What are customized learning solutions? Guide Benefits Examples

The industry is facing a growing need for training programs because the newer generation has stepped into the job market, and previous generic training programs cannot suffice for the learning needs of the modern workforce. 

To tackle this exact issue, the industry experts are switching to customised learning solutions. This format supports the organisations in long-term training with minimal cost while considering the complete needs of learners with relevant and self-paced content. 

The global eLearning market is expected to reach $462.6 billion by the year 2027, and still only 30% of the employees are satisfied with their training because the majority of the training is from generic, off-the-shelf courses. 

The need for personalisation is crucial in current times. The companies that use custom eLearning solutions have a competitive advantage because, after training, teams will be able to respond faster and more effectively to changes. Which is hardly possible with generic programs. 

What are Customized Learning Solutions?

When the program is designed specifically to address a single organisation, and the content, video lectures, assessments, and practice activities of the program reflect the tone, branding, and services of the organisation, it is referred to as a custom e-learning development program. 

This program is used by businesses that are underperforming even after spending millions of dollars on training. In most scenarios, either they are using generic programs that are enough to provide adequate knowledge to the growing workforce, or their learning and development team is not able to implement the custom program suitably for the company's benefit. 

Benefits of Using Custom eLearning Solutions

• Relatable content = higher engagement  

It is quite noticeable that when organisations choose a generic course for training, the employees do not resonate with it. On the contrary, when a custom e learning solutions program is chosen for training, the workers are more likely to engage with it and deliver improved results.  

In off-the-shelf courses, learners are not able to figure out the purpose of that and find the learning irritating, but personalised content states the purpose clearly and offers relatable assessments and practice simulations for higher interest. 

• Solves specific problems faster

The companies that use a generic course need extra time to address any problem because they need to find the training module from the course, assess the complete module and think of an idea that can help the situation. 

When the same organisation partners with someone to help improve training and switch to custom e-learning solutions, the team gains access to faster processing of things like onboarding, compliance training, and similar tasks. 

• Highly scalable at different levels

The personalised content is designed to fit the workforce of every size of company, whether for a multinational company or a small business. The organisation needs to get custom e-learning development processed once, and then the same program can be scaled across the company. 

This course will be useful for the growing workforce in the long run. The necessary content can be saved in a modular format, and changeable modules can be updated by the partner. 

• Less turnover from employees

When the business uses personalized content for training and learning purposes, the employees feel more valued in the organisation and the number of resignations in a year is likely to drop. In this method, the training is treated as an important aspect of the job and not just an extra step. 

• The timeless content 

The World Economic Forum has said that employers expect nearly 39% of current skills to change. Adopting a custom e learning development program will ensure that, in the future, when the major skills change and are no longer required, the modular training course can be updated at low cost, while generic courses take time to create and then adopt. 

The popular examples of customized learning solutions 

1. The healthcare sector

The medical professionals need custom programs because they deal with different human beings and various diseases in a day; a generic course would not be able to suffice for the need for such diverse knowledge with relevant practices. 

The example: Imagine a hospital chain needs to train 2,000 staff members across 20 hospitals in different cities. The custom elearning solutions will build training for their available machinery, learners can practice with scenario-based studies, the program can be used by different professionals in the hospital, and the content is available in multiple languages to support diverse groups of learners. 

2. Banking and finance sector

The banks hold the major capital share of the country, and off-the-shelf courses are not good enough for training workers handling the country's GDP. When compliance training in the bank is facilitated by custom e-learning, the completion rates are higher. 

The example: a bank requires compliance training to allow the new employees to learn the internal processes of the banking and regulatory requirements. A personalised program will be useful in that it is built for the bank monitoring system, real case studies from the firm, role-specific skill teaching content, and scenario-based modules for gaining decision-making skills. 

3. The education industry

The education sector deals with learners from every industry, whether we talk about school students, university students, online skills development students, or corporate employees.  

The example: an edTech organisation needs to train thousands of employees in different countries on the same topic with the help of digital learning platforms. The custom e learning development program that is created to address their specific platform, has subject focused exmapels for learners, stores localised content in different languages, and all the modules are teacher-approved, will be adequate to train thousands of diverse learners. 

4. The manufacturing sector

The manufacturing entails hundreds of workers doing similar tasks to achieve the end product, and this sector requires safety training and machine usage skill training. This will contribute to reducing injury rates in the factory. 

The example: The factory owner decided to get a custom augmented reality program to train their team of workers, and needs the program to be accessed on multiple devices. The personalised course that is created to teach the usage of each piece of machinery in the workplace; every worker can use AR glasses or their smartphones to access the course on the job. 

