Why You Need a Custom eLearning Vendor

As technical skills in the corporate world grow more common and more complex, employee development teams are challenged to develop more impactful training design. The digital training experience, from eLearning activities to content hosting platforms, is embedded with innovative new technologies. However, this places more demand upon employee development teams to equip themselves with the technical skills to keep up with training technology. That’s why organizations tend to outsource critical training initiatives to a custom eLearning vendor.

Why Outsource Training to a Custom eLearning Vendor

The learning function is becoming progressively more complicated. Research by Brandon Hall found that most organizations plan to add several positions to their learning and development teams including data analyst, game designer, and social media expert. Performance consultants are also becoming more common. This hints at the underlying challenge of matching organizational capabilities with emerging skills and training technology. But for the organizations that don’t have large hiring budgets, it may not be feasible to hire for each new skillset. Custom eLearning vendors, on the other hand, tend to have large, multidisciplinary teams. This enables their teams to handle large, complex projects on shorter timelines.

The learning function is becoming progressively more complicated.

Learning and Development Skillsets

UX/UI Design: This encompasses how the elements of an eLearning course is structured and delivered. For example, the flow of navigating from one activity to another and the organization of menu items all falls under UX/UI design. The best designers will have expertise in both software development and behavioral science.

Graphic Designer: The artistic elements that make up even minor features with a custom eLearning course support the user experience. Creative graphic design helps to establish focal points that guide learners through their activities. Moreover, motion graphics have become a common training modality.

Game Design: As gamification becomes a standard training modality, game designers with the instructional design backgrounds necessary to create impactful learning experiences are vital.

Social Media Expert: Training has taken numerous best practices from fields like marketing. Using social media experts to promote social learning and social sharing of training content can drive training consumption.

Data Scientist: Modern training platforms can capture complex performance data. But effectively analyzing and reporting on employee performance often requires a data scientist.

Even the most technically proficient team may not produce training that reshapes the behaviors of your learners.

As you engage with a custom eLearning vendor to discuss outsourcing training development, remember to ask about their skills and credentials. As designing training becomes a more technical, multidisciplinary role, it will become more important that your vendor is highly skilled. At the very least you will want your team based around expert instructional designers. Without a background in educational theories, even the most technically proficient team may not produce training that reshapes the behaviors of your learners.

Multidisciplinary Training Development Expertise

Of course, not all projects warrant outsourcing training to a custom eLearning vendor. There are authoring tools and off-the-shelf learning management systems that can accomplish much of the training development work your organization needs. Instead, think of vendors as a source of expertise to rely on when you have critical training initiatives. They can support your employee development when there is a skills gap or low bandwidth.