When an organization tries to implement a custom development program for training its employees, there can be many problems involved.

Although it is expensive to develop training programs from scratch for companies, they have their advantages:

• Custom made training

When you are developing a program for your organization, you have complete control. You can make sure that the IDs and developers include the needs of your company in the program. You can also make sure that the learning goals of your employees are a part of such a program.

• Better results

Since custom made programs are more suited to your business objectives and include information on practical experiences for employees, employees finish them. The completion rates are high because employees find such programs useful.

• Attuned to an organisation’s requirements

The instructional designers of elearning companies don’t know the processes of your company as you do. So, when you get an off-the-shelf course from them, it is not aligned with what the company requires. However, when in a bespoke course, you are kept in the loop, you provide relevant suggestions to improve the project from time to time. So, the end product is relevant and employees find it useful for solving their problems. This kind of customized program is made from the viewpoint of employees.

Lets us look at some of the mistakes one can face while developing custom courses for employees.

Mistake no 1:Creating a boring course

One of the biggest mistakes in creating custom courses is that they might not be impactful. This can be a very bad situation for the elearning company and the client because all the efforts in creating the course can go to waste. And since the learners don’t feel interested in the course, they don’t devote time to it.

The solution to this problem is to create interesting elearning courses for the learners. Preparing such courses should not be considered work only but much more than that. It’s important to put effort into the following areas:

The goals of the learners

Learners can be attracted to the course once it contains material relevant for them to attain their personal goals.

Solution: Breaking the custom development course

Rather than expecting learners to upload all the information at once, its better to ensure that it is given to them in shorter sessions so that they remember most of it. Otherwise, the chances are, that the learners get exhausted by watching long sessions and can’t just remember anything taught.

Mistake no 2: Setting up too short deadlines

Another mistake is setting up nonsensical timelines to complete the custom development elearning project.

Solution: The project deadline is set by you.

So, it’s upto you, to modify things within the scope of the custom development project to ensure that the deliverables are given on time. In an agile training methodology, the project is developed in phases. Since the project is developed in parts the second module is not started once the first module is not complete. So, this makes sure that the employees have small modules delivered to them and don’t have to wait till the end of the development process. Furthermore, the process templates developed for the first module can be used for the creation of further modules.

The developers can also get feedback about the first module and then incorporate changes in the development process.

So, this is how a company can avoid the shortcomings of a custom made course.