E-learning in the services industry has a special significance. Here are some interesting numbers to corroborate this statement.

The service sector makes an important contribution to GDP in most countries. In 2015, services’ value added accounted for 74 percent of GDP in high-income countries, up from 69 percent in 1997. These numbers denote the growing importance of the service sector and the shift from the manufacturing that once remained to be the top contributor to the world economy

The increasing demand in the service industry is pulled back by the widening skill gap. By 2030, the global talent shortage can reach 85.2 million people—costing companies trillions of dollars. Out of which labour shortages in financial and business services are the most severely hit with a serious deficit of 10.7 million workers which is assumed to cause a loss of $1.3 trillion in annual revenue. The labor shortage clearly depicts the widening skills gap as the employers are not able to find the right candidate with the adequate skills, pointing out to the inefficiency in the existing training system.

The traditional style of classroom training is no longer able to match the needs and demands of the global economy. Hence, I recommend embracing the modern e-learning strategies to train the employees and ensure the survival and the growth of your services business and safeguard your organisation from the catastrophe of labor shortage and big financial losses.

Here is a brief list of  sectors that are included in the service industry (not an exhaustive list but covers the major sectors):

1.Information Technology
2.Hospitality
3.BFSI
4.Tourism and hospitality
5 Transportation
6.Media and communication
7.Entertainment
8.Healthcare & Wellness
9.Professional service
10.Outsourcing and consulting

So here are the benefits of  e-learning in the services industry .

1.Access the learning content from anywhere and anytime

The service industry mostly requires to train the employees on two skills i.e Hard skills and Soft skills.  For example, in a retail sector, billing the customers  without any delays is a hard skill and a positive attitude, clear communication etc is a part of soft skills.

Hence, the service industry actively requires the employees to get trained in both soft skills and hard skills. But this is not easy, as the lack of time comes again as a villain here to train the employees effectively. With the most of the workers on the floor serving the customers or when they are outside the field to sell the services, there is hardly any time for classroom training programs. The challenges are aggravated when the organization hires a lot of employees who work on a contract basis. Investing a lot of money on the training of contractual employees is not a priority for many of the organisations.  In such scenarios, e-learning can be a boon to the service organizations as the learners can access the learning content from anywhere and any device.

For example, recently we developed an e-learning module for a fashion retail chain. With offices or shops located at multiple locations, the organization was finding it very difficult to train the employees. Another challenge being a retail chain, the retail outlets are open all days and hence the workers cannot be called for lengthy classroom training as it means loss of business and revenue. By implementing e-learning the organisation can upload the learning contents on their  LMS and the employees could use their free time/ slack time to attend the e-learning modules. The courses are mobile friendly thus helping the learners to access them from their own mobile devices.

In another popular example, Walmart Inc. once implemented e-learning to their learning strategy to train the workers at Walmart logistics locations which included 75,000+ associates across 150+ distribution centers. The objective was to create a  best in class safety culture. The modules were mobile-friendly, making it easy to access across the mobile devices like smartphones, tablet, iPad etc.

By implementing e-learning Walmart saw a 91% voluntary participation rate and 15 % knowledge growth on safety topics. This would have been almost impossible if the organisation  had chosen a classroom training as training such a high number of the workforce with the same quality of content is near to impossible.


2. Train them on the hot topics in the service industry.

As the success of an organisation in the service industry is mostly on operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. One of the main factors that pull the organisation to achieve the objective is maintaining service excellence. There are many such areas where an organization from the service industry needs to ensure that the employees are effectively trained.
For example, to train the employees on the service quality standards to ensure the service excellence of the organisation or training the employees on how to treat an unhappy or disappointed customer’  etc. In most of the organization, this remains in just framed boards that are hanged on the walls and the employee is largely unaware of the same. The new e-learning strategies like using games, gamification, and scenario-based e-learning help to train the learners in an innovative and effective manner.
When it comes to the other organizations in the service industry, the hospitality, healthcare as well as the banking and financial institutions have started to realize the benefits of implementing e-learning and are increasingly looking to convert their classroom training modules to e-learning.

3.Reduce the cost/expenses

The service industry is highly competitive and hence the organizations are always exploring new ways to reduce the cost and operational expenses. With the increasing cost of classroom training, the budget books of a service organization are not on a positive note.
  
By implementing e-learning, the service organisation can reduce their budget spending on the training of the employees. In a service industry, training requires to be done on a more regular basis as most of the training modules deeply involve the changing of the learners’ habit or mannerism.
For example, to train the employees to deliver excellent customer service, the organisation is required to ensure that the learners are regularly trained on the same. This is very common in the hospitality industry where the smile in every customer is a revenue stream. Conducting classroom training everytime is not an ideal option here. By implementing e-learning, there is no fixed cost like the cost of hiring a trainer, the cost of booking a conference hall etc. The learners can also revisit the learning content as many times as required with no additional cost.

4.Enhanced engagement and interactivity in the module.

For a reputed hotel chain, we developed a scenario-based e-learning module to train the workers on welcoming and guest interaction according to the already established guidelines of the hotel. The module includes several scenarios that show the interaction between the customer and the guest relation executive. From handling a happy customer, the executive will face angry and disappointed customers in the higher levels of the scenario based e-learning module. The learners are also rewarded with points, badges for achieving the set milestones. The module was a huge success as it helped the organization to see better results in providing guest experience.
Thus by implementing e-learning, the organisation is able to make the learning more engaging and interactive. The learners could learn without the fear of making the mistakes as it is just a controlled learning environment.

When it comes to the service industry, the employees are the real face of the organization. Hence the attitude and behavior of the employee towards the clients are the very important factor for the organisation in ensuring the service excellence and meeting their standards. Also, the statistics say that According to Molly Fletcher Company, an organization can achieve 18% boost in employee engagement by using/ implementing e-learning.


5.Retaining the learning topics

Retaining the learning topic is very essential for every learning strategy. The Research Institute of America concluded that e-learning increases the retention rates by 25 to 60 percent, compared to the retention rates of 8 to 10 percent with traditional classroom training. While an instructor- led training program. According to the statistics published at learningsolutionsmag.com, a classroom training program is perhaps not an ideal strategy for retaining the learning topics as it found that –

within one hour people will forget 50% of the information presented;
•within 24 hours people will forget 70% of the information presented;
•within one week people will forget 90% of the information presented.

Hence by implementing e-learning, an organisation is able to help the learners in retaining the learning contents for long.  
In the service industry, the learners are more required to put the learned things into practice for which the visual stimulus is very important. For example, we developed a series of e-learning animated videos that describes the etiquettes of welcoming and treating the customers to the retail store. The short animated video could grab the attention of the learners with the correct use of multimedia graphics and animations.  The video was circulated among their workers and helped the organization to get better results.

6.Report tracking and e-learning assessments

By implementing e-learning an organisation can generate detailed user reports for the courses that are hosted on the LMS.  The organisation is able to generate a variety of reports like
•Activity log
•Course Overview Report
•Quiz/Assessment report and many more.


Tracking helps the organisation to have more control over the training programs and can further help in evaluating the ROI on the training module etc. It also helps the learners to know their learning progress and pace their learning accordingly.

By implementing e-learning, the organisation has taken the right path or approach to reduce the skill gap by effectively training their employees and reduce the skill gap. But that doesn’t mean the end to it.  I would like to quote the exact words of Jean-Marc Laouchez, president of the Korn Ferry Institute.
“Constant learning—driven by both workers and organizations—will be central to the future of work, extending far beyond the traditional definition of learning and development,”
Hence investing and encouraging a training culture of continuous learning will help your company stay ahead of the increasing talent shortage.