Why You Don’t Need To Create Your Own Training Courses

Employee training is the key to increasing productivity and efficiency. But deploying a training course is a demanding, time-consuming process. You have to conduct a Training Needs Analysis, choose training software, create the content… No, wait – do you have to create all the training content yourself? Or is there another way?

Well, occasionally, you’ll have to roll up your sleeves and create your own training content. But there are also many off-the-shelf solutions in the market. Luckily for you, they happen to work really well for many types of training.

Let’s find out when it’s best to create your own training courses, and when you’re good to buy training content. And a little spoiler: an LMS will untie your hands in both scenarios.

Creating eLearning content for your employees requires a lot of resources. Time, money, and people. Still, sometimes custom eLearning development is the most beneficial move for your business.

Certain types of training convey information that is specific to a company, industry, or job. Take onboarding, for example. When a new employee joins your team, you want to introduce them to your company culture and history. On a more practical level, you also need to explain job-specific tasks or internal procedures. That often includes compliance subjects, like anti-harassment or anti-bribery policies.

You couldn’t possibly buy training content that explains your company’s day-to-day operations or guidelines. Because there isn’t such content.

In another scenario, you’re launching a new product. Details like the product specifications or your value proposition are specific to this product. Therefore, the training material for product knowledge training has to be unique, by definition. (Otherwise, you’ve done something seriously wrong!)

In all fairness, off-the-shelf training content is standardized and focuses on knowledge delivery. Don’t get this wrong; standardized content equals streamlined knowledge. Which is actually a prerequisite for most training courses.

But sometimes, you want to impart something more than knowledge: company vision. You want to help employees internalize your company message and resonate with your brand. To achieve this connection, the training material must correspond to the realities of your business.

Resonating with your brand is all the more important for sales or customer service employees. The way they approach or treat customers should align with your brand messaging.

Apart from that, imagine having employees who don’t believe in your company vision. You can’t expect them to be passionate about selling your products or handle complaints and queries with patience.

Creating a training course as you see fit is not always a good idea. Let’s see when it’s wisest to take a step back and buy eLearning content instead.

Buying content for corporate training works great for skills that aren’t company or job-specific.

Most soft skills fall under this category. Leadership, time management, or critical thinking, to name a few, are universal traits. The way they manifest and enhance is the same for employees worldwide. Therefore, you don’t need to take a personalized approach and create a course from scratch. If anything, there are already many off-the-shelf courses that cover soft skills training.

Ready-made eLearning content is also the best (if not the only) choice for technical skills training. The training material for technical skills is very specific because it includes specialized knowledge. The training content must be perfectly streamlined and must meet certain standards, often on an international level. Even if it is something as simple as PowerPoint presentations or as complicated as data analysis software. Do you think you’re up for the task?

Overall, when it comes to soft and hard skills training, off-the-shelf courses have three significant advantages.

First, they are developed by Subject Matter Experts and L&D professionals. This means that the content is not only accurate but also presented in the most efficient way. Deploying your own content could compromise the quality and effectiveness of skills training.

Second, ready-made training courses help you cut significantly on cost, as you don’t have to hire your own eLearning development team. Not to mention the hassle of finding trustworthy Subject Matter Experts.

Finally, the content vendor updates the course whenever something new comes up. You don’t need to worry about changes in regulations or software updates anymore.

So, there you have it. High quality and always up-to-date content for your learners, and lower cost for you. There’s not much to think about here, really.

Sometimes, the need for training is urgent. A government regulation now applies to your industry, or your company just bought new software.

Even if you have a competent L&D team in place, you can’t expect them to build your training course overnight. They still need to consult Subject Matter Experts, gather the training material, set up the course, etc. The clock is ticking. And when the clock is ticking, mistakes are made.

An off-the-shelf course is out there, waiting for you to buy it. Once you make a purchase, you can start the training. It’s as simple as that.

What’s more, purchased training content doesn’t have to be static. You can always add extra material as you go, in order to match your requirements. Just like you can customize it to add your personal touch.

You don’t have to choose between custom and off-the-shelf training material. You only have to choose an LMS that offers both options and allows you to use them interchangeably.

So, opt for a flexible LMS that offers an eLearning content marketplace where you can buy training content. You can then customize the purchased course as you like.

At the same time, you can use the LMS to create your own eLearning content. You can either use the content to build a new training course or add it to a purchased one.

As a final note, make sure your LMS supports different types of training content that you can mix and match. You’ll need simulations, quizzes, games, and videos, for instance, to appeal to different learning preferences. You can create them all using your LMS. Not bad, right?

Developing a training course for your employees is inevitably hard work. Make it a little easier by choosing an LMS that gives you the option to create, edit, and buy eLearning courses as your needs evolve. With such flexible options, the perfect online training course is literally in your hands!

Source: Elearningindustry.com

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