Online Degrees – A competitive edge

Professional development is an important investment in helping attain your company’s goals and retain your best people. While a recent talent management study by Bersin & Associates showed a decline in employee learning and development spending for a second consecutive year, the findings also indicated companies are reallocating funds to leadership development and reducing in-person training in favor of virtual classrooms.

“In today's market, online education is even more important to consider due to competing demands on our time and our expertise,” said Michael T. Finnicum, staffing partner and program management principal leader at CSC, a Fortune 200 company and one of the world’s largest providers of information technology services. 

How can your organization find a cost-effective and flexible training solution that provides a competitive edge and ensures your employees remain motivated and satisfied?  Career-focused higher education institutions like Colorado Technical University partner with companies to offer a range of undergraduate and graduate degree programs in many of today’s in-demand fields.  Degrees – many of which are achieved 100 percent online through a virtual campus – can include MBAs or specialized certifications in areas such as information technology or health care.

Kaiser Permanente Colorado offers tuition assistance and continuing education as important employee benefits.  The company’s educational options include several online universities like CTU.  “Online education is convenient and flexible for working adults, so it gives our employees an opportunity to rethink going back to school to further their careers or learn new skills,” said Bobby Kochakkan, an administrator with Colorado Permanente Medical Group, a division of Kaiser Permanente.

Since 2007, about 110 Kaiser Permanente employees have pursued online advanced, undergraduate and associate degrees through CTU. With online degrees beginning to go mainstream, HR leaders may wonder why this higher education option could be right for their organization’s professional training program and their employees.  Here are five reasons to consider: 

1. Flexibility to promote work-life balance and productivity
Traditional undergraduate and advanced degree programs have a fixed meeting time. If your employees are balancing the demands of raising a family along with their full-time job responsibilities, old-fashioned classroom learning requires them to sacrifice more personal and working time to attend classes. Online learning, on the other hand, can be done anytime.
Employees still have to carve out time in their lives to watch lectures and complete assignments, but at least they get to decide when that happens.  This type of flexibility also lets employees remain productive at work while they learn and gain new skills. 
“We want our employees to thrive and advance both in and out of work,” said Kochakkan of Kaiser Permanente. “Online courses promote this work-life balance. Employees can fit classes into their busy schedules by logging on after the kids have gone to bed, after dinner, or on the weekends.”

2. Portable campus
In addition to a set time, college classes at a bricks-and-mortar school are also restricted to a specific place.  If your company is located near a university, there may not be issues for your employees to commute and take evening classes.  Online learning lets employees study at a distance and set their own schedule – making it convenient for those who can’t give up family or professional obligations to spend a few years on campus.  Anywhere employees can access the Internet can become their classroom.  Some online universities even make course materials available for your Web-enabled phone, or as downloadable podcasts for your iPod. 

3. Online learning works
The Obama administration is promoting initiatives aimed at adding millions of new college graduates by 2020. Since traditional campuses will have a hard time keeping up with the demand, the U.S. Department of Education has been looking into the effectiveness of online learning. It turns out that, after analyzing 12 years of data, the Department of Education concluded that online learning actually results in slightly better performance than traditional classroom education alone, as outlined in the report titled "Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Studies." Other research has shown that online learning is also more efficient: Physicians who took a professional development course online scored just as well as their classroom-educated peers on a test - but with fewer hours spent studying. 

4.  Apply practical knowledge on the job
Online courses immerse students in hands-on, industry-related problem solving experiences that mirror professional environments.  In other words, what they learn in their business, marketing or IT class tonight can be used tomorrow in a meeting or job-related task in your organization. 
Online universities like CTU also have the ability to quickly customize educational programs to fit an organization’s unique needs – from holding continuing education training onsite or creating industry-specific degrees online.  It’s a win-win for companies and employees.  “CTU has a world-class program that has helped many in my company obtain relevant education directly contributing to the success of the company and our customers,” said Finnicum of CSC. 

5.  Learning that fits your employees’ styles
One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to learning styles.  Some employees learn better by watching demonstrations or hearing a presentation.  Others learn by doing, including troubleshooting situations and solving real work-related problems.  The CTU online virtual campus, for example, allows what’s called “freedom learning.”  Employees can select from 11 different options for how they want to interact with the course materials – and do it at their own pace.  They can choose to watch, view, read or hear their coursework.  And, to ensure they’re fully engaged with their studies, each course has interactive components that challenge them to try it, solve it, answer it, create it, explore it, direct it or practice it.  This approach lets students more effectively learn, retain and apply their knowledge – ensuring a positive return on their and your education investment.

For information on the CTU Education Partners Program, call 866-897-1560 or visit coloradotech.edu.