In-House Training Content or Third Party Content – which works better for corporate learning
We live in a world that is continuously in flux and the workplace too is in the state of continuous evolution. New technologies are creating new opportunities in all the industries and the modern corporate world is fast realizing that perennial learning equips employees to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities at hand. Corporate training has changed the face tremendously in the last few decades. Technology aided learning is now the preferred route for most organizations to provide the opportunity of learning anytime and anywhere – as per the needs and convenience of the learner. To deliver and manage the process of learning, enterprise-wide Learning Management Systems are implemented to help learners access and consume learning in a continuous manner.
Though most organizations swear by the utility of an enterprise wide LMS, there are a lot of factors that come into play when assessing how well the LMS is successful across the intended group of learners. One of the major factors affecting LMS success is an obvious one – the Content. No matter how you jazz-up the look and feel of a LMS, if it fails to deliver relevant content to the learners quickly and effectively, it will eventually fail to meet up with the expectations out of the learning initiative.
Modern corporate learners are well aware of their needs and are open to the idea of continual workplace learning to increase their worth in the job market. Learning and development managers realize this and are now making a concerted effort to provide relevant and varied content on the LMS, in a bid to increase its impact and align it to the needs of the learners. We came across a very interesting study on the Trends of LMS content which explores how most organizations are choosing LMS content. The study titled In-House vs. Third-Party Content: Which Is Best for Your LMS? is developed by Software Advice and throws light on the route that most LMS managers take when providing learners the with pertinent LMS content.
Here are our key takeaways from the findings:
- The survey reveals that a majority of LMS managers (a whopping 73% of the respondents) use both in-house and third party content to cater to the increasing training needs of the learners. This provides a balance between job or company specific trainings and generic trainings that can be consumed by different learner profiles. This is a learner-centric approach as creating in-house trainings is time-consuming and it also digs into the budgets due to high initial costs of developing training from scratch. With supplementing the LMS catalogue with third-party content, a varied range of courses can be made available to the learners. Most modern learners prefer to have a lot of content to choose from and they can take control of their learning. So a blend of both in-house and third party content keeps the learning initiative alive and successful.
- With growing training needs, third party content will continue to flourish and companies will continue to prefer ready-to-implement content from reliable sources. With this in mind, e-learning developers should keep in mind the prevalent grouses that most Learning and Development managers have from third-party content. For one, there is very little niche content available readily from external resources. Generic courses are readily available but a lot of industry or job specific trainings are not available readily. Though some courses will always have to be made specifically as and when the need arises, third-party content developers could profit from expanding their range in terms of subject matter of the courses available. By roping in different industry experts, they can create courses which can benefit a range of organizations within the industry. Also, most organizations concur that third party content cannot be configured or branded as per the needs of the organization. By creating generic courses, but leaving room for customization, e-learning developers can provide the choice to organizations who seek to make the content their own. Even if this choice would come at a price increase, it will be less than creating custom e-content from scratch and most Learning and Development managers would choose to go this way.
- Finally, in terms of the type of content that is most prevalent and popular, there’s a clear winner – video-based content. Videos are an effective way of delivering information. It is easy on the eyes and is easy to retain as well. Creating videos does not have to be an expensive proposition. External resources like YouTube have a variety of free video based learning videos that have been created by experts. With internet availability across user devices including mobiles and tablets, videos can now be accessed for just-in time learning by a majority of learners. For organizations going the in-house way of video creation, there are also a variety of choices. Many organizations encourage learners to share images, video or audio and utilize them to create bite-sized learning. These learning videos are created by the collaborative efforts of the learners themselves, hence immensely relevant and effective. Alternatively, animation-based videos can also be created using readily available software, slashing the costs of developing videos with actual people/setting.
Content is the true hero of the LMS and will continue to be so. Even as LMS creators pay due attention to the look and features of the LMS, Learning and Development managers will have to make sure that the content available on the learning platform is updated, varied as well as relevant. With a mix of custom content and stock courses, the needs of the modern corporate learners can be met and a corporate LMS can be an enterprise wide success.
