Online training provides companies with the opportunity to easily offer certificates to trainees. Today, I wanted to take a look at 2 key components that make up your certificate strategy: what is the value of a certificate, and what are the different implementation considerations.

certificate-impact

The value

Trainees will perceive very different value from a certificate depending on the training use case. Consider the example of a person who is required to take a continuing education training. In this case, certification may likely be required to prove those CE credits have been fulfilled. This experience will vary from, say, that of a person engaged in training to adopt a new software program. Let’s look at three different ways in which trainees might look at the value of a certificate.

  • Motivation – Offering a certificate can motivate trainees to contiue engagement with training, and encourage higher completion rates.
  • Verification – Like with the example of the continuing education trainee, many trainees may be required to present proof of training completion.
  • Professional skills – Another way trainees can look at certificates is the value it can add to their resume. One of Skilljar’s new features that we are very excited about enables trainees to add a certificate they have earned to their LinkedIn profile. Your earned certificates can help demonstrate your fields of expertise, as well as how and when you completed training to keep your skills up to date. Linkedin states that members who display certificates on their profile get six times more views!

How to implement

There are a few different options to consider when thinking about how you’d like to implement a certificate offering for your online courses.

  • Completion – Automatically generate a certificate to a trainee upon completion of a course.
  • Assessment – You may be interested in assessing how much a trainee has learned before providing a certificate. In this case, you can require a passing score for a final exam before generating a certificate.
  • Time-bound – Set an expiration period for your course’s certificate. This will encourage trainees to re-enroll in training when their certificate expires to keep their knowledge and skills up to date.
  • Credits – Is your course worth three hours? Or five credits? If your course can be measured by the amount of hours, credits or points it is worth, make sure to include this detail on the certificate!

With a platform like Skilljar, all of these options are available for your implementation. Considering how your trainees will perceive the value of a certificate can help you decide on your training strategy. I hope you find this article helpful! Do you offer certificates for your own training? Tell us more by leaving a comment below.