Yesterday, we shared “When to Partner with a Third Party for Training Programs.” Today’s post will explore more avenues for how you can partner with a third party once you’ve determined that it’s lucrative do so.
First, it’s important to recognize that it only makes sense to partner with third-party entities for your training programs when they offer something that your own learning and development (L&D) team or department lacks, such as a specialized knowledge base, specialized skills, high-quality content, technology, esteemed credentials, etc.
Here are some ideas for how you can partner with third parties for your training programs.
Customized Certifications and Courses
You will want to consider working with organizations that can offer your employees important and esteemed credentials. For instance, you can work with credentialed professionals to customize programs for your specific organization where your employees can receive an official certificate in workplace violence prevention or mental health awareness.
Or, you might want to partner with organizations like the Project Management Institute®, for example, to officially certify your employees in project management. And you’ll especially want to think about partnering with business schools at colleges or universities to create courses or opportunities in leadership and management that are tailor-made for the employees at your organization.
Integrated Technology and Online Platforms
Consider whether the third-party entity you want to partner with will be able to offer your employees access to new and high-quality learning platforms that they don’t currently use.
For instance, will employees be able to access virtual-reality training headsets with the third party you’re working with to develop your next safety training? Or, will they be able to access online courses through the third party’s learning platform that will easily integrate with your own learning management system? Or, is there any other type of technology or software that your organization can benefit from using or leasing when it partners with a third party to develop training courses and programs of any type?
Curated Content
If you haven’t already, you’ll want to work with third-party entities to generate more learning content for your employees. It’s becoming imperative to personalize each employee’s development and learning path at your organization, and that will be nearly impossible without curating content.
Some employees will want additional learning resources about management, while others will want to know more about coding, etc. So, when working with any third party to develop training programs, seek out ways that you can share content it has already generated or that it already relies on—content that was originally developed by a trusted and reputable source.
For instance, if you’re working with a university to develop a business management training program for your employees, you will want to curate content its faculty has generated, as well as content that its faculty uses for its coursework, including any studies it has worked on with reputable corporations.
Keep in mind that the above ideas are only the tip of the iceberg and that partnerships with third-party entities for training programs are at their best when they promote genuine collaboration and mutually beneficial relationships and are entirely customized.