eLearning LMS, Employee Training, Content Production

Should Companies Create eLearning Content In-House or Hire an Instructional Designer?

by Debbie Williams

eLearning content is critical to the success and ROI of a company’s training programs, and many companies are now designing their eLearning content internally. According to eLearningIndustry.com, “...the eLearning market is projected to reach a value of $275 billion worldwide by the year 2022. Experts say that this big explosion is due to the increasing number of organizations that are taking training development efforts in-house.”1

For some organizations, using internal resources for training design makes perfect sense. But other companies will benefit more from outsourcing this task to an instructional designer. Which option is right for your company to support its remote training and in-person efforts?

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Should Companies Create eLearning Content In-House or Hire an Instructional Designer?

The pros and cons of creating
eLearning content in-house

Creating online training using the resources you have within your own company may be a great idea for your organization. Conversely, it might be more hassle than it’s worth. The only way to know is to look at the pros and cons of crafting training in-house. A couple of pros include cost savings and upskilling current employees with instructional design skills.

When you utilize the people resources you already have (i.e., your L&D team), you can save your company a considerable amount of money by preventing the need to hire outside help for eLearning content creation. Also, many employees want the opportunity to learn and gain new skills. If there is no one on your L&D team with robust instructional design skills, you could upskill employees in this area who show an aptitude for instructional design. This would add weight to their resume and give your company a valuable resource for creating future eLearning content.

If the L&D staff or subject matter experts who create the content are not skilled in instructional design, the cons of creating training in-house can include long wait times and lackluster content. Companies often need a training course or an entire training program as soon as possible due to changes in the marketplace, forcing in-house content creators to rush. In situations like this, the organization in this position should consider an outside instructional designer who can get the job done more quickly.

Related Reading: How To Lead Your Industry in Online Employee Training During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Should you hire an instructional designer
to create training for your employees?

Just as creating eLearning content in-house has pros and cons, so does hiring an instructional designer. A contributor to eLearningIndustry.com said that some of the pros of outsourcing instructional design include a lesser burden on your L&D team, better online training resource allocation, and quicker turnaround time on training.2

Hiring an eLearning content provider presents a different set of challenges, like giving up control and broken communication between teams. “Fortunately, you can avoid most of these obstacles with a clear contract and working guidelines,” according to eLearningIndustry.com.3 “For example, you meet every month to discuss progress and offer eLearning feedback suggestions to prevent last-minute edits.”

It should also be noted that hiring an instructional designer could ultimately cost more money than developing eLearning content in-house.

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Related Reading: Does an Online LMS Increase Employees Engagement?

Find the right eLearning platform for your company’s training needs and goals

The decision to create eLearning content in-house or hire an instructional designer is unique for each organization and is dependent on a company’s budget, training goals, and resources. To support either decision, organizational leaders should choose a learning management system that offers tools to company administrators who want to create their own content and has the ability to host many different types of content that instructional designers might create. After all, your company may give creating its own content a try only to find that outsourcing this task is a better option or vice versa.

TOPYX LMS is ideal for companies that want to create their own content and/or hire instructional designers as it is a content-agnostic platform for documents, audio, video, SCORM, xAPI, and LTI. It also features a built-in quiz and assessment tool. TOPYX LMS customers can use their own content, buy it from TOPYX via its LMS learning catalog, or use third-party vendors, such as instructional design teams. The TOPYX learning management system content management feature makes all of this possible.

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Sources:
1. https://elearningindustry.com/hire-instructional-designers-skills-vs-attitude-reasons
2. https://elearningindustry.com/reasons-hire-elearning-content-providers-instead-of-developing-in-house
3. https://elearningindustry.com/reasons-hire-elearning-content-providers-instead-of-developing-in-house

Debbie Williams

Debbie Williams

Director, Marketing