Bespoke elearning or generic courses?
This is a question we get asked quite often and although the answer seems like a compromise, in truth, it really does depend on the need. Perhaps the most useful approach is to consider a number of questions and use your answers to guide your thinking.
Points to consider:
- Is it standard training that you want, such as generic health and safety?
- Do existing generic courses cover the majority of the course content you need?
- Do you have an existing in-house style that you want your courses to reflect?
- Are there key pieces of learning that are very specific to your business?
- Do you currently have in house training material or presentations that cover your needs? For example, your current induction and onboarding presentation material could be turned into an online course.
Does the generic course material meet your needs?
If it does, then this may be a quick and effective way to introduce elearning into your organisation, however don’t just acquire a generic course for your learners just because it appears to be ‘low cost’, as this can be a false economy. If you have learning material that is not focused on their needs, then a lot of this learning and their time can be wasted. This can be much worse in some cases where unnecessary and inappropriate course content is a turn off for the learner.
Think carefully about your learners and their needs, the knowledge they require and how best to deliver this. If a generic course is close enough then it would make sense to use this. If it only partially addresses their need or doesn’t fit the culture and style of your organisation, then it may be appropriate to develop a bespoke course. A bespoke elearning course contains exactly what you want and you can develop this further in the future to reflect changes in your organisation’s processes and procedures.
Of course one answer is to use both. Perhaps even better is to work with an elearning partner that can provide bespoke elearning content as well as generic course content and who is willing to extend their existing generic courses to meet your needs, brand or styling.
Please get in touch to discuss which option is the best for your business.
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