It’s 2023, and most of your workforce now works remotely, though some employees work hybrid schedules. Before 2020, your training was 100 percent in-person. After COVID-19 restrictions hit everyone that year, you temporarily halted training. At that time, you were sure the lockdowns weren’t going to last long, and you could then continue in-person training. However, reality later sunk in, and you realized your workforce is in several different locations and you had to find a new way to train them. So, you took the PowerPoint presentation you used for in-person training and sent it to them for training purposes. No problem! Easy! But your employees practically revolted, said it was incredibly boring, a waste of time, and they didn’t know any more than before the training. Worse still, they had to put in overtime to catch up on all the work they missed. After that fiasco, you nixed training until you could revamp it. You thought to yourself, “There’s got to be a better way.” You’re right – there is.
Welcome to the world of modern training, full of eLearning and virtual instructor-led training. You may have little to no experience with it, but instructional designers (IDs) do. They know how to produce efficient, creative, and effective training that takes much less time than old-fashioned training and teaches learners in a way that helps them retain the information they need to excel at their jobs. Let’s learn more.
Save Money
Hiring an outside ID can save you money. Businesses specializing in ID have more resources than most organizations do, both in designers and tools. Why buy new tools and go through the hiring process when you can hire an experienced ID who already has the tools and knows how to use them to create the eLearns you need? If you don’t have IDs on your staff, it’s not realistic to expect your graphic designer to create trainings.
Knowledge
As mentioned earlier, designers, writers, and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) don’t tend to have the eLearning development skills an ID has. For example, a graphic designer makes everything look good and understands how people absorb information. However, that’s not the same as creating training modules that need to teach the learner skills to apply on the job. Instead, your in-house team should share their expertise with the ID to create training where all knowledge is used.
More Than One Person
eLearns are not created by just one person. In addition to the ID, these projects also need project managers, visual designers, and often technical writers to collaborate. Again, we want the expertise of a variety of people to create the best possible training.
Tools
When you contract an experienced ID, they already have the software needed to develop your trainings. It’s not just about creating a PowerPoint presentation but using a variety of tools that convert storyboards into fully functional eLearns. You won’t have to learn the tools, and you won’t need to invest money in purchasing or licensing expensive products.
Flexibility
Experienced IDs create eLearns for organizations across a variety of industries. They’ve probably already created training for a company in your sector and are familiar with it. When combining this experience with their understanding of learning and tools, the ID develops high-quality training faster than anything you could have done in-house.
While IDs have experience creating trainings for a variety of businesses, they also know how to develop them specifically for each individual organization’s needs. Certain standards are the same for all companies in an industry, but they know how to include information specific to YOUR business.
Modern Training/Innovation
Chances are, you don’t know the latest trends in training. You’re busy with your own job. Keeping up with the trends in your own areas keeps you busy. IDs also pay attention to trends in their specialization and know how to use them to develop training that is as up-to-date as possible.
Designers can create trainings that are different from those offered by other businesses (even in the same industry) by considering how your business differs from others and using your own requirements.
Experts in the L&D industry are constantly improving on older training methods or creating new ones that improve training. Your company does the same in your industry, but you don’t have the same experience in L&D. When you work with an outsourced ID team, you have access to the latest tools and theories in training development.
Scale
Are you working on scaling your business, perhaps going international? Are your training programs ready for that? Professional IDs understand how to scale training as businesses change. It’s so much easier to outsource these projects to outside teams who already have this experience, plus it’s much less expensive than trying to figure it out as you go on a trial-and-error basis.
Easier Project Management
Hiring an outside team to create your trainings means your leadership team will not have to spend time and energy managing the process. Instead, it will be more like any other business partnership you have with vendors. Your senior management can focus on the company instead of micro-managing training development. MATC Group supplies its own project managers as part of the deal, so our clients don’t need to worry about managing the project.
Reduced Risk
Technology can be tricky; we love it until it goes wrong. App updates sometimes do strange things to content, coding mistakes are very easy to make and miss, and sometimes things just crash. When you outsource ID, you are not taking on these risks – the external company is. Your contracted ID is experienced in eLearning and will have policies that guarantee you won’t have to shoulder any risks.
Some of you are saying, “But I have my own leadership and development (L&D) team. Why should I contract more IDs?” Businesses everywhere are quickly converting in-person training to eLearning to adjust to the remote and hybrid working models. Have you hired additional L&D professionals, or is your small team from pre-2020 expected to create a much larger number of trainings? That can seriously affect their ability to maintain quality standards. Instead of dealing with the hiring process hassle, contract extra full-time or part-time help through an experienced vendor.
Final Thoughts
At first, outsourcing ID may seem like a frivolous expense, especially if you have a designer or ID in-house. However, after you understand the cost of creating in-house training that is ineffective and stressful for the creators and trainees, you’ll see that contracting an outside vendor is easier on both your employees and your wallet. Not only will you have modern and individualized training developed specifically for your organization’s needs and goals, but your workers can learn skills through engaging training on their schedules, allowing them to apply more quickly what they’ve learned.
Still not sure? Check out our learning and development services and contact MATC Group today to learn how we help clients create eLearns and other trainings that best fit their needs, on time and on budget!
Related Blogs
Is Your eLearning Accessible to Everyone?
Seven Myths About eLearning Debunked
It’s Time to Upgrade Your Corporate Training: eLearning is Flexible, Cost-Effective, and Convenient
Resources
Prasad, Dr. RK. “Should You Outsource or Develop In-House?” eLearning Industry. 3/16/20. 9/13/23. https://elearningindustry.com/outsource-or-in-house-elearning-development
“Ten Reasons Why You Should Outsource Your Instructional Design Requirements.” Reality Biz News. 12/7/22. Accessed 9/13/23. https://realtybiznews.com/ten-reasons-why-you-should-outsource-your-instructional-design-requirements/98775328/
