Off-the-Shelf eLearning: Quick Project Roll-out

The demand forLearning & Development initiatives and eLearning programs is on an all timehigh in global organizations across diverse industries. With learning technology solutions driving the effectiveness and ease of access of eLearning content, the need to quickly roll out training courses is increasingly becomingbusiness critical.

However, L&D professionalsoften find themselves struggling to choose one of these two options:

• Buy ready-to-use, off-the-shelf (OTS) eLearning courseware
• Develop your own, customized eLearning content 

Although both optionshave benefits and advantages of their own, in this blog we’ll look at how youcan use off-the-shelf courses to achieve a quick and effective roll-out of youreLearning programs.

Historicallyspeaking, one of the many reasons why eLearningprojects end up in failure is because they never take off in the first place,let alone other factors like user adoption, reception, engaging learningtechnology solutions. But, let’s focus on the project initiation, because it’slike they say - a good start is halfway to success! So, considering youreLearning project never took off, you’re then left facing double the troublewhere your organization is not so generous with the new L&D budget,if there is one at all! And, often times, a project never kicks off is usually becausethe training courses are not yet ready.

It. Does. Happen.And, it’s not a very pleasant situation, for anyone.

Off-the-Shelf courses vs Customized eLearning courses Off-the-shelf courses are online repositories or libraries of eLearning courses that have been pre-created for you, and are available online for ready usage. Such extensive libraries of eLearning courses and videos are mostly generic and cover a vast spectrum of training content, and are designed in close consultation with domain specific Subject Matter Experts. Available in several formats, including text, HTML and videos, micro-learning snippets and more, off-the-shelf eLearning courses are mobile optimized and cover a multitude of topics, from hard skill, soft skills, technical knowledge to trending digital technologies.

On the other hand, creating your own customized eLearning programs and courses means spending a hefty sum and considerable amount of time on measuringlearning needs, assessing vendors or planning and developing courses on yourown. Be that as it may, it is important to note that customized eLearning coursesalways carry more value and deliver desired results to the organizations asthey are developed precisely to solve specific, often unique, training andbusiness challenges.

However, that shouldn’t stop you from using off-the-shelf courses, especially if it is your first eLearning project or you’re just looking to offer generic content and soft skills courses or just to kick off the project as planned. Off-the-shelf courses are significantly effective for newer eLearning projects and are readily available for you to use them whenever you want and at the point of need.

Using Off-the-Shelf eLearning courses & videos for aquick roll out

With a vast array of onlinecontent marketplaces out there, all L&D professionals need to do is some thoroughand in-depth research to find the most apt courses for the organization. Afterall, eLearning projects are all about deploying effective training ‘quickly’ witha strong focus ‘on what the learners have learnt and what they have gatheredfrom it’, rather than how the course has been designed. So, if an organization lacksthe resources to create customized courses, it makes perfect sense to focus on the training program and save both time and costs by adoptingoff-the-shelf courses.

Off-the-shelf courses are a great resource to quickly roll out training on broader topics, from Management & Leadership, Professional Efficiency, Finance & Management to Marketing & Innovation, Sales & Service and Information Technology among many others. If an organization has no specific hard skills training needs, then there is no need to build customized courses.

Organizations oftenturn to L&D in the face of critical business challenges, ones that requireurgent employee skilling. In such cases, organizations need a quick fix, with hardlyany time for developing custom content. As a result, an organization’s go-to-marketwill happen quickly and easily with the use of off-the-shelf courses than customizedcourses. However, that doesn’t mean organizations can’t nor shouldn’tamp up their existing training inventory with off-the-shelf courseware.Customized eLearning content complemented with relevant off-the-shelf coursewarecan provide a combined arsenal of learning resources for the workforce, andfurther ensure maximum impact of learning across the organization.

Wait, what if thereis no separate L&D department? Well, then off-the-shelf courses don’t reallyneed any resources to buy and deploy the courses as opposed to customizedcourses that need designing, development, testing and implementation.Furthermore, off-the-shelf courses can be easily deployed on your existing Learning Management System(LMS), and are dynamic and work across all devices andoperating systems making learning truly seamless.

Why consider Off-the-Shelf courses NOW?

Analysis of global economicindicators is increasingly referring to a looming global economic slowdown and the risk of aglobal recession. It may not be all doom and gloom like 2008, but looks like thesituation is definitely alarming. Especially in India, the government has acknowledged the beginning of a crisis. Car sales went down 36% in July, while automakers laid-off approx. 350,000workers since April. Meanwhile, the audaciousloan scams have terrorized the financial markets, and the situation wasworsened by the IL & FS fiasco.

In the face of such a crisis, organizations are sure to focus of cost cutting. And, like it or not, one of the first things to go out the door is L&D and training budgets. But minimal budget doesn’t necessarily mean compromising your training. L&D professionals can leverage off-the-shelf courses that are lighter on the pocket and don’t require extravagant budgets to buy. And, learning technology solutions or an LMS with built-in off-the-shelf courseware are nothing less than a blessing.

Off-the-shelf courses are truly the go-to resource for quickly and effectively rolling out your training program. Request UpsideLMS Demo to learn more about how off-the-shelf courses can enable a fast and easy roll out.

Next time on UpsideLMS Blog, we explore how global enterprises leverage off-the-shelf courseware tomaximize their learning impact in Off-the-ShelfeLearning: Learn from the Leaders.