mobile learning
Students in a training class

By Robert Cordray

Mobile learning is the latest trend to be impacting businesses across the country. In particular, it is transforming the onboarding process of both big business and small startups alike. But what specifically is elearning doing to aid small businesses? How does it make a real difference—the kind of difference that you can actually see and measure? The benefits of mobile elearning actually reach far and wide; here are just a few ways in which mobile learning can really help a small business.

By Saving You Money

Sometimes it can be a struggle to even just keep a small business afloat. As such, you often find yourself looking for ways to save money anywhere you can. Outsourcing to a training company has been an effective method in the past, but mobile learning can actually save you even more. Mobile learning management systems will allow you to create a training program that is tailored perfectly to the needs of your company, with modules that can be taken again and again, and social channels for when help is needed. This effectively eliminates the need to hire anyone to train new employees, saving the company a lot of money.

By Earning You Money

But you aren’t just saving money by taking advantage of mobile learning, you are actually adding cash to your bottom line. Why? Well, because of the streamlining of the the training process as a whole, elearning allows new employees to learn faster and better than they would otherwise, decreasing the amount of time between hiring and becoming a fully contributing member of the company. Getting the best out of your new employees as soon as possible ultimately adds a lot to your company’s productivity and total income.

By Connecting With the New Workforce

Millennials are now the largest generation of the American workforce. This means that employers have an increasing need to reach them in different ways from previous generations. A big part of this is catering to the way in which they—and indeed most people these days—consume information. Mobile learning does this, and then some; for example, there is the obvious benefit of being able learn on any device from any location, but another huge plus is the ease of gamification on mobile learning systems for those wishing to reach and motivate the younger members of the workforce.

By Bringing Learners Together

Another huge benefit of mobile learning, is its ability to bring learners together in a different, and perhaps more effective way than in a classroom setting. You might be concerned that mobile learning would motivate people, but the opposite is actually true. Mobile learning brings people together in a virtual and more direct way, which benefits all personality types rather than just the extroverts. If anyone has a question or problem, they can send a quick message to you or another learner to get clarification. You can also get more feedback this way, to further increase the efficiency of your training program.

By Improving Training

All of these are things that will greatly benefit your company, but there is one simple reason why mobile learning is right for a small business—it is just a better way to train. Not only is there increase efficiency and less money spent, but the very nature of mobile learning allows for a more individualized and effective training process than anyone could have ever achieved previously. This makes it a better experience, not just for you, but for your employees. They can dictate when and where they train, and do so at their own pace, in a way that suits them best. And as we all know, happy employees make a happy company—and a more effective one too.

Robert Cordray is a former business consultant and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience and a wide variety of knowledge in multiple areas of the industry. Follow him at @RobertCordray.