Winning new business and keeping customers happy tend to be the focus of most senior leadership.
While these definitely have an immediate impact on the bottom line, you can’t forget about training. In fact, seven in 10 employees say that job-related training and development opportunities impact their decision to stay with a company. And 70% of employees believe corporate technology and training tools fall short when compared to personal technology (defined as consumer tech, such as apps, gadgets, video games and GPS devices).
The answer? Train to retain—while also improving technology.
That’s where virtual training labs come in. Today’s training professionals understand that virtual training labs provide a simple and effective way to teach complex technical skills. However, leadership often must be convinced.
As a result, training professionals must educate leadership about the value and benefits of virtual training labs—and the impact it can have on the bottom line and organizational growth.
You must clearly demonstrate that virtual training not only improves long-term employee growth, but also increases productivity and a return on investment. A detailed explanation of the business benefits achieved from using virtual training should include the following:
Lowers Training Costs
Using virtual training labs translates into cost savings because there is no need to buy, install or maintain any hardware. In addition, when you compare the training costs between in person training vs. online training, delivering training online can provide up to 30-70% of savings. Additionally, because virtual labs can be accessed anywhere in the world, students can learn from anywhere—without having to spend time away from work or family, and reducing the “wear and tear” on employees from having to travel away from home.
Partnering with a lab provider means the software installation, server upgrades and lab maintenance is external—instead of internal. For organizations, this results in a savings of time, money and IT resources. Because an organization’s IT department is no longer responsible for setting up complex labs and troubleshooting, this also leads to a decrease in operating costs.
Creates a Safe Environment
Using virtual training labs provides a high level of security. When training requires coding, programming and testing, virtual training labs offer an extremely safe environment that allows students to gain hands-on experience without any risk to an organization’s infrastructure. In addition, virtual training labs allow students to make mistakes without putting an organization’s production environment or live data at risk.
Offers Convenience & Flexibility
With employees and customers scattered all over the globe, virtual training provides a flexible, convenient way to learn. You can expand your training reach by offering courses that students can attend from anywhere with an internet connection.
Provides Quick & Effective Training
Using virtual training labs results in faster training. Because students can train from anywhere, the ability to quickly gain knowledge through hand-on experience translates into more efficient training for organizations.
Delivers Scalability
Whether instructors are leading courses for a few students or a very large number, virtual training labs can be scaled to meet any type of training demand.
Results in Numerous Learning Advantages
Virtual training labs are a win-win for both instructors and students. The labs not only allow instructors to monitor the progress of each student, but instructors also can give individual assistance to students in need.
For students, the virtual training labs provide an environment where they can practice using a new tool or technology in a safe but real-life environment. This experience of “practice by doing” results in higher knowledge retention and a faster adoption of skills.
Learning and development is a very important part of an organization’s business strategy. The key to getting leadership’s buy-in for virtual training labs is educating management on the powerful benefits of this training tool and proving that there are many advantages to outsourcing versus trying to build something in-house or worse conduct training on production systems.
