Do you employ an internal L&D team and still outsource eLearning development?

If the answer is YES, you have fallen into the same trap as many seemingly smart and forward thinking businesses have done.

1. You know that eLearning (when done right) is a critical part of blended learning
2. You know it costs more (in simple terms) to outsource it to a specialist eLearning agency
3. You know that you have some great people in-house that were recruited in part to develop eLearning
4. BUT you continue to outsource the big ‘sexy eLearning projects’ to agencies for vast sums of money, leaving your internal team to handle the more mundane courses often with a fraction of the budget in terms of time and resources

This outsourcing model made perfect sense when eLearning was new and these were extremely specialist skills, but times have changed and much quicker than we all expected. It’s time for the internal L&D teams to step up and start working like the agencies they pretend they aren’t competing with.

What’s wrong with just outsourcing the big stuff?

• Although in many cases you will often get a better course in half the time this is not investing in your people. They need experience in developing digital learning 70:20:10 tells us how much more we learn from experience, so why do we ignore it for our L&D teams?
• Too much outsourcing can lead to a disjointed feeling across your blended learning. A bit like a cut and shut car, with the front end of a Ford and the back of a Renault, it will always feel like it’s been welded together. If you are going to outsource (which will always make sense in certain cases), make sure you maintain control of the strategy/concept to ensure it fits well within the other training wrapped around it
• With many of the rapid authoring tools now becoming not much harder to grasp than PowerPoint you may want to start to cascade responsibility for developing courses even beyond the L&D team. If you are going to achieve this you need to have a solid tried and tested model that works before you start to roll this out to subject matter experts to DIY. You will only get these procedures nailed by learning in a live environment!

When does outsourcing work?

• If resources are short in house and there is either extreme time pressures or a significant volume of work. Once again, it’s important to remain in control of the content, even if you aren’t building it
• When you require something different. Certain projects justify or demand something a little different either in terms of the approach or perhaps the style. This is always best handled by an external fresh pair of eyes
• New technologies. Perhaps you are looking at piloting a new learning technology. If so, it’s smart to learn from others’ experience and then evaluate if you want to bring those skills in-house once you’ve judged the success of the technology/project

Our Top 5 Enablers for your L&D team

1. Plan– If you don’t have a Digital Learning Strategy – Write one. Within this you should detail what skills you intend to have in-house and by when. Obviously a phased approach makes most sense to achieve the best result with minimal risk
2. Recruit – Based on your Digital Learning Strategy, identify key skills, gaps and where appropriate recruit experienced specialists to fill those gaps
3. Train – Once you have identified the right people in your internal team, invest in them. As we all know this shouldn’t necessarily mean a course, but perhaps learning through experience. Ask your eLearning provider if they can shadow them on the next project
4. Organise– One of the keys to developing eLearning quickly and to a high quality is organisation. Learn from the experts about how best to plan organise and run your eLearning projects
5. Partner – Find a friendly eLearning agency that believes in enabling your people to achieve more in digital learning in-house. Partner with this agency and start working alongside in a way that there is a genuine skills exchange which will rapidly build your team’s skills & experience to the same level

Start today

If you feel now is the right time to start seriously investing and focusing on bringing the core eLearning development work in-house then START TODAY. Begin by following the 5 simple steps. We’ve worked with many customer who are on this journey and truly believe this approach is the right approach for both businesses and the industry as a whole. Let’s share more, work closer and grow together.