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The Perfect Blend: Harnessing bespoke and off-the-shelf eLearning for cost-effective staff training

Updated: 22/02/2024
First Published: 17/08/2023
TeachingTraining- Elizabeth Asbury

Staff training is essential for the growth and success of any organisation. In today's digital era, blending bespoke and off-the-shelf eLearning solutions can offer a cost-effective approach to staff training. This blog explores how the combination of tailored and pre-existing eLearning content can provide organisations with an efficient and budget-friendly solution to enhance their employees' skills and knowledge.

Tailored eLearning to meet specific organisational need

Bespoke eLearning content allows organisations to create customised training modules that address their specific needs and challenges. By tailoring the content to match the unique requirements of the workforce, organisations can deliver highly relevant and targeted training programs. This approach ensures that employees receive training that directly aligns with their job roles and responsibilities, maximising the impact of the learning experience to meet organisational need.

Smiling Man using eLearning system.

Cost savings through off-the-shelf content (Why re-invent the wheel?)

Off-the-shelf eLearning content offers ready-made training materials that cover a wide range of topics and industries. By leveraging pre-existing course libraries or curated content, organisations can significantly reduce the development costs and time associated with creating training materials from scratch – I think we can all agree that the world has enough Manual Handling courses. Off-the-shelf content often comes with customisable options, allowing organisations to tailor the content to their specific needs while still benefiting from the cost savings. This approach provides a cost-effective solution without compromising the quality of the training materials.

Flexibility and scalability

The combination of bespoke and off-the-shelf eLearning allows organisations to enjoy the benefits of both flexibility and scalability. Bespoke content can be created to address unique training needs or company-specific processes, while off-the-shelf content can be used for broader foundational or compliance training. This mix enables organisations to scale their training programs efficiently, accommodating both individualised and standardised training requirements. The flexibility in content selection and delivery methods, such as online platforms or learning management systems, further enhances the organisation's ability to meet the diverse learning needs of their staff.

Continuous improvements and updates

A blend of bespoke and off-the-shelf eLearning ensures ongoing improvement and access to up-to-date training materials. While bespoke content can be regularly updated to reflect changing business practices, off-the-shelf content providers often provide updates and enhancements to their libraries. This combination allows organisations to stay current with industry trends and evolving best practices without incurring excessive costs. By adopting a continuous improvement mindset, organisations can ensure that their staff training programs remain effective, relevant, and aligned with the changing needs of the business.

The strategic blending of bespoke and off-the-shelf eLearning offers a cost-effective solution for staff training. By using tailored content for specific needs and off-the-shelf resources for standard topics (the aforementioned manual handling for example), organisations can achieve a balance between customisation and affordability. Staff training is one of the most important investments a company will ever make, and by spreading your training budget wisely, it doesn’t have to break the bank.

About the Author:

Elizabeth Asbury (PhD, MSc, BSc Hons)

Elizabeth has been working in online learning for so long that the vacant stares and looks of pity from ‘traditional’ educators have become a distant memory. Thanks to the early adopters and revolutionary thinkers who understood that online learning was about equity and accessibility, no longer is mentioning eLearning akin to screaming into the void. Her Ph.D in Psychology, post-doc research, and years of working in tertiary and vocational education certainly helped prepare Elizabeth for the fight to bring the amazing opportunities online learning can offer to the widest possible audience.

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