Every employee has a unique way of acquiring and processing information. Some of them prefer listening to audiobooks, while others learn through hands-on workshops. Businesses need to recognize the fact that employees store and perceive information in their own distinctive manner. That’s how the human brain is wired, and you just need to have the right eLearning content for them to utilize their potential to the fullest. They need content that is engaging enough for them to retain the information for long periods.

Traditional organizational training modules typically consist of a combination of plain text and images. While some employees prefer reading the course, this may not be beneficial for others. The eLearning courses, however, integrate a range of materials, including videos, texts, and podcasts.

In other words, there is something for everyone when it comes to content development for eLearning. You just need to choose the right delivery method. Given the current pandemic situation, online content delivery seems to be the most appropriate choice.

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Why Should You Invest in Custom eLearning Courses?

Given the competitive business environment, it is imperative to stand out in the crowd to make yourself visible and heard. You can achieve this when your employees are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to make a mark in the market. And the best way to ensure this is by investing in custom eLearning courses for your enterprise. Let’s see why it is the best choice for you:

1. You Know Your Business Needs

As said above, search the Internet and you will be spoiled for choice for off-the-shelf courses related to your business. Several authors may have created training courses that align with your domain of work. However, it is essential to note that these eLearning courses will be generic in nature and may not cover the specific topics you want to address in your employee training. Additionally, they may not align with your organization’s goals and objectives, a fact that further supports the case for customized eLearning courses.

Custom courses are always more relevant to your work and employees’ needs and will hold you in good standing in the long run. On the other hand, readily available courses may enhance your employees’ skills to some extent, but they will also do so for your competitors. In that case, there is little chance for you to provide an upper hand to your employees, and consequently, you stand to lose in terms of gaining a competitive edge. Hence, custom eLearning courses are a reliable solution to stand out from the crowd and be relevant to the prevailing market conditions.

2. Eliminates the Concept of One-Size-Fits-All

Building on the above point, an external author may not be as aware of your organization’s training needs as you are. Your firsthand knowledge of organizational needs, skill gaps, target audience, and market requirements can be leveraged to build custom eLearning courses that directly align with your business goals, thereby eliminating any irrelevant information that could distract learners and shift focus from your learning objectives.

For example, you may want onboarding training for your HR department. As new employees join your organization, you need to provide them with the necessary onboarding training to align them with your organizational goals and culture and acquaint them with the necessary processes and functions to them adapt to their new job and responsibilities as smoothly and as quickly as possible.

For your organization, this means implementing the best onboarding training to achieve objectives and gain a competitive edge by retaining top talent. This can only be achieved through custom eLearning courses. Additionally, if the training requirements change at any time, you can easily update your training material accordingly.

3. Circumventing the Generic Tag

There will always be some requirements of your organization that will not be part of any generic training course, no matter how relevant that course is to your employees. This is because no external authors can gauge your exact business needs. Hence, custom eLearning is the only answer in such situations. Even if you take the example of compliance training, you may well feel that it applies equally to all organizations; however, some amount of customization to your business would still be required even though you belong to the same industry.

4. Better Knowledge Retention and Outcomes

It goes without saying that custom eLearning courses lead to better learning outcomes. First, to create these courses, you would need to conduct an in-depth analysis of your own business processes and day-to-day operations. By adding this process-related information to your eLearning courses, you will be able to improve knowledge retention by capturing useful knowledge and techniques used by your current employees for later use for your future hires. Thus, custom eLearning courses become a stepping stone to build your own organizational story and evolve to the next rung of the ladder in tune with the changing business environment, all at a minimal additional cost.

5. Generic and Custom – The Best of Both Worlds

For some organizations, striking a middle path can be the most effective approach. For example, if you have just started off and have a limited budget, you may start with a combination of both, that is, use pre-built generic courses to set the context, and invest in custom courses to plug the knowledge gaps and customize your training to meet your specific organizational goals; and equip your employees with the necessary knowledge and skill set to survive competition and build your unique brand.

How do Custom eLearning Courses Benefit Employees?

There is no denying that custom eLearning content development costs considerably more than its alternatives. However, it is important to note that the cost is justified by the benefits it provides. Here are some of the important reasons why you should choose custom eLearning courses for employees:

  • Fully Customized Content: Vendors collaborate with organizations to understand their needs, outline the desired objectives, and then create a course tailored to their specific requirements. This way, employees receive a course tailored to their needs, rather than 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 because they can now apply their learning to improve productivity, employee effectiveness increases significantly.
  • Easy to Enhance and Modify: As vendors are directly in touch with the organization, any upcoming requirements can be met promptly. Even before the eLearning content is launched, organizations can plan ahead and create content that aligns with 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 additional costs are involved. In the long run, however, the cost competes effectively with that of off-the-shelf courses.
  • Increased Employee Engagement: The content is tailored to boost employee productivity. 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.
  • Custom Budget: A custom eLearning course can be created to suit an organization’s budget. Such flexibility cannot be expected from off-the-shelf courses.

