Are you finding yourself with more free time than usual during the coronavirus lockdown? Not sure what you could be doing? Or maybe you simply want to try something new to further your education and skills?
Then an online course could be exactly what you need.
Below are some great websites offering you free online courses in everything from Arts and Crafts to Science, Business, and Law. These websites will usually ask you to sign up to enrol in the course, but not always.
If you are looking to really make the most of your time in COVID lockdown, you could enrol on some of the bigger courses. These big courses could even earn you a professional certificate. This could really take you to the next step in your career.
Open Learn
Open Learn is a part of the Open University and offers free courses. A lot of their courses are easy to get through and will typically require less than 24 hours of study time. This makes them good to try as a little taster to see how you find learning online.
If you want something to challenge you more, take a look at their badged courses – perfect for sharing your new achievements on social media.
Open Learn website: https://www.open.edu/openlearn/
Oxford Home Study Centre
Oxford home study centre is a professional distance learning provider similar to Open University. Here you can enrol on smaller free courses that are good to see if the topic is right for you . You can expect to spend about 20hrs studying for these courses.
The selection is mostly career focused, but that?s not a bad thing.
Oxford Home Study Centre website: https://www.oxfordhomestudy.com/
Reed Recruitment
Reed, the recruitment agency, offers a range of free courses to help you become more employable in the future. A lot of their courses include some offline components and most will have some eligibility requirements that you must pass to be allowed to enrol.
Their courses allow you to get certified professional qualifications – perfect if you know what’s next for you career goals. Because of the size of these courses, you may need to take some dedicated time off work to complete them. Speak to your employer before you enrol and come to an agreement with how much time you can have off to focus on the course.
Reed Recruitment website: https://www.reed.co.uk/courses/free/online
Udemy
Udemy is an online teaching marketplace. It has a huge selection of paid video courses. Many of them let you have access to the instructors if you need additional help or to ask them some questions.
Along with the paid courses, you can also find a lot of smaller free courses. These are usually little versions of a bigger paid course so a good option if you are not sure which topic you want to learn.
Be warned that the prices can jump around a bit on Udemy. So it is sometimes worth waiting for a sale to get the best deals. However, because they offer you so many options, you will be able to find something you like.
Udemy website: https://www.udemy.com/
What are you going to learn?
Right now is a great opportunity to start learning. What new skills can you learn whilst on lockdown? If you’re not sure what you want to do, the free courses we have linked to above are the best way for you to find out.
Don’t forget to let your employer know what you’re learning if it is related to your work. The more skills and qualifications you have, the more you can offer them. Which means more rewards for you in the future.
Keeping Track of Employee Courses
If you are an employer you should encourage your employees to develop their skills and qualifications. Many employers now allow some time off work to dedicate to self improvement. Are you an employer like that?
If you are, then you should track the time they are doing this to refer back to later. This is easy to do in SkyHR by using a custom absence type of Training.
Once their time on the course is over, you can also add certificates and documents to their personnel record to track their achievements.
Just don’t forget to do some courses yourself too!
