Providing employees with high-quality opportunities for learning and development (L&D) has become a competitive advantage with many business benefits. The best training programs promote higher levels of productivity and profit and can reduce employee turnover. These benefits prove that providing employees with quality learning experiences is good for business.
With the increased focus on modern and engaging employee training programs, many companies are choosing to outsource their learning and development needs. However, this solution has come with its own set of complications; until recently, organizations who chose to outsource often needed to work with multiple vendors.
Fortunately, there are now training companies that offer managed learning services. The managed learning services framework provides companies a way to have most, if not all, of their learning needs met in one place. These training companies provide end-to-end learning services, making delivering effective employee training a simpler and more efficient process.
Transforming the learning and development process is easy with the implementation of this framework of end-to-end services. It was developed with the needs of global organizations in mind, but companies can customize and select the services that meet their individual needs.
In managed learning services, we can break down each line of service into the following five categories:
1. Learning Strategy
Many organizations begin with the development of the learning strategy. This service is divided into three parts: assessment, alignment and planning. First, the organization assesses the current business strategy, needs, goals, priorities and budget. This information is used to align the learning objectives with the organization’s goals and objectives.
Then, the organization develops a plan to fill the knowledge and performance gaps that would prevent it from reaching those goals. Each learning initiative is designed with the business-aligned outcome in mind to maximize both effectiveness and return on investment (ROI). Outsourcing your learning strategy development will give your company access to expert knowledge and insights into the most effective training methods and strategies.
2. Learning Administration
This line of service helps organizations take care of administrative tasks, reducing their costs and lightening the workload of their L&D teams. These services also provide them with more time to focus on the company’s core initiatives. Administrative services cover a wide range of tasks, including tracking and reporting, handling program logistics, scheduling, budgeting, learning management system (LMS) administration, and training content management.
With recent developments in the training industry, these tasks often require a high level of industry knowledge and, for large organizations, an entire team of experts. Outsourcing these services will give you access to an expert team and speed up the entire L&D process.
3. Instructor Facilitation
Instructor facilitation is the perfect line of services for organizations that provide instructor-led training, whether in person or virtually. These services include trainer recruitment, onboarding and management as well as the training itself. They learning services provide a range of benefits, including reduced costs management time.
Your managed learning services partner will already have large pool of talented trainers to choose from and has already tested and vetted their skills, making administration simpler and ensuring high-quality instruction.
4. Vendor Management
When a training organization works with multiple vendors, managing these partnerships can quickly become complex and expensive. Vendor management services can simplify the process from start to finish. These services include needs analysis, research and payment management, new partner onboarding, and issue resolution.
An additional benefit of these services is that your managed learning services partner has industry experts on staff who can help you identify opportunities for savings and optimization, enabling you to achieve the most of your training budget and maximize your ROI.
5. Analytics and Measurement
One of the most important yet overlooked aspects of creating high-quality training programs is integrating a thorough evaluation process. Measuring the effectiveness of your training programs with learning analytics can help your organization accurately identify the ROI of your training and development programs.
Analytics reporting can also provide you with key insights that will help you assess your training programs by illuminating patterns and opportunities for optimization. However, this process can be technical and time-consuming. The latest tools can be expensive, and your L&D team would need a significant amount of time to learn how to use them. Analytics measurement services make this process easier by providing you with experts and the latest learning technology to accurately measure your training results.
Providing high-quality learning development programs for your organization is a win-win for your company and employees. However, creating, implementing and managing these programs can be expensive and require a high level of specialized knowledge. Outsourcing seems to be the perfect solution, but managing multiple vendors to produce these programs creates a new set of challenges.
Fortunately, the managed learning services framework addresses each of these challenges and helps consolidate the entire process. The biggest benefit of these services is that providers can customize the entire experience to meet your organization’s specific needs.
No matter which stage your organization is in when it comes to training and development, managed learning has a line of services that will help streamline the process for you. To learn more about the benefits of managed learning services, check out the infographic “The Benefits of Managed Learning Services and Vendor Consolidation.”