What are the Main Factors to Consider While Developing Custom elearning Content?

Here are the factors to consider while developing content for eLearning:

1. Gamify the Content for Shorter Attention Spans

Online content developers offer interactive games to incorporate the learning outcomes within them.

Gamification of content is arguably the most engaging form of eLearning content. Your employees can learn by experimentation, and that’s objectively fun and engrossing.

It utilizes the instructional design method, created specifically for those with shorter attention spans when it comes to traditional training manuals.

2. Create Microlearning Modules for Time-Starved Employees

Depending on their job roles, many of your employees may not have the flexibility to follow a fixed training schedule.

In contrast to a lengthy training program, you can opt for microlearning modules instead. Microlearning modules are short nuggets of knowledge delivered to your employees according to their individual timetables.

These micro modules comprehensively cover a single topic and can be accessed via mobile devices.

3. Incorporate Scenario-Based Learning to Imbibe Practical Skills

By utilizing content development for eLearning, enterprises can address a significant gap that exists in traditional organizational training modules. It’s the gap that exists between what employees learn and how they implement it on the job.

With scenario-based learning, your employees can learn practical skills in a simulated environment. With this type of eLearning content, you experience an immersive atmosphere that features sound effects, backgrounds, dialogues, and characters that closely mimic the actual environment.

4. Use Video-Based Modules for Complex Concepts

You can use video-based modules to transfer knowledge for even the most challenging concepts. Such modules are an amalgamation of live images, text, voiceovers, and graphics. That makes for compelling training content.

If the subject matter in question is quite complicated, break it down into several videos. Videos are no longer just entertainment mediums, but an effective format for content development in eLearning.

5. Include Infographics to Enhance Visual Appeal

If you want to make your training module a visual treat, infographics and images are an ideal solution for content development.

Your eLearning course can have a better appeal if you integrate infographics alongside plain text.

Employees have a greater chance of recalling information by studying meaningful mnemonics instead of just textual content.

6. Choose Multilingual Courses to Promote Diversity

One of the biggest advantages of content development for eLearning is versatility. Enterprises hire a multitude of employees from different backgrounds who speak different languages. Those who are not well-versed in the English language may find it difficult to acquire and recollect the information. Therefore, you need to create customized, multilingual courses that will also help promote diversity within the organization.

7. Focus on Personalized Learning

It has been established that eLearning content overpowers the one-size-fits-all solution that conventional training modules offer. Through eLearning, you can bring your vision of personalized learning to life.

Since every employee has self-perceived capabilities, they should have the flexibility to choose the type of course content that agrees with those capabilities – and enhance them.

8. Develop Separate Versions of the Same Module

Your employees have varying levels of expertise. Creating separate versions of the same training course according to their expertise level can help with personalization.

For new joiners, you should create detailed eLearning content. On the other hand, for advanced learners, you can skip the introductory topics and dive deep into the more complex ones.

9. Prioritize Good Design

In this digital age, a PowerPoint presentation doesn’t suffice for delivering highly interactive and valuable training content. Your options with PowerPoint presentations are truly limited when it comes to design. As you would have noticed, how captivating ecommerce sites and online games can be, a bunch of bullet points won’t be enough to train your employees.

On the contrary, eLearning content has a high degree of visual engagement, interaction, and readability. Therefore, you should spend a considerable amount of time on the design aspect. The second and better option is to partner with an eLearning content development company, such as Hurix Digital, that has expertise in the domain.

10. Reward Your Employees

When creating eLearning content for employee training, it is essential to consider this crucial component. The primary purpose of a customized online training module is to impart skills and education in a fun and engaging way. Hence, when your employees develop new skills, you should reward them.

Highlight their achievements during the annual performance reviews so that they feel more encouraged and are more attentive during the training sessions. Showing your appreciation for them will foster a culture of learning within the company, and it is something you want to maintain even in the future. For instance, you can create a leaderboard that showcases the number of courses completed by each employee and reward them upon training completion.

Final Thoughts

Content development for eLearning is all about combining the best delivery formats into a single program. You can conduct an internal survey within your company to understand which delivery formats employees prefer for training purposes. The results will help you make a better decision and create an engaging online training module.

Choosing an experienced partner like Hurix Digital will help you ease the burden on your L&D teams. Connect with us for a FREE consultation today!