When it comes to providing training, whether we talk about employee training or training the extended enterprise (customers, partners, vendors), small businesses face a lot of challenges.
One of the most common challenges faced by small businesses in terms of training, which also acts as a deterrent for many businesses that want to adopt the learning culture, is the cost involved.
Despite the rise of elearning and the introduction of tools that have eliminated most of the infrastructure costs associated with providing training, the undertaking remains a big expense, especially for bootstrapped startups and small businesses.
In such a scenario, many businesses are forced to start their training initiatives with off-the-shelf training solutions.
While there is nothing wrong with cutting costs, such solutions are only good for delivering generic training like training on HR compliance topics.
In order to drive real impact with training, something that also reflects in your company’s bottom line, you will require custom elearning solutions. Sure, such solutions, like anything customised to your exact needs, will demand a comparatively larger (as compared to off-the-shelf solutions) investment.
However, the potential impact you can drive with custom elearning solutions is simply too great to be ignored.
Let’s look at a few custom elearning solutions and understand why they are worth the extra cash and effort.
Custom Elearning Content
You can find off-the-shelf training content on just about any topic if you search hard enough.
This content is produced by industry experts, usually in collaboration with expert instructional designers. So why should you invest in developing your own content?
A one-word answer to that question would be- relevance.
One of the most common challenges associated with elearning is engaging learners. Achieving a high engagement rate with off-the-shelf content is difficult because it is generic.
On the other hand, custom training content will include real life examples of situations that your learners are likely to face during their day-to-day work life.
Similarly, custom training content can be developed to fill specific skill gaps. This way, you get the freedom of training your employees on skills that are most likely to add to your businesses’ bottom line.
Not to forget, these skills will also probably help your learners take care of their professional responsibilities with efficiency. If you manage to communicate the same to them effectively, you can expect them to be more enthusiastic about receiving the training.
Another advantage of custom training content is that it cuts to the chase. Since it is developed keeping your organisation’s needs in mind, custom training content is usually extremely focused and crisp. This doesn’t just streamline the relevant information for the learners, it also cuts short the time taken to complete the training.
Learning Management Systems With Custom Reporting
A learning management system is perhaps the most crucial training tool for any company that engages in any sort of training.
While most companies are utilising a LMS for storing and sharing their training content, most of them overlook their tracking capabilities.
The truth is, the availability of training data is perhaps the biggest revolution in the training industry. Using this data, learning administrators can guide decisions that lead to the building of a better, more engaging, and more impactful training experience.
With custom reporting capabilities, you can pinpoint exactly where your training experience can be improved. On the other hand, reporting can also enable you to identify students that may require personal attention to excel.
Conclusion
Custom solutions may be expensive and complex, but over time, they have the potential to drive a positive and measurable ROI on your training budget.
