How To Hire An eLearning Development Company
eLearning is taking a lot of time from companies these days. But L&D being the source of the lack of employee productivity might not be true. Sometimes, the solution is not L&D. In fact, companies need to dig deep to find the underlying causes of their problems. Companies need to hold meetings with employees to know what’s bothering them. There might be an increase in errors committed at the workplace due to wrong information with employees. This can be rectified by developing simulations to correct the procedures.
eLearning Is Not The Answer Always
But sometimes, employees might be lacking the motivation to work properly and take L&D seriously. That’s where the root cause of problematic production lies. Since employees don’t have any motivation, they need monetary benefits and promotions to make them perform better. The following checklist can help a business in choosing the proper vendor for their eLearning project.
1. Needs Analysis
The companies should conduct a needs analysis to know what they seek to improve through training. If they have the needs analysis done properly, they can know that the training can or can’t fix everything. So, they won’t invest money in training unnecessarily. The needs analysis phase also allows the company to set clear goals through training. Companies must have an eLearning consultant to help them with the needs analysis phase of training.
2. Process Transparency
Process control is also important for a company because it needs to see whether the project is getting developed at the right time. When the clients are given process control, they have information about every step of the project. This is important so that they know how each step is getting carried out. So, the clients and the eLearning consultants don’t have any confusion about any level of the project. The clients must have complete information about which authoring tool will be used for the design stage of the project and, apart from that, they must also know who is involved at every level.
3. No Hidden Costs
Financial control is also important because the client has a budget set for the project. When the cost of the project is more than the expectations of the client, then they can back off from the project. This can happen when the clients discover that the project has some hidden costs about which they were never told. But when the client has been told about all the costs at the onset of the project, they know how much the project is going to cost them.
4. Previous Work
The eLearning consultants should only be hired once their previous samples have been seen by the clients. After seeing such courses, the clients get to know whether the vendor can produce the quality expected out of them. They get to know the technical caliber of the vendor’s team. Once they have seen the samples, they know to what extent the vendor can use the authoring tools. Also, before choosing any eLearning development, it’s better to see whether they will allow you sufficient creative freedom in the process.
The clients should be allowed to provide the consultants with feedback so that the results are the best. Such freedom is important to see whether the eLearning consultant is creating the project correctly as per your needs and requirements. Before development, it’s important to check whether the project echoes the brand statement of the company. It should also have been developed after a comprehensive needs analysis. Hence, it’s better that the storyboard must be approved by the client before the eLearning course is developed.
5. Proper Team
The eLearning consultants must have a thorough understanding of the way a project must be handled. They should know how their clients expect the project to be taken care of. The vendor should have a complete understanding that they must have a specific team allotted to complete the project and they should not hire employees on a contractual basis who quit whenever they like.
If the vendor does not have a proper team hired to take care of the project, they should not undertake it because it can cause problems when the project does not get completed by the deadline and as per expectations. Moreover, the client must know whether the vendor has understood the project’s needs. The eLearning consultant also must be ready to deal with the feedback of the client and make revisions if required.
6. Teamwork Between The Client And The Vendor
Cooperation between the eLearning development company and the vendor is also inevitable. The process needs to have a proper structure. When the project has no structure, and there is no planning done by the client and the vendor, there can be over-inclusion of content. Often, SMEs on the client side want to include everything they know in the project, which can backfire. The audience engagement will be too low. Hence, the aim of the eLearning vendor must be to design a streamlined course that includes the necessary information without going over the top. Therefore, there should be a team in the eLearning development company to deal with the client.
The eLearning development company must have a project manager who must check the storyboard before it is put into development. The Instructional Designers with an eLearning development company can help the SMEs ensure that the eLearning modules are of the right size and that learners are not burdened with information. The Instructional Designers on the vendor’s side have a more learner-centric approach which is needed by the client for eLearning. They know the importance of learning as an experience and save the client from wasting time and money on developing irrelevant and long modules.
Conclusion
In the end, a good vendor does not give importance to quantity over quality. They make sure that they quote the right time for the development of the project before proceeding forward. When you are selecting an eLearning development company, it’s crucial that the price is not the only consideration. It’s because the company might allow the resources only to you and take many projects in order to save costs, therefore, the end result might be that the developed course is not of an expected quality. But when you have certain parameters in mind and take time before choosing an eLearning development company, it can be beneficial.
Originally published at creativtechnologies.com.
