As the global workplace continues to increase in complexity, there is a growing need for corporate training and workforce development to help companies in their efforts to remain viable and competitive. And while some organizations have (or can acquire) the in-house resources to meet these new training demands, others will look to third-party training companies. In recent years, colleges and other higher education organizations have stepped in to fill this demand through the creation of corporate training departments and workforce development expertise.
In addition to filling this void for corporate training demand, many colleges have created significant revenue streams for their institutions by providing employee development programs in areas that often include:
New employee orientation and onboarding
Core technology and operational skills
“Soft” skills development
Leadership training
Compliance awareness
Workplace culture and diversity training
In the past, the primary approach to the delivery of corporate training was through in-person, classroom-based training. More recently though, two developments have changed the direction of corporate training:
Increasingly Remote Workforces
While this trend has been well underway for the past several years, it has been accelerated by COVID-19.
Enhanced Cloud-Based Technologies
Today, there are more cloud-based technologies available that are affordable, reliable, and secure.
Theses developments have made online learning, or “eLearning” a viable and increasingly preferred option over classroom-based training.
The Benefits of eLearning for College Corporate Training Departments
As a third-party training provider seeking to monetize their training expertise, college corporate training departments have unique needs that are well-suited for eLearning. Some of these include:
Cost-Effectiveness
eLearning eliminates many of the expenses associated with classroom-based training, including travel, venue and catering fees, and the cost or printing and distributing learning materials.
Ease of Scaling
Classroom-based training can be difficult to scale as it calls for the hiring and onboarding of additional instructors as your program grows. eLearning offers a far less labor-intensive business model that is well-suited for a thriving college corporate training department.
Consistency
With classroom-based training, your learning content and messaging can be inconsistent (and possibly inaccurate) as you scale the program for delivery from multiple instructors. eLearning eliminates this challenge by ensuring that all of your clients are programs are working with the same, up-to-date set of content and messaging.
Self-Paced
Another challenge of classroom-based training is in the fact the students must keep up with the pace set by the instructor. In contrast, eLearning allows students to learn at their own pace and spend as much time as they need to on each piece of learning content. This approach creates a better learning experience and leads to higher comprehension and retention rates (and therefore, a better overall training engagement for your organization).
LMS Software Options for College Corporate Training Departments
The core technology that supports all types of eLearning programs, including corporate training, is a Learning Management System, or “LMS”. While there are various options available for LMS architecture and deployment, there are two specific characteristics that tend to support the needs of a college corporate training organization very well.
Cloud-Based
A cloud, or “SaaS-based” approach is often a good choice for any organization that is planning to offer corporate training as a third-party service. In choosing to utilize a cloud LMS, you eliminate the need to make a large, up-front spend on software and hardware along with the long period of time it can require to “stand up” the application.
And in working with a third-party cloud LMS vendor, you offload all of the ongoing management and maintenance of the application to that vendor, so your team can focus on selling and delivering great corporate training programs.
Multi-Tenant
A relatively new architecture offering in LMS technology in multitenancy. With a multi-tenant LMS, you are able to “spin up” multiple instances of the application to support your client based with individual, private eLearning environments (portals). Multitenancy is accomplished on a single, secure architecture and can be used to create a unique and private online learning experience for each of your clients.
LMS Portals: LMS Software for College Corporate Training
LMS Portals offers a cloud-based, multi-tenant Learning Management System to allow our college corporate training partners to launch and manage multiple eLearning environments from a single, centralized administrative console. And each portal you launch can have its own corporate branding and supporting technologies to create the best possible corporate training experience for each of your clients.
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