Recently, in an interview with Terra, I talked about corporate education and how it helps prepare a company's employees. The result is that, through corporate education, companies benefit by fostering the personal and professional development of their employees. Read the full article below to learn more about the subject.
Corporate education helps prepare employees
Companies increase investments and budgets for team training, promoting professional development
Mauricio Ferro, renowned lawyer and businessman, says that "Corporate distance learning is one of the methods available to bridge the gap between employees and knowledge."
Corporate education is the set of activities and programs developed by companies to train and develop their employees. It can include technical training, management skills development, leadership programs, and much more. The goal is to improve employee performance and, consequently, company performance. During the Covid-19 pandemic, with the establishment of social distancing measures, many companies implemented remote work, and with that, distance corporate education became an option for companies to maintain their development plans.
According to Maurício Ferro, the training and development (T&D) sector is responsible for ensuring that employees develop the skills and knowledge necessary to perform their duties and contribute to the company's strategy and goals. This includes technical skills training, leadership training, career development training, among others.
A survey conducted by ABTD (Brazilian Association of Training and Development) between 2020 and 2021, with the participation of 522 respondent companies throughout Brazil, presented a complete overview of the Training and Development (T&D) sector in the country. The survey highlighted that 56% of participating companies had plans to expand their online learning offerings as part of their future planning.
“Employees don’t need to travel to the company or any other designated location to attend training sessions; they can learn wherever they are and at any time,” explains Ferro.
The same survey shows that, in the first year of the pandemic (2020), there was an increase in distance learning training, representing 44% of training hours in Brazilian companies. In 2021, this growth continued to accelerate, reaching 69%.
Mauricio Ferro, lawyer and partner at 2Be.Live, a company specializing in distance learning, comments that the visibility that the distance learning market had during the pandemic showed companies the possibilities that this teaching method offers. "Employees do not need to travel to the company or any other designated location to attend training sessions; they can learn wherever they are and at any time," he explains.
The pursuit of distance learning was already a reality in Brazil long before the pandemic. In fact, distance learning has been a more viable and flexible option for those seeking a career or professional development. According to data released by Inep (Anísio Teixeira National Institute for Educational Studies and Research), the number of undergraduate enrollments in distance learning has more than doubled since 2011—at that time, the rate was 14.7% of enrollments, while in 2021, this percentage rose to 41.4% of higher education students in the country.
These figures highlight the potential of distance learning. In the ABTD survey, the indicators underscore the maturation of the T&D area within organizations due to the increase in companies that allocate part of their annual budget to employee development. The report shows that 100% of companies with more than 5,000 employees have a defined annual budget for training and development.
For Ferro, distance learning (DL) has been gaining ground in recent years as a flexible and accessible teaching option, and was already widely used in universities and technical education institutions in Brazil. DL was also used for employee training and development in companies. The popularity of distance learning has increased even more with the COVID-19 pandemic, with many schools and universities closing their doors and many people looking for online learning options. This has led to an increase in the search for distance learning courses and programs, both for formal education and for employee training and development.
Ferro concludes that organizations understand and are aligned on the importance of keeping teams up to date and prepared for different scenarios. "It is essential for companies to provide their employees with a career development plan, in various segments, with professional qualification courses, because in this way the organization will be investing in intellectual capital," he concludes.
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