Off-The-Shelf? Hold on a second!

You probably sit back and think… I need some training. My employees could use…

• An orientation
• Safety, lots of safety training
• Skills training like Microsoft Office
• Sales training

That sounds about right!

What seems like a completely logical attempt to identify necessary training ends up with a list of courses spanning 10 pages. The next step is the search for courses, which you may or may not have available. For the courses you do have available, you can simply roll out the training in the prescribed manner. For the courses which are not part of your training catalogue, you will need to:

• Purchase
• Develop
• Disregard (training will not be necessary)

This is exactly how every employer lands in the opportunity zone. In this area, you have a choice to buy “off the shelf training courses”, hire a training developer, or use your existing staff to doctor some masterful PowerPoint presentations. Of all of these options, the most common (and cheapest) is the off-the-shelf courses.

They provide you with the course materials. The courses match your requirements, and meet any regulations or standards that you need for your employees (occasionally). And, for a low price, you can purchase them for your staff and “provide them a phenomenal training experience”. These are their words, not those of SEED.

This all sounds great, until you realize that is rarely the actual result.

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On two separate occasions within the last 12 months, we were asked to take their off the shelf training course and make it more “snazzy” or “fun” and more importantly, “company-specific”. We began with our audit and analysis process, where we align the objectives of the course with all regulations and any specifics of the company.

Throughout this experience, I became more and more curious as to what was already available for businesses. While I expected consistency in both price and quality, what I actually discovered was quite the opposite. I’ve identified four reasons why off-the-shelf courses rarely meet the needs of businesses.

#1 – THE CONTENT WILL NOT MEET YOUR NEEDS

Off-the-shelf training courses are not designed for your business or your audience. They are designed to meet wide audiences, diverse workgroups, and companies across many industries. While the standards and regulations are consistent, there is a lot of variety in company culture, staffing, worksites, safety culture, and so much more. These courses cannot meet everyone’s needs.

These are just some of questions you should consider:

• Do you think that a 30-year-old hospital will have the same type of training as a manufacturing facility, biotech cleanroom, or even just a general office environment?
• Will the training meet the different regulations for every state and county in the United States?
• Does the training meet the requirements for every industry?
• If you find an industry specific course, do they have a lot of competitors? If not, why?
• How much will need to be added to the content to match your audience and your business?

When you purchase these courses, you end up with “additional training requirements”. These are often ambiguous details on the specifics you will need for your business. Often times, these additional training requirements are never met as employees and leaders think their training is complete once they finish their off-the-shelf session.

#2 – WIDE VARIETY IN CONTENT

The next big problem I see in off-the-shelf courses is the variation. Other than covering topics A-Z, there is absolutely zero consistency on how the topics are covered and what is the correct amount.

Take a moment to look at the table below. This is the exact same course, “Confined Space Entry”, offered by three vendors who sell an off-the-shelf training course.

These are different confined space off the shelf training courses that all supposedly meet the same requirements. These are the exact same topic, provided by 3 different vendors. They each claim to be “regulatory compliant”, but vary widely in their delivery. I bet your thinking the same thing as I was…

• How does a 1 hour course meet the same requirements as a 6 hour course?
• Why are some topics more in-depth on certain courses?
• Is anything missing from the short courses?
• Do you buy the short course or the long one?

As you can see, there is quite a variety in the content. We’ve found most employers will go with the longer option because they think spending 6 hours on a topic means it has more to offer. What they should do, and what we do at SEED, is ask… “What exactly do MY employees need at MY business?”

#3 – NOT SPECIFIC = NOT ENGAGING

Often times, with the off the shelf training courses, you will be provided with a packet of course materials which can later be edited to make them more specific to your business. The content is purchased based on meeting a need, and does not take into consideration the following:

• Audience
• Training gaps
• Delivery method
• Branded training

Without considering these items, the training has to be packaged for simplicity and ease of use. The vendors need a cheap packet of materials that meets safety regulations, looks nice, and sits at a well-designed price point. What then happens is that businesses delivers the courses as they were developed. As a result, employees will not connect with the training or the instructor (regardless of their experience) for the following reasons.

• No connection to content because it “doesn’t apply to me”. This often happens after they see one detail that is not consistent with your business.
• Lack of engagement due to one of several reasons: course content is not engaging, no company branding, or the employees weren’t involved in the development

As a result, the training will often be delivered awkwardly and provide minimal engagement for the learners.

#4 – COST AND EFFICIENCY

Off the shelf training courses come in a wide variety of delivery methods. The two most common delivery methods are:

• Instructor-led courses – Additional content and site-specific content will need to be added. If this is a video course, a company may even need to create an practical, assessment, or additional content (e.g. the confined space course). In the case of our confined space course, there were significant gaps between what the safety team wanted and what the training included
• E-Learning – These course are often packaged and sent to the client. Customers will then need to pay yearly based on the number of participants that take the course. Like instructor-led courses, additional development may be required

Additionally, the better off-the-shelf courses will typically come with stickers, handouts, pamphlets, development of assessments, course materials, expansion of content or any other training development item can often result in significant expenses for a company. This is where the cheap costs of an off-the-shelf courses end and the real costs begin. These are the “hidden costs” that most businesses don’t consider.

• Trainer – You will often need to hire a trainer or have someone conduct the training. Maybe this course could have been virtual/e-learning, but the only option was instructor-led training.
• Seat Hours – Courses designed for broad audiences have much more content than they need. Additionally, they don’t target specific audiences. Why is this so? This ensures they “cover all of their bases”. Let’s do some quick math on one particular example, where we shortened a 8-hour course to 4-hours and identified the actual audience that needed it.
  • Previous Course “Seat Time Cost”: (Duration: 8-hour course) x (75 employees) x (Pay rate of $40/hour) = $24,000
  • SEED Custom Course “Seat Time Cost”: (Duration: 4-hour course) x (20 employees) x (Pay rate of $40/hr) = $3,200
• Additional Training – Because every off-the-shelf course seeks to meet every business needs, they will inevitably miss some important information for your business. This averages out to a need for additional training on the course you purchased. This can be as small as 15 minutes, or even as long as several hours.

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The off the shelf training courses have benefits to many customers. Often times, they can meet the needs of their safety and training teams. However, more often, the courses are inconsistent with company policies, vary widely in content, lack real learner engagement, and end up resulting in significantly increased costs. The additional hours your employees spend in unfocused training, additional training requirements, and need for a trainer are the big price businesses pay after they have saved so much on their off-the-shelf training option was selected.