In today’s fast-paced world, technology is evolving rapidly. Every professional needs to constantly keep reinventing themselves with the changing needs of their industry. eLearning courses allow employees to update their skills along with their routine work. It allows them to progress at their own pace without feeling pressurized.

Many companies have skill-building programs for their employees. Today, a lot of enterprises have dedicated portals to support eLearning. Others have subscriptions to popular eLearning sites. A popular trend is companies hiring skilled professionals to build their own custom eLearning courses and contnet.

Let us take a look at what makes custom eLearning courses stand out when compared to their off-the-shelf counterparts.

Custom eLearning Courses vs Off-the-shelf Courses

Both custom and off-the-shelf courses come with their own set of pros and cons –

• The first complaint against any custom solution is the exaggerated cost. Any custom-designed course needs to be written and produced as per client requirement. And as a result, it costs significantly more than an off-the-shelf course. However, since a custom course is tailor-made for the employee related needsof an organization, the money is well spent.
• Although off-the-shelf courses do not need time and resources to be developed, this also means that employees struggle to find the right course. Custom courses are designed keeping employee needs and the organization’s values in mind. Often, employees themselves contribute to the course structure. As a result, the custom eLearning courses offered are of far greater value to them.
• Off-the-shelf courses are easy to deploy. However, they are designed for the training needs of many different organizations. Thus, the unique learning requirements of a particular business may not be met by them. This is where custom eLearning content comes to play.
• Custom courses can be changed or enhanced as per the training needs, quickly and easily. On the other hand, it may not be possible to alter off-the-shelf courses at all. Here’s more on can customized learning solutions solve critical business problems
• An organization has complete ownership of any custom course it develops.

Why Choose Custom eLearning Courses for Employees?

There is no denying the fact that custom eLearning content development costs considerably higher than its alternatives. But it is important to note here that the cost is justified due to the benefits it brings to the table.

• Fully Customized Content– Vendors work with organizations to understand their needs, outline the desired objectives, and then create a course to fit their requirements. This way, what the employees get is a course tailor-made for them, instead of trying to make sense of something that is one-size-fits-all.
• Improved Effectiveness– One of the most significant benefits of custom eLearning content is that it can be structured around the day-to-day challenges employees face, and the skills they need to handle them. And due to the fact they can now use their learning to improve productivity, employee effectiveness goes up significantly.
• Easy to Enhance and Modify – As the vendors are directly in touch with the organization, any oncoming requirement can be met head-on. Even before the eLearning content is launched, organizations can plan ahead and make content that runs in parallel to their own future plans.
• Ownership and Reduced Maintenance Cost – Any customized content is owned by the organization. Moreover, as it is a one-time investment, outside of basic technical maintenance and enhancements, no other cost is involved. In the long run, however, the cost competes effectively with that of off-the-shelf courses.
• Increased Engagement from Employees – The content is tailor-made to increase the productivity of employees. Such custom content trains employees to handle day-to-day work problems more effectively. As a result, employees find the learning experience more useful and pay more attention. This leads to a more engaging learning experience. Here’s how interactive eLearning modules improve user engagement?
• Custom Budget – Custom eLearning course can be created to suit the budget of an organization. Such flexibility cannot be expected from off-the-shelf courses. Here are the benefits of investing in custom eLearning courses for your enterprise

Handling Customer Pain Points with Custom eLearning

eLearning initiatives by organizations have proven to be very effective in the past. Companies like Shell, Toyota, and PayPal, all swear by well-modelled custom eLearning content. There are many different ways in which custom eLearning can provide relief to customer pain points. Here are a few different ways custom eLearning is making employee lives easier –

• Virtual to Real Transformation – Oftentimes, employees pass quantitative tests at the end of an eLearning training with flying colors. However, when it comes to the qualitative assessment of the real-life application of those same skills, their performance is not up to the mark. So, does this mean the time and resource the organization has spent on training its employees are not giving them enough returns? Indeed.
  Hence, the only way to ensure such issues do not keep coming up in the future is to create courses customized to guide employees towards solving the real-life problems they encounter during the course of their day-to-day work.
• Elevated Soft Skills – A company does not only run with the help of the proceeds from the products it creates or the people working on building those products. Human interactions are the bedrock of any successful organization. Whether it is the relations between employees or those between the representatives of the organization and its clients, soft skills are a major factor.
  Oftentimes, employees might be very skilled at their work but lack the soft skills required to ensure their work reaches the right strata. Here, custom built eLearning content can ensure that employees are trained in a healthy mix of job-related skills and the soft skills needed to better perform the job.
• Product Knowledge – Even after having worked on a product for several years, organizations can find their employees lacking in terms of product knowledge. This is because most people work on a specific area of a product and lack a definite understanding of the other areas. An eLearning course, developed with a specific product in mind, can ensure that employees have no gaps in their product knowledge.
• Team Building – Sometimes, teams can have excellent individuals, yet not function optimally as a group. In such cases, customized eLearning can always be targeted towards a specific team. This ensures that the employees are well trained and understand each other’s values and work together to increase team productivity.

Custom eLearning courses and elearning content development may be time-consuming and expensive to produce, but in the long run, they definitely provide more mileage than any off-the-shelf course ever could.

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