Utilizing Online Learning to Support Business Goals

Every organization has some sort of strategy or business plan. Key components of these strategies are different business goals, set either for the current year or for a longer time frame.

Many organizations also carry out personnel's competence development in one way or another, whether it's about onboarding, occupational safety trainings, compliance guidelines, or more comprehensive learning modules. These training initiatives are delivered either digitally, through a traditional classroom settings, or as a combination of these two. A critical question might be: "Has the organization reviewed its business goals for this year (or for a longer time frame) along with training – online or otherwise?"

Why online training should be aligned with business goals

Business goals are usually related to the organization's plans to grow, develop, or otherwise change something. In other words, organizations want a change – often for the better. When the present situation needs to be changed in some way, it's natural to first examine the current practices and way of doing things. While some planned changes might be about acquiring new facilities or investing in more ergonomic tools, these kind of changes or plans do not often qualify as business goals. What is usually common for business goals, across organizations, is people, that is – personnel. In order to achieve business goals, it is needed that the personnel somehow changes their behaviour.

Typical annual business goals could be for example:

• increasing the revenue by 30% compared to the previous year
• improving visibility (by a chosen metric) 40% compared to the previous year
• enhancing marketing effectiveness in order to boost inbound customer contacts by 15% per quarter compared to earlier results
• growing the customer base by 15% compared to the previous year
• launching new business areas: a new city or country operational by the end of the year
• successful recruitments where employment continues beyond the probationary period
• reducing employee turnover by 10% compared to the previous year.

Each of these goals is tied to the personnel, either directly or indirectly. How to sell more effectively, market more efficiently, achieve better visibility, grow the customer base, succeed in expanding operations, recruit better, or how to keep the employees satisfied so that capable people don't apply for jobs elsewhere or have burnouts.

The changes related to the personnel - essentially, achieving business goals - are made possible by competence development. So, there needs to be trainings. And since online training is in many cases faster, more efficient, cheaper, and easier to implement than the more traditional methods (think, for example, a three-shift work and scheduling in-person trainings, travel expenses, instructor fees, accommodation, catering costs, or other related costs), it makes sense to focus on online learning or blended learning, a combination of both e-learning and in-person training.

In short: When the business goals aim to grow, develop, increase, or decrease something, it means changing human behaviour. The goals are about instructing or developing people's behaviour in some way. It is therefore logical to examine business goals from the perspective of the desired changes and consider how to develop the people's behaviour, to which direction, and how much. This creates a natural connection between business goals and online training.

Benefits and drawbacks of aligning business goals with online training goals

What benefits can be gained from aligning business goals with online training goals?

When the business goals are examined from the perspective of the change, you need to consider what needs to be changed and how the change will be achieved. This leads to more concrete business goals and being able to focus better on:

• what are realistic goals
• what milestones are included in achieving the goals
• how achieving the goals will be guided and measured
• what goals are related to what target groups

Connecting business goals with competence development and online training goals means that the goals will have to be examined more critically and more realistically. In addition, how the goals can actually be achieved and over what timeframe will also need to be considered. When the goals are defined more clearly and more concretely, it's easier to monitor the achievement of the goals. It is possible to guide the achieving of the goals more efficiently.

What drawbacks can there be when aligning the business goals with the online training goals?

In the backside of the above list there are for example:

• business goals will have to be analyzed more critically
• the goals cannot be set without thinking why, who, and how
• the fulfillment of the goals will have to be monitored more closely than just for example tracking the revenue growth.

In short, the setting of the business goals might shift from a very straightforward process to a more deeper, more time-consuming procedure. Not all organizations may be ready for this yet.

How to define clear and measurable business goals

And how these goals are met with online training?

Let's begin with what's currently the most important thing in your organization to achieve, for example in the next five years. Often it is one of the previously mentioned goals: increasing revenue, successful recruitments, improving visibility, growing the customer base, or reducing employee turnover. When we are talking about clear goals, it's not just about having goals that are clear, but also about clearly defining the goals. They need to be dissected. For example:

Organization wants to increase their revenue in the Finnish market by 10% compared to last year. This goal is achieved by:

• recruiting more salespeople
• providing additional training for the current salespeople
• increasing the number of returning customers
• enhancing the sales and customer service processes
• increasing the social media visibility.

