Off The Shelf Training: Grow Your Employee’s Skills With Ready-Made Courses

A successful organization should have custom training modules. After all, your employees need to have specialized knowledge relevant to their work and the industry. Every organization develops training courses around the tools their workforce uses, company policies and the products or services they sell.

However, that does not mean you have to customize the entirety of your training program from scratch. You can buy certain modules off the shelf. In many cases, you do not have to buy these courses either. Some learning management system vendors include certain courses as part of their system.

What is Off The Shelf Training?

eLearning offers customization options which may take a huge chunk of your monetary resources and time. But, you can meet the general learning needs of your workforce using off the shelf courses.

These training modules are ready to use courses available in the LMS content library of corporate LMS systems. These courses cover general subject matters such as communication skills, teamwork, stress management, workplace safety and decision making, among others.

A team of experts such as instructional designers, developers and subject matter experts work to design these training courses. You can access various off the shelf courses in different formats to run on your learning platform.

Why Should You Opt For Off the Shelf Training?

You will often come across the challenge of choosing predesigned courses or getting customized courses in eLearning. Here are a few reasons you should consider off the shelf training modules:

Low Cost

On average, organizations spend $1,252 per individual on training. If training fails to translate into work, all the investment is in vain. Therefore, cost saving is an important aspect of e-learning and employee development.

Customized courses take time and resources. You have to hire subject matter experts, designers and developers and set a budget to complete the project. In contrast, off the shelf courses are budget friendly. They are less expensive, and you have many options available, so you can choose a course that is under the budget and meets the requirements.

Faster Training

Once you identify the training needs of your employees, you can immediately start their training with these courses. There is no need to design and develop separate courses, as is the case with customized modules.

This means no time is lost between design and implementation. You can purchase a course, or if it is available on your learning platform, you can deploy it for training. The sooner your workforce begins the learning, the quicker they can apply it to their everyday jobs.

Easier Upkeep

Off the shelf training courses are easy to maintain. You can implement them without any hassle of changing the course content. They cover many generic topics that are relevant to every organization regardless of their market. Additionally, these courses are built into the system so they run smoothly on any platform.

Broader Expertise

You will not always have subject matter experts in your organization, so you will have to turn elsewhere. The best thing about off the shelf training is that instructional designers and subject matter experts design these courses, so you have access to broader expertise.

For instance, if you are looking to improve the soft skills of your IT staff, you can pick a ready-made course on communication training and soft skills to train your IT staff.

Upgrade Support

Another reason to consider these training modules is due to their built-in upgrades and support. The vendor provides support in handling the modules. Some suppliers also offer upgrades so that the training is in line with current requirements and industry trends.

What type of Topics To Consider?

You can use off the shelf training for the following topics:

1. Compliance Training – Compliance training such as sexual harassment, workplace ethics and safety are state mandated. You have to comply with these regulations. Off the shelf training modules include courses on these topics, so you do not have to customize them.
2. Soft Skills – You can offer communication, business writing and active listening training through off the shelf training as these are relevant topics for every organization and industry.
3. Sales Enablement – If sales are an important aspect of your business, you can access a variety of courses on customer service, basic sales and other relevant topics.
4. Leadership Development – Leadership is the key to every business’s success. You can help your management and workforce grow by offering them leadership courses available off the shelf.

Use Axis LMS For Off The Shelf Training

Atrixware’s flagship learning management system, Axis LMS, offers both customizable and off the shelf training courses. You can find generic courses on their LMS for compliance training and employee training.

Alternatively, you can drag and drop images, PowerPoint presentations, media, documents and more to create interactive specialized courses for your workforce. Check out their learning management system pricing before trying a free demo. Contact Atrixware for further assistance.