Why Vendors Provide Free Online Courses?

Modern corporate world is the world of cut-throat competition and a continuous race for the top.  In this scenario, perennial learning is what equips an employee to be at par with the demands of his job and of the industry. With the advent of technology-aided learning and multi-device delivery, learners are able to learn anytime and anywhere – as per their needs and convenience. To deliver the learning and manage the learners’ progress, Learning Management Systems were implemented to help learners access and consume online learning in a continuous manner.

Traditionally, LMSs were used to only as a platform of learning dissemination and management of learners. But more and more organizations and learners are questioning the utility of a system which entails considerable investments out of the training budget. The main concern for many L&D managers when they plan for an enterprise-wide LMS implementation is the steady availability of e-content.

Since Learning Management System implementations do not come cheap, they want the system to be fully utilized by the learners and this is possible only if the system has pertinent content for the consumptions of the learners. That is why many organizations prefer to choose LMS vendors who provide ready-to-use free online courses to kick start the e-learning initiative. These free online courses are often included in the entire cost of LMS implementation and thus come ‘free’ along with the system.

The courses available are often generic in nature – including courses on employee development or soft skills. Thus they can be utilized across the organization and by all learner groups.

For vendors who have a huge variety of free online courses, an organizational survey can be conducted prior to the LMS implementation where the needs of the learners can be assessed and certain gaps can be identified. The course selection can thus be aligned to the needs of the learners or a group of learners within a department. This approach makes sure that the content available is useful to the learners and thus provides the necessary ‘push’ for learning.

The availability of such ready-to-use free online courses make sure that the L&D managers within the organization can focus more on custom courses built for specific learning needs within the organization. This makes sure that while custom content has their special attention, the other learning needs of the employees do not go ignored.

Free online courses provided by LMS vendors can also make sure that there is a variety of content available in the system. This increases the appeal of the system for the learner and increases its perceived utility as well.