Social Distancing - Has Online Learning's Time to Shine Arrived?

by Thomas Smith

One of the most notable impacts from the Corona Virus - COVID-19 pandemic has been the recommending of Social Distancing in almost every country around the world. 

With gatherings and crowds being either discouraged, or banned outright, training manager's options for continued personnel development have been limited quite dramatically.

With the unexpected arrival of COVID-19 it is no longer possible to continue with the delivery of face to face training seminars and workshops.

Apart from the safety, sanitary and health aspects, there are also practical issues that result in it being impossible to continue with face to face delivery in the foreseeable future:

  • Many organisations have implemented travel bans.
  • Staff and trainers face severe travel restrictions.
  • There are mass cancellations of flights not only to areas which are deemed high risk but also other destinations due to the economic impact being felt across the airline industry.
  • As a protective measure, many governments have implemented travel and quarantine restrictions which are escalating and could result in staff or trainers not being able to return home to their country or being quarantined after arrival.
  • Countries have treated the COVID-19 as a Force Majeur and are issuing Force Majeur Certificates.
  • Gatherings of people such as for seminars and workshops now pose a risk that cannot be taken by any responsible body.
  • In many regions gatherings of groups of people such as conferences, exhibitions, seminars and workshops, have been banned.

This leaves a serious gap in the provision of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for Learning & Development (L&D) and Training managers. This is where Online Learning Solutions can rise to meet the new heightened challenges due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.  

eBSI Export Academy currently offers a wide range of online learning solutions and course catalogues for both individuals and organisations in the Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) category.

Extensive catalogue of online CPD Short Courses

In our short course catalogue featuring over 240 courses with a minimum duration of 2 hours seat time we have the following catalogues: 

Besides this we have a pipeline of 32 courses for launch in March/April including:

  • 16 more MS Office courses 
  • 16 more Digital Marketing courses

We have stepped up our development resources to meet the increased demand for online training in more and more topics.  

On top of the increased development of courses we have also reduced our course prices during this period to ensure the best return on investment possible for individuals and training and L&D managers seeking training for groups.

Solutions for Groups and Organisations

We have a number of effective solutions available for organisations seeking cost effective online CPD training for staff:

  • Catalogue Access to part or all of our training catalogue for groups of employees from an organisation - This involves the group enrolment of staff onto our main training portal wherein staff can get access to either all courses or selected catalogues of courses as determined by their L&D or Training Managers.  This provides unlimited access to the courses and allows the individual learner to prioritise their learning as they deem fit.  This is a highly cost effective solution as it neither requires separate infrastructure nor custom courses and can be set up very very quickly.
  • Group enrolments on specific or customised certificate programs - This allows the organisation to enrol a group of participants onto selected certificate programs offered by eBSI or for the L&D or Training manager to pre-select a curriculum for staff or specific roles which will then lead to a corporate certificate co-validated by eBSI Export Academy.  
  • Establishment of an internal corporate online learning portal - This involves the organisation working with eBSI to establish an internal corporate university or training tool which can incorporate both courses licensed from eBSI's catalogue, existing training materials from the organisation, and scheduled webinars as deemed required by the L&D/Training manager.  This is a longer term solution which can be set-up as soon as within a week, but is for longer term contracts of over 1 year.
  • Custom course creation - Here we work with L&D/Training managers to create custom content for the organisation which can either be hosted by eBSI or on the client's own server.  We can offer a quick turnaround on such projects but currently have all our resources focused on expanding our internal course catalogues.

Feel free to contact us to discuss your needs by contacting Thomas Smith at ts@ebsi.ie or on our website chat options most convenient to you.

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