The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us how an alternative way of working, learning and living can be conducive not only during the pandemic but even once normalcy returns. Learning and development teams across the globe have worked up their creative hats to come up with the most engaging and productive learning solutions for organizations and EdTech firms. Crusading through unknown boundaries, many organizations might want to look into the e-learning outsourcing market and leverage their expertise to help achieve organizational goals through immersive and engaging training programs.
Know more about Instructional Designer?
Instructional designers (IDs) are the experts behind the interactive online course materials or highly engaging training programs you might have enrolled for or undergone as a learner.
Imagine that you are looking for training guidance for employees or upgrading the existing training documents and presentations into more engaging and result-oriented learning solutions. Then outsourcing the work to a Learning solutions firm might be just what you need. They are a team of Instructional Designers, Graphic Designers, Developers and Project Managers who can manage the whole gamut of whipping up a super learning solution instead of the in-house SME at your firm.
When do organizations need to outsource?
While the SME is the right expertise to curate and create content on the subject for the learning material, getting a bigger picture of the problem the employees are facing might not be what they want to get into. Here, outsourcing has several benefits to the firm. When you are on a time crunch and need to get started immediately, and your L&D resources are already fully engaged, or they lack the latest technical skills.
Benefits of outsourcing your E-Learning development projects
#1 Reduce costs.
While outsourcing might sound like an extra weight on the budget, it is actually the opposite. The in-house team may not be specialized in developing and chunking information. Having the expertise of an outsourcing learning solutions partner who specializes in creating, curating, developing and maintaining eLearning courses will save time and money for the organization, which can be adequately optimized within the organization itself. Hiring a team of IDs, Graphic designers and Software developers will provide a clear and concise solution in form of learning courses or training programs with the latest trends in the e-learning industry, which also need to be upgraded or maintained for the long term to bring consistency in your Learning and Development intervention.
#2 Faster Turnaround Time
When a team is dedicatedly working on the learning objectives aligning them with the organizational goals for developing training/learning solutions, the tasks are well streamlined, accelerating the project for a quicker turnaround. As the team would exclusively study everything about the employee challenges and skill gaps concerning the work environment, the progress in developing the course/program content is much quicker than an in-house team as they would have additional responsibilities on their shoulders.
#3 Boost learner engagements
What most organizations find challenging in terms of ROI is learner engagement. After all the hard work the HR team does, it can be disappointing to see negative results. While outsourcing the training program to a learning solutions team, which design courses with the principles of visual engagement, interactive breaks, knowledge checks and scenario creation boosting, the outcome will be a thorough learning experience generating curiosity and new learning moments.
#4 SMEs get to work on their expertise
When it comes to developing training programs or e-learning courses, most of the time the subject matter experts (SMEs) need to go beyond working hours to toggle between the SME and ID hats. Whilst their insights and expertise are at the center of any training program or e-learning course, outsourcing the training development task places the SMEs in a better position to mediate the content curation, thereby utilizing their qualified expertise where it is required the most. Instructional Designers also bring in their intellectual faculties in the areas of Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP), Pedagogy and visualization skills which are an added advantage of setting the learning objectives right.
#5 Vendors have specific industry exposure
Most organizations become skeptical about trusting vendors with their organization's sensitive information when it comes to outsourcing. For a start, connecting with them to check the vendor’s interest in understanding your problem that needs to be addressed, communication skills, efficiency in time and resources to solve your problem uncovers their familiarity and experience within your industry. For example, a quick-service restaurant (QSR), BFSI, Pharmaceutical/Healthcare industries will have different training needs but the approach to designing a solution comes from how quickly they understand the day-to-day nuances of the working environment and employee mindsets in a certain industry.
A vendor with a good amount of exposure across multiple industries and countries, will follow a defined process, provide a proof of concept as well as samples of prior projects that exceeded client expectations. Their Instructional Designers will be experienced in creating learning solutions for a wide range of learners adhering to their industry-specific needs and their learning environment. Their demonstrated abilities in modern learning techniques, models and trends with ILTs/vILTs (Instructor-Led Training and Virtual Instructor-Led Training), Mobile Learning and eLearning as a focal point.
Also, if you prefer to outsource only a component of the complete training project, you are welcome to just outsource the component in which your in-house team lacks experience or doesn’t have the bandwidth to support. This can include, not be confined to, eLearning translation and localization of content, converting Flash to HTML 5, upgrading your existing learning platform, etc. Finding the right vendor through the above capability checks will help in entrusting your training needs in the hands of a team that can manage, develop, and deliver learning experiences on time, works around your budget, without compromising on quality and lasting relationships.