When the goals are clearly defined, planning how to achieve them becomes much easier. Online training can directly address many of the things in the list above:

1. Train the current salespeople so that they know how to utilize social media more effectively and make more refined lists of prospects. Review sales pitches. For this, a blended learning by an external consultant can be acquired, or if the current employees have enough expertise, the training can be produced in-house. Train the salespeople in two groups so that the effects of the online training can be monitored: how the results of the sales team that participated in the training change (if they change) compared to the team that has not yet participated in the training.
2. Increase the number of returning customers by improving the customer service process and especially the after sales. This too can be implemented as an online learning or blended learning, either with in-house expertise or with external consultants. Analyze the sales team's performance before and after the training. Analyze also customer feedback and how it has changed compared to the time before the training.
3. Increase the social media visibility by providing the personnel with training in developing their skills of leveraging social media in their work. Ask feedback from a certain customer segment through social media and comments about the organization's successes and improvements. Track the results and compare them to the time before the training.

When the business goals are defined clearly and precisely as depicted above, it's possible to focus on what needs to be developed and what is the target group. Next, the schedule of the training can be planned to support the timeframe of the business goals. In general, the trainings should always be implemented as learning paths covering a longer time period. In the above mentioned cases, there could be a couple of learning activities per week (courses and other activities) and the whole training could take for example two months. Between the learning activities, the salespeople could apply what they have learned in the training in their daily work. Online trainings should aim to guide the learners to use the new skills immediately. Online trainings can offer tools for the learners to track their progress and how their new skills affect their work.

Examples from different fields

Manufacturing

• Business goal: Improve the production efficiency by 20% during the next year.
• The role of online learning: Implement an online training that covers lean management principles, improvements related to the use of machinery and safety protocols. The training includes interactive parts and simulations of production scenarios.
• Monitoring: Measure efficiency before and after the training based on work logs and output level.

Services

• Business goal: Improve customer satisfaction by 15% in the next six months.
• The role of online learning: Create an online learning course for the customer service team about customer-centric communication, recognizing feelings, and handling complaints.
• Monitoring: Measure the customer satisfaction with feedback surveys and analyze the number of complaints before and after the training

Healthcare

• Business goal: Improve patient safety by reducing medication errors by 10% during the next year.
• The role of online learning: Develop an online course for the medical personnel, including medication processes, risk identification, and instructions for using new tools.
• Monitoring: Collect data about medication errors and execute personnel surveys in order to analyze the effect of the training.

Retail

• Business goal: Increase sales by 25% during a new product launch.
• The role of online learning: Train the salespeople about the features of the new products, sales techniques, and target group needs. Courses include videos, tests, and interactive sales situation practices.
• Monitoring: Analyze the product group's sales and the salespeople's performance metrics before and after the training.

Construction

• Business goal: Improve occupational safety and reduce workplace accidents by 15% during the next year.
• The role of online learning: Implement online trainings about safety protocols on construction sites, use of machinery, and risk management.
• Monitoring: Statistics on work accidents and the personnel's participation rate in trainings.

Utilizing feedback, reflection, and self-assessment in monitoring goal achievement

When business goals are linked to online trainings, it's beneficial to involve the target audience and other stakeholders in the process. The training participants can provide valuable insights into current practices and how these evolve through the training. Additionally, feedback collected from the participants can support enhancing the training itself and evaluating how realistic the business goals are. This feedback can be gathered using the same online training platform that is being used for the online training.

Reflection should also be an integral part of any training. The more effectively participants can monitor, evaluate, and guide their own learning—and subsequently apply their skills—the more impactful the training will be. A simple way to encourage reflection is to end each learning activities with prompts like: “Assess how what you’ve just learned will change your work in the coming week. How will you apply this knowledge in practice?” Similarly, at the start of the next activity, participants can be asked to evaluate, both qualitatively and quantitatively, how well the previously estimated changes have been implemented.

Lastly, let's list the most important things:

1. Define the business goals, first roughly and then in more detail
2. Name the target group
3. Think what actions are needed to achieve the goals
4. Plan training, scheduling, and monitoring
5. Implement and gather feedback. Get ready to edit the training based on feedback and results.
6. Repeat these steps also in the following years and use the previous analyses, results, and plans as a base for new plans.