Businesses that adapt to changing times and market dynamics have a great chance of thriving in the modern world. The rapid advancement of technology has significantly changed the way that business is done. Legacy methods of doing business may have been lucrative decades ago but only sticking to them now isn’t going to be enough.
That’s why it’s so important to continue to train the workforce on the latest and best methods. Providing your employees with the ability to improve their skills will have a significant impact on the quality of work that they’re able to do for your business.
To that end, many businesses are now turning toward custom eLearning solutions. They can utilize these solutions to offer employees an opportunity to learn new skills and improve their capabilities.
What is custom eLearning?
Businesses can only move with the times if the employees are able to learn new skills that allow them to understand exactly what they need to do custom elearning in order to thrive in a dynamic environment.
To ensure that they have every opportunity to better themselves, many businesses now provide their employees with a custom eLearning development platform.
Custom eLearning Solutions
Custom eLearning solutions can simply be described as a platform that provides access to custom courses that a business has developed for its employees.
These can be courses on how to better leverage social media to improve customer service, for example, or how to get the most out of a custom software solution that has been developed to increase workflow efficiency.
Trying to teach all of the employees at the same time in a classroom environment is now a highly inefficient way of improving their skills. It would involve taking them off the duties they’re assigned just so they can participate in training.
While in-person training can be effective in some situations, custom eLearning is now widely accepted as a more efficient way of helping employees improve their skills.
With custom eLearning, employees also have more flexibility as they’re not forced to sit out mandatory training. They can take the courses at their own pace, whether they do it at their desk or during their commute on the train.
This makes the process enjoyable for them as well, instead of feeling like a mandatory requirement that they just have to sit through.
What is eLearning development?
eLearning development relates to the custom solutions that businesses get made to provide courses and other relevant learning materials to their employees. A custom eLearning platform provides them with a lot of flexibility.
They can add functionality that can help them increase business performance, increase motivation for learners, and thus provide an increased return on investment.
Many software development companies now offer eLearning development services since this has become so popular. They can work with the clients to create platforms that help them achieve their desired training goals in order to achieve a measurable impact on the business.
Features can be integrated that help provides innovative learning solutions and change the static learning behavior.
Many businesses have their own requirements for the eLearning solution that they get development. Some might need it to be mobile-only so that their employees can access the content on the go.
Others might require more complex implementations that include elements of cloud computing and multi-device deployment as well.
An effective Learning Management System would enable employees to keep track of their progress. The entire process can be made more fun with elements of gamification that rewards them with badges and points for completing courses, for example.
How can eLearning help your business?
eLearning can have a significant impact on improving business outcomes. That’s because they provide employees with an opportunity to improve their skills. The new skills that they learn, they can then utilize in their jobs, and thus help drive a greater return on investment for the company.
There's a reason why many companies prefer custom eLearning over generic, off-the-shelf courses. There's no shortage of generic courses that aim to teach efficient management methods, social media skills, etc.
These might be readily accessible, however, the generic information that they provide might not be of specific use to a business.
Relying on these off-the-shelf solutions only might not provide the improvement in skills that are desired. That's why it's best to rely on custom eLearning to address specific learner needs. The custom courses will be developed from the ground up with the requirements and needs of that business in mind.
Building eLearning training courses for your small business
Building an eLearning training course is easier said than done. There needs to be clarity of thought behind the job. The core reason for doing it shouldn't be that just because every other business is doing eLearning, we need to do it too.
If the process is started out with only this thought, it would most likely lead to a waste of both time and resources.
The first step in creating an effective eLearning course is to conduct a needs analysis. Understand why you need to create an eLearning course and what sort of a result you expect to get out of it.
This clarity of thought is what's going to become your plan for the course design. It will also provide you with a clear target of all the things that the course needs to cover. This ensures that the learners will get the true benefits of the course.
Having an understanding of the target audience is also a crucial step. If the business is a global entity with employees in different countries, an eLearning course that's entirely in Spanish might be useful for employees in Spain, but it might not serve a purpose for employees in another country that don't speak the language.
The business needs to be mindful about not adopting a one-size-fits-all approach. Different segments of the business have different needs. Employees in every segment have their own set of technical abilities. As such, the course content needs to be mindful of these complexities.
It's very important to define the learning objectives. These are the expected outcome of every lesson and unit.
The learning objective is what you want the learners to pick up once they finish a lesson or unit. Course designers might have a clear idea of the learning objectives.
Exactly how the eLearning content is delivered is another element that needs to be handled with care. Whether it will be delivered through a mobile app only or if it will be possible for employees to access the content through their workstations. Ideally, employees will have the flexibility to use whichever device or platform they want to access the content.
Don’t forget that the eLearning training courses need to have a tangible way of measuring and evaluating results. This will help the business figure out how the employees are performing.
It will also be a great way to gather insight and understand whether changes need to be made to the content in order to better get the point across.
Get the right developer to develop eLearning content
Not everyone will be able to develop the kind of eLearning content that can truly deliver the kind of benefits that most businesses are looking for.
Since this task can often be very resource-intensive, it’s always best to work with developers that have a deep understanding of the process. This will ensure that you get the best return on your investment.
The right developer will work with you to first get an idea of your vision for the eLearning content. They will also be able to provide guidance on which platforms and functionalities need to be integrated so that the employees can truly benefit from the platform.
Zibtek has proven to be a trusted partner for businesses of all sizes that are looking to develop eLearning content.
We’re one of the world’s leading software development firms with offices in Salt Lake City, Utah. Zibtek has worked with both Fortune 500 companies and startups alike. We also manage a global talent pool of highly skilled developers from our offices in the United States. If you’re interested in having an eLearning platform developed, reach out to Zibtek today and we’ll be happy to help.
