Why the best e-learning content comes from employees: Your team has so much potential

Creating e-learning content can be tedious if you have no e-learning strategy or a poor one in your company. An e-learning strategy is always oriented towards the learning objectives of the target group. And depending on the topic, the best experts are among your own employees. A fixed component of your e-learning strategy should therefore be content creation by employees. This article shows you exactly what that means and how you, too, can turn employees into enthusiastic "content creators."

Letting employees create e-learning content

In many companies, this misconception is widespread: e-learning content must be created by experts – possibly even by external ones. But this often makes e-learning in companies an inflexible and, in the worst case, even boring experience.

Because while external experts bring many necessary skills to create and structure high-quality content, the content from your employees breathes life into the whole thing.

E-learning content from employees offers these advantages:

• Employees create particularly valuable e-learning content because they have a deep understanding of the subject matter.
• Colleagues enjoy watching content from other colleagues. A familiar face not only motivates people to click on learning content but also makes the overall learning experience more relatable.
• Employees contribute practical experience and provide other colleagues with "insider knowledge."
• Employees feel valued when they are asked for their expertise and are allowed to share it.

Asking for content – here's how

The advantages are obvious. But how do you get the desired content now? Think about how you want to ask for e-learning content from employees. "Volunteers forward" is unfortunately not the best solution. Because you probably know how it goes: either no one volunteers or the same person always volunteers.

Instead, establish appropriate communication channels. How do you ask for content? Informally in passing when the opportunity arises? Or formally within a defined framework? The format should fit your company culture and also depends on whether you have, for example, designated personnel such as an e-learning manager.

Little effort, but a lot of impact

You might be worried about the thought that content creation by employees takes a lot of time. Time that your employees should rather invest in their day-to-day business. That is a legitimate concern. But anyone who follows a clear strategy for this will achieve a lot of impact with little effort.

Because the creation of so-called "content pieces," i.e., individual pieces of content for your e-learning platform, can happen almost "on the side." Even short videos or audio recordings can be very educational and are quickly created. Simple recordings with a smartphone camera or smartphone microphone are sufficient for this.

Make it easy for your employees by planning a kick-off meeting. Here you can give your employees tips and tricks, as well as tools, for designing new e-learning content. If you employ an e-learning manager, organizing such a meeting would be their task.

After this meeting, employees should know how to, for example, record a short video of a task. Think, for instance, of kitchen staff demonstrating a cutting technique or office staff recording a short video tutorial for new colleagues using a screen recording.

The created content will be sent to the responsible person for review, such as the manager or the e-learning manager. After the first few rounds, it could well be that the quality is already so good that your employees upload content directly into the LMS platform.

Conclusion: You would be surprised at how much potential is in your team

Anyone who does not actively involve their employees in the creation of learning content is wasting a great opportunity. Because your team knows the company, the tasks, and the associated challenges best. Better than any external e-learning expert.

It would be a pity if you did not use this "insider knowledge" of your employees for onboarding and for training in the company. So give your team the chance to create high-quality and educational e-learning content.

Do you want to involve employees more strongly in your e-learning strategy? Or are you still at the beginning of your e-learning project? As a sparring partner, we will develop an optimal solution together with you. Book a free initial consultation now!