How to Implement Custom e Learning Development

1. Identify the need for training 

This is an important part before deciding on any format of learning. In this step, the learning and development team assesses the requirement of custom e learning solutions in the company with different criteria, such as identifying problems that need solving, assessing knowledge gaps, defining a group of learners, understanding learners' preferences in format and operating device, and at last asking for review from the manager for ongoing.  

2. Define learning objectives for training 

The L&D and team managers must hold a discussion meeting to define the objectives that need to be included in the training. For that, one must put the problem first, then decide the skill required to solve that and turn it into the learning objective in the draft. For example, the sales team cannot pitch well; soft skills are needs and an instructor-led session should be used for soft skill training. 

Aligning these objectives with the key performance indicators (KPI) is important to ensure that the learner works on the same goals throughout the training.  

3. Select training format and delivery 

The content can be delivered in many formats, such as scenario-based simulations, gamification, microlearning, AR/VR immersive training, and blended learning. The format of delivery should be compatible with the training content. If the content is complex and needs visuals for retaining simulations, that would be the best option. Other formats have a similar pattern. 

Similarly, the delivery of that content can be based on learners' working conditions. If their work is mainly desk jobs, then a computer LMS would be adequate, for field workers, mobile learning, and for global teams, self-paced online content.   

4. Find the right partner

The complete course of training is highly dependent on the partner organisation it chooses when the basic details are finalised with the team. The learning and development department can consider multiple options based on instructional design expertise, industry experience, content localisation capabilities, and quality assurance. 

Then share the brief file with a few of the finalised partners' schedules to demonstrate capabilities. Only then choose the most refined partner. 

5. Develop the content with the partner

The content development and production part is mostly done by the partner company. The client has previously chosen that the client only needs to supervise the custom e learning development process to make sure the results are exactly as expected. 

Here, the content needs to be built in a modular format for long-run benefits. The vendor’s team should incorporate company branding, develop assessments relevant to learning objectives, ensure accessibility criteria, and complete the development process by building analytical tracking in the program. 

6. Pilot testing before rollout 

In this step, the L&D team and management department will form a team of 10 - 20 learners and allow them to use the custom e learning solutions, then gather data from the learners and LMS about the clarity, relevance, engagement, and technical performance of content. Test the working of the course on different devices and identify any errors or gaps. 

If the problem is found in this stage, the partner will be able to fix it with minimal expenditure before scaling the content across the organisation. 

7. Launch and deploy the training 

In this final step of implementing custom training, upload the program to the learning management system (LMS) and test all tracking services. Spread awareness among the learners about the purpose of this program and its usage. Put the managers in charge to ensure completion rates, set clear deadlines, and provide thorough technical support to learners. 

8. Monitor and optimise learning 

Once the custom e learning development process is complete and deployed, employees start to engage with it. The company should start keeping track of monitoring data, checking the completion rates and assessment scores, measuring business outcomes, identifying high drop-off modules, asking learner feedback, and calculating return on investment. 

Provide constant support to the employees while they are training, and once the training is completed, L&D can facilitate refresher content for better and long-term retention of content. 

Read more: Game-Based Learning Solutions| Elements Benefits and Examples

The challenges faced by organisations in custom courses 

• High cost 

The custom e-learning development programs are more expensive than any generic course, and the reason for this is that the content is built from scratch, the process takes time plus precision, and it will only be owned by a single organisation, unlike off-the-shelf programs. A lot of startups cannot afford this type of training. 

• Takes time in development 

The custom eLearning solutions require a generous amount of time to build a complete training program. So when the businesses want the course faster for compliance or skill training, they first need to provide a brief document that contains adequate information to create content, and this is the reason it takes so long; the vendor has to decide everything that is going to be part of the training. 

• Reliance on SME

The content of the program needs to be finalised by the subject matter experts; without them, the custom e-learning development process cannot carry on, but the experts have their different categories of work that require their complete focus and time, so getting the SMEs to pay attention is a difficult task, and this delays the process of training. 

• Measuring effectiveness and ROI

The learning and development department often struggles with connecting the online custom knowledge to business outcomes and return on investment. The authorities of the company want to see the profit after training, while completion rates are the only figures the team can show, but this problem can be solved with a smart structure of the program. 

Read more: Blended Learning Solutions for Compliance Training: Guide and Tips

Conclusion 

The growing newer generation in the job market is more likely to engage with training when content is personalised to address their field of work and help them acquire skills that are relevant to their job position. In other scenarios, in generic courses, the learners complete training by just overlooking the content instead of absorbing the needed knowledge. 

When the customized learning solutions are implemented with the right method while keeping the common challenges in consideration, the organisation can harvest the complete potential of the custom e learning development process they invested heavily in.