It’s common to stumble on the way to success, including when making an eLearning program. To help you avoid issues, eLearning Partners have gathered the five most common eLearning mistakes they’ve seen when developing internal eLearning courses. Remember that these are mistakes for internal courses, meaning those directed at employees or someone else within the organization. That being said, there is some overlap with mistakes people make when developing online courses to sell.
Mistake #1: Build It and They Will Come Strategy
A common eLearning mistake, regardless of the type of course, is assuming that if you build it, they will come. This can be extra challenging for internal courses, as you assume that your employees have to complete it. But that’s not the case. Your employees may press play and just walk away, or they may put in the minimum effort.
You need to give your employees a reason to complete the training. That means that you need to create an internal distribution or marketing strategy. In other words, understand that you will have to sell the course to your employees, or they won’t learn anything from it and may not even do it.
Mistake #2: Building It for Employees
Another common mistake is building a course for employees instead of building it with them. Your employees should be a crucial part of the course building process. Talk to them from the start. Ask them what they want to learn and continue to collect feedback from them as you build the course.
Mistake #3: Making It Too Big
Don’t fall into the familiar trap of making your eLearning course too extensive. It can be tempting to fit as much as possible into the course, but this simply isn’t effective. You will never finish building the course, and you will waste a lot of time and money while doing so. If you do manage to finish building the course, your employees will never finish taking it.
Instead, focus on the biggest challenge that your employees need you to address. Once you finish the initial course, you can make another for their other challenges.
Mistake #4: Focusing on the Tech
Yet another common eLearning mistake is to focus on technology. You can easily spend tens of thousands of dollars on equipment only to get marginally better results than you would if you spent a few hundred or even less.
More importantly, if you spend too much time on the tech, you will likely forget about the learners. Your biggest decision for the tech should be which LMS to use. We suggest Talent Cards or Talent LMS for internal programs.
Mistake #5: Making It Corporate
A common issue we see with internal courses is making them too corporate. By this, we mean making them boring and official seeming. Your employees won’t learn anything if it is just a bunch of text.
Make the course engaging by including videos and other graphics. Make it fun and interactive. This will boost engagement and the amount your employees learn.
The Bottom Line
Avoiding the above eLearning mistakes will help you create a valuable eLearning course for your employees. With the included tips, your course will be engaging and effective.
About eLearning Partners
eLearning Partners — formerly known as VP Legacies — is a company specializing in eLearning. Our clients range from small to mid-sized organizations that are looking to develop & launch their eLearning products — online courses, employee training, and entire Internal Universities. Over the last eight years, we’ve successfully deployed eLearning products 7x faster than the industry average with an 80% learner engagement — all due to our exceptional focus on the Learners and their needs.
