engaged employees, better learning outcomes, business objectives achieved.
To sum it up, you should choose an LMS which increases the ROI, taking into consideration aspects such as a cost-effective management system, a reduction in the in-person training, better engagement, increased level of productivity, etc.
