How To Work Effectively With eLearning Vendors

Choosing An eLearning Vendor
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Summary: eLearning vendors are organizations that create digital learning for other corporate organizations professionally. A lot of organizations that do not have the budget or resources to create their own eLearning team hire eLearning vendors to build courses for them based on their requirements, at a much lower cost than what they would incur if they built a team for that purpose.

Hire The Right eLearning Professional

L&D has grown a lot in the last decade. Employee training methods, particularly eLearning, have seen a rapid growth like never before in the last few years. However, designing and developing eLearning for employees is not an easy job. It requires various experts like Instructional Designers, eLearning developers, SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), graphic designers, and the like to create an eLearning program that can produce eLearning courses for employees at a rapid rate indefinitely. This requires a sizeable budget for the L&D team as well as hiring the above-mentioned experts, not to mention, setting up a process that can dole out effective eLearning courses for the employees on a regular basis.

This is why a number of organizations still cannot bring themselves to implement eLearning in their organization and still go with classroom training, even though they know that classroom training isn’t as effective and the world has moved on to eLearning.

However, there is a way such organizations can still implement eLearning in their workplace, and this way is eLearning vendors. eLearning vendors have teams of all the eLearning experts mentioned before and their bread and butter revolves around developing effective online learning tools. Naturally, they are pretty good at their job as they do this for a living. In this article, we’ll discuss how to choose an eLearning vendor and how to work with them effectively.

Choosing An eLearning Vendor

There are only 3 things you need to determine before choosing an eLearning vendor, as there are a lot of eLearning vendors on the market and not all of them may be as good.

  1. Make sure that eLearning development is their main business
    Make sure that the eLearning vendor’s core business is eLearning business, and that they don’t create eLearning as a part-time or side business. This way you can be sure that they’ll pay full attention to your projects and that they have the proper expertise.
  2. Ask them to provide you with their development process
    Make sure that your eLearning vendor has a clear process regarding the eLearning development, and that they provide you with a map of that process. Also, make sure that they have a dedicated Project Manager they can spare for your project.
  3. Check their samples and testimonials
    It goes without saying that you shouldn’t hire an eLearning vendor until and unless you’ve looked at some samples of their previous work and read some testimonials by their previous customers on their website. If possible, ask them to name some organizations they’ve worked for and call them up.

Working Efficiently With Your eLearning Vendor

Once you’ve chosen an eLearning vendor for your L&D needs, you need to make sure you sustain your partnership with them and work in a manner that is beneficial to both of you. Here’s how you can do that.

1. Don’t Play The Blame Game

Complications and problems will arise, as is bound to happen in any partnership. However, instead of blaming each other, try to overcome said problems by sitting down and brainstorming to reach a solution.

2. Make Sure You Communicate Clearly

Speaking of problems, most of them arise because either side didn’t communicate what they wanted in a clear manner. As you are the client and they are the service provider, make sure that you communicate what you want and what you hope to achieve clearly. Make sure you list your preferences and restrictions clearly before each project or course creation.

3. Have A Dedicated Person You Can Contact

As mentioned before, your eLearning vendor should have a dedicated Project Manager or any other professional you can contact regarding any questions or problems you might have regarding their service. This will ease the communication process and keep your working relationship smooth.

eBook Release: Tamplo
Tamplo
Project and Team management software