No internal content? No problem; LMS to the rescue

As the concern for future-proofing teams grows, companies invest in employee development like never before. The need for effective training content has never been more pronounced.

Managers have to navigate the terrain of skill development, employee training, and knowledge enhancement — all while keeping motivation, engagement, and participation on the ups. Great content is key to delivering dynamic learning experiences. But what if we don't have enough internal content to fuel our employee development programs? 

Here's the good news: finding a happy medium between external content and personalized experiences is possible. The secret to making that work is modern Learning Management Systems (LMS). 

Leveraging external content for tailored learning

To quote Bill Gates, “Content is king.” While being able to create your own videos or training modules is great, not every company is equipped to create its own internal content. 

This is when tapping into external content becomes interesting. We’re talking about pre-made courses, stock images, and free public content like YouTube or Vimeo videos. External content enables you to leverage various perspectives and expertise to enrich the learning experience. Pre-built content saves time and avoids the costs of having an in-house content studio. It can be put together in no time to benefit your organization! 

Through an LMS, you can build a leadership program with the most popular Ted Talk videos, where employees learn valuable soft skills from today’s most respected leaders. Or, you can create skill-building tutorials where employees are instructed to watch technical videos curated from YouTube. 

Of course, like anything else, external has its limitations. Trying to match generic content to what should ultimately be tailored learning paths can be challenging. That said, it's extremely advantageous, allowing you to whip up learning content that will drive value almost instantly. It gets you off running fast and buys your business time to create its own content. 

External content: A gold mine for SMBs

If you’re a small or medium-sized business owner, you know the challenge of limited resources. But no matter how big or small your team is, being able to generate relevant, dynamic, and impactful learning content is key in forming teams that are prepared to face challenges. 

When building internal content is out of budget, external content fills in. By using content created by others to complement your own training materials, you’re giving your employees a learning experience that is much more engaging and memorable. 

Leveraging external content is always better than having no content at all. It provides a baseline for learning content at a small but scalable impact and buys SMBs the time to craft their own well-thought-out internal materials to use alongside reputable external content. 

The LMS advantage

The key to managing internal or external content is to have a centralized hub. LMS are specially designed to streamline, organize, and optimize educational content experiences. And with the increasing adoption of e-learning, the LMS market is booming — expected to reach a value of $28.1 billion by 2025 and nearly $70 billion by 2030. 

With remote and hybrid teams becoming the norm, cloud-based LMS solutions come in as the answer to accessible employee training and development. They provide a structured learning environment where you can build dynamic L&D programs for your employees and monitor their progress.  

Leveraging LMS for integrating external content

If you need to source external content to build your training programs, here's where using modern LMS gets interesting: 

• It’s a centralized hub for all content: Like a tidy asset library, LMS corrals all external content and keeps it organized. No more scattered resources — your team gets access to a one-stop shop for learning. 

• It tracks everything instantly: LMS takes the brunt of analytics off your shoulders to track progress, measures key metrics like engagement, and provides smart insights into what works. It ensures that, even with external content, you're not in the dark about the impact of your learning initiatives. 

• Customization lives at the core:  The right LMS will also support content customization to build personalized employee development paths. Even when internal content isn’t available, an LMS will help curate public content so you can make it your own and complement it with quizzes and anything you see fit. 

• Integration is easy: External content doesn't have to be separate. The right LMS seamlessly integrates with external content providers, so you can pool from different sources through a single platform.   

Knowledge is power. LMS empowers managers and employees to tap into the expansive information that external content sources have to offer, packaged in an easy-to-follow but impactful formula. 

Meet Workleap LMS: The key to creating great training content

No internal content? No problem. When it comes to learning and development, Workleap LMS empowers teams to embrace learning, regardless of the content source. 

At Workleap, we believe everyone has something to contribute — and our platform is specially designed to encourage collaboration. With its intuitive course creation features, it helps managers create great learning experiences quickly and empowers employees to become knowledge content creators too. By using already available digital channels, you can increase your content ROI while reducing training-related expenses. 

Embrace technology for exactly what it was built for, and let new learning adventures begin. Check it out for yourself — try Workleap LMS for free.