How To Develop Internal Training Programs With Limited Tools

How To Develop Internal Training Programs With Limited Tools
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Summary: How to create an internal training program without buying extra tools.

Internal Training Programs

Most probably, many companies have been in a situation where they should purchase various licenses for the same big objective–to develop an internal training program in the company. Usually these investments would be for the website, for the company courses, one for HR purposes, and another for stocking internal materials. But have we thought how this can be minimized and optimized?

How To Minimize And Optimize The Tools Required For Training

Putting this into practice has extra benefits that are helpful to everyone, including cost savings, customization capabilities, ease of maintenance, and the ability to make changes as needed. Let see how!

  1. First of all, it is important to analyze the company needs in terms of training needs and the type of training strategy you have.
  2. Second, split all the needs based on the licenses you'll need to purchase.
  3. And in the end, find out what can be optimized for existing purchased licenses. This will help you to see what can be done with the existing licenses and what cannot.

As an example, based on my area of expertise, I will choose the L&D department (training courses) for this article; however, similar examples can be applied to other departments or fields. I will provide the examples with some scenarios to make it easier to understand them:

Scenario 1

Let’s suppose you have a website and the full office-related package, and you cannot afford purchasing anything more for the moment, but you would like to provide a professional way for your employees to access the company training content.

  • Resolution
    The website will cover your company services and you can use your office-related package to create a dedicated website for your courses. You can develop your courses on slides, or, if the courses are already created, you can integrate everything as a personalized website for your employees. There are various templates which will allow you make it very visual, professional, and customizable!

Scenario 2

Now let’s suppose the budget is just a little bigger, but not too much. You can purchase the website, the full office-related package (you can also use free alternatives here) and an LMS which can compile all in one: a website with a professional look and feel, course development, publishing and reporting, and tracking.

  • Resolution
    There are a few alternatives on the market. So, you can purchase an LMS and start developing the website for your employees or your external customers (if necessary), then start the course development inside the LMS (because there are LMSs which allow you to create the course directly in them) and once complete, publish them. They will be instantly integrated into the LMS, and then everything can be included in your general company website (to be visible for your external customers also if needed). This way your external customers will have access to your company services as well as to the training solutions. And your employees will benefit also from having personalized access to the internal training program for each of them.

Scenario 3

I will take also the example where you already have the website and nothing else. You cannot use the office-related package as is not purchased by the company.

  • Resolution
    The solution remains using an LMS which can compile all in one. This will allow you to do the following:

    • Develop a website inside the LMS by including your program presentation, a course catalog, a demo or practical experience for the learners and certification at the end.
    • Create the courses directly inside the LMS.
    • Have an app where everyone can access the courses easily (there are LMSs which can provide this benefit–an application with the same information as the website but more versatile)
    • Keep track of everything by using the reporting data analysis which is included in every LMS.

Conclusion

If we have to cut some costs, we have now various opportunities to do so! The most important thing is to identify what the needs are, and then continue purchasing the necessary resources.