For many of us who have worked in some capacity of L&D over the years, we’ve either been the “one man band” ourselves, or partnered with companies where one person juggles all the training responsibilities for the entire organization. While this can work for some, many times it can overwhelm the employee, under deliver on the learner experience, and fall short overall when it comes to new hire onboarding and continuous education for all employees.
For starters, it’s important to understand what you want out of your learning department. If all you truly need is someone to manage a small learning program that never changes, includes only “off the shelf” yearly required training like fraud prevention for example, a one-person learning department can work. If your expectation is that this person also manages leadership training, reinforcement or upskill training, new hire onboarding, AND develops and trains these materials, you may need to level set your expectations. One person cannot effectively do all these things and not experience burn-out. Not to mention, there is no way this person can own all these responsibilities while staying current and relevant with the ever evolving world of adult learning theory and best learning practices.
Your company might not be ready for a fully staffed internal L&D team, which is why hiring or partnering with a third-party Learning & Development team might be the right thing for your company… And here’s where I shamelessly plug my company, Lumious. We really are experts in our field, and I am so proud of and confident in our team of learning professionals. Working with a company like ours can offer you so many benefits:
- Fresh eyes: A holistic view of your company’s learning experience. Whether your entire learning program needs a refresh, or just one program, a learning vendor can provide a deep dive analysis and even make suggestions on the most relevant data to pull to help identify training/learning gaps and overall learner feedback.
- Structure: A good learning vendor provides you with an entire team of professionals to manage each aspect of the curriculum development and delivery process. This includes a Project Manager to manage each project end-to-end from conception to completion. Project Managers also play a key role in ensuring timely & consistent communication for the rest of your organization. Bringing everyone along the learning journey is imperative for organizations to ensure alignment across the board.
- Effective & accessible learning for everyone: There is no “one size fits all” solution when it comes to employee training. Hiring a learning partner who specializes in all kinds of learning modalities (eLearning, instructor led, videos, etc.) is crucial for a successful learning experience.
- Accountability: How many times have you or your company initiated or talked about a learning need, only to have it never come to fruition? Limited internal resources and a team of one learning specialist who can only handle so much, are often reasons for failure. Hiring a team to make it happen takes this risk away and helps keep momentum going. It also doesn’t hurt to bring in an outside person who is not a part of the everyday minutiae of your business, who can help hold all stakeholders accountable.
These are really just a few of the ways a team of learning professionals can help shape the learning experience for your employees. This is not discrediting the one person L&D teams out there, either. I have done this work myself, and it is not an easy task. In fact, doing this made me good at my job as a project manager because I know what wearing all those hats looks like and I know what would have really benefited me if I had the help of a seasoned learning partner like Lumious.
The good news is that we are here, ready and excited to help our clients build and improve learning programs that are right for them. If you happen to be a person or team looking for help in this capacity, but you need assistance providing the benefits of a learning partner, we also specialize in finding the ROI in training for all kinds of companies. Whatever your needs may be, we want to help. Fill out a form on our website for more information, or if you think Lumious could be the right learning partner for you.
