eLearning Effectiveness for Finance

Disruptions such as the rise of FinTech along with the dramatic shift toward virtual environments as a result of the coronavirus are driving the importance of continuous learning and skill (re)development. To deal with these disruptive forces, finance organizations must ensure their workforce is adaptable to changes in the industry.

By increasing the skill-base of employees in emerging areas and simultaneously improving their knowledge-base to help them deal with disruptive forces, companies can change to suit the current climate.

Disruptive forces such as these are not the only reason to adopt a continuous learning culture. For example, compliance and regulatory requirements, demands of the modern employee, and a need to fill skill gaps are all drivers of ongoing education.

Compliance and regulatory requirements
- This has been an area of focus since the 2008 financial crisis, where weak regulation was cited as one of the leading contributors to the economic collapse. $321 Billion is the estimated amount finance organizations have spent on enforcement actions, fines, and settlements since 2008.
- One survey found 69% of respondents aren’t confident with their current risk management policies and practices.
Demands of the modern employee
- Disruptions have not only impacted organizations, but also individual finance employees. Concern over the shelf-life of skills has seen demands for on-the-job learning increase in importance as highlighted in a recent report.
- Another piece of research found 59% of global respondents from a sample of 70,000 millennials think organizations are not providing adequate development opportunities.
Fill skill gaps
- Online courses help organizations re-skill employees, as disruptions change the demands and skills associated with finance roles.
- For example, 38% of CEOs who are ahead on upskilling progress are confident in their 12-month revenue growth prospects, compared to 20% who lag when it comes to upskilling according to a Global CEO survey.

Decision-makers working in HR, L&D, training, and compliance can tackle these changes, challenges, and demands through the implementation of an effective eLearning ecosystem.

“Approximately 32% of current workers aged 16-54, regardless of their position, may need to retrain within the next 12 years.”

While it is easy to understand how eLearning can help a workforce to reshape and adapt to change, when thinking about this at a deeper level, why is this? Why can eLearning perform better than another medium?

This post explores 5 reasons as to why eLearning is an effective choice when delivering learning to your workforce.

1 eLearning is a Flexible Tool

A flexible online tool is key to organizational learning and development. Used correctly, online finance courses will keep employees up to speed, engaged in their learning, and subsequently contribute towards their professional development more than a traditional learning medium.

The ability to cover many topics, including updated regulations (MiFID II, the Volcker Rule, and EMIR) is valuable, and having access to a learning library which is updated regularly is important. Even now, while employees are working remotely, online courses can be taken on old, new, and emerging topics.

This disruptive period is an ideal opportunity for finance organizations to keep employees engaged through the medium of online learning. The demands being placed on the modern worker challenge their knowledge-base and a focus on learning can only benefit their current and future careers in finance.

2 Financial eLearning Drives Compliance

Adhering to compliance standards is essential even during a global pandemic. Otherwise, organizations risk contributing to the $27 Billion that has been sanctioned in anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-customer related fines since the 2008 financial crisis. Failure to meet such compliance is reputationally and financially damaging.

Online finance courses are a key driver of organizational compliance. Firstly, good quality, engaging content can help instil knowledge on compliance practices. Secondly, just in time completion data that is made possible with online learning allows administrators to report on compliance training quickly. These benefits ensure regulators are provided with necessary data and areas of compliance weakness can be identified and addressed quickly.

3 eLearning Often Integrates Seamlessly and Provides Unique Insights

There is potential for organizations to seamlessly integrate online finance courses into their IT infrastructure, providing the courses are compliant with industry technology standards (AICC, SCORM, xAPI). From a data analytics standpoint, integrating courses with current IT resources (LMS/LXP/HRIS/CRM) allows organizations to harmonize data, further improving reporting for regulators.

Furthermore, advanced learning data can provide unique insight on individual and organizational weakness, enabling them to create personalized learning journeys for employees. Modern employees are demanding personalized employment experiences and visible growth opportunities.

Harnessing the available data from online finance courses benefits organizations as they can use the data to update employees on their progress while concurrently driving continuous improvement by addressing skill-gaps in the workforce.

4 eLearning is Engaging

eLearning allows organizations to create user-friendly online courses that improve the overall employee education experience. This increases the likelihood of engagement with financial learning that can enhance an employee’s career capital and make them a flexible organizational asset.

Providing a user-centric experience in compliance and CPE courses (that are often seen as box-ticking exercises) requires creativity from organizations. These pieces of training are best received when they are easy to access, content is stimulating and interactive, and administrators can deploy and track related metrics efficiently.

This point is enhanced by research on disengaged employees. One study by Gallup studied worker engagement over three years and estimated that disengaged staff cost organizations roughly $400-500 Million per year in the US.

Organizations can benefit from creating user-centric professional development journeys; organizations that can curate content to identify role-specific learning pathways enable upskilling and reskilling of employees. This will be a key future requirement – these pathways are an important capability in addressing skill gaps and retaining talent.

5 eLearning Still Allows for Blended Learning Opportunities

While online finance courses are fundamental training tools for organizations, other learning methods should not be ignored. For example, virtual classroom sessions can be utilized during this remote working period – this maintains a classroom feel while delivering content online.

Online learning materials can be used to enhance these learning experiences by assigning employees with pre and post-class exercises allowing virtual instructors to concentrate on more practical exercises such as class discussions.