Organizations are increasingly outsourcing their training services to instantly increase their training capacity and capabilities — giving them the learning and development (L&D) experts and services needed to deliver training on any topic or scope. These training partners bring to the organization flexible delivery options, scalability and subject matter expertise.

Let’s face it: L&D leaders are busy balancing virtual and hybrid workforces and their training needs across every department and level of leadership. These needs include upskilling; reskilling; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and leadership development, among others. The size and complexity of a training program capable of delivering this kind of expertise and value is daunting — and training can fall short without the use of staff augmentation. L&D leaders frequently express that there is not enough time, staff or expertise on their teams to deliver comprehensive training programs. It’s not surprising, then, that four out of five companies are already using freelancers to deliver where their in-house teams are not.

Because professional development is important and leads to improved employee motivation and engagement, human resources (HR) is taking a bigger role in making sure this development happens by increasingly using outside resources to meet the training needs of the organization. Using an external training partner or business process outsourcing (BPO) has become common practice because of the many advantages that will help build high-performing teams.

Let’s look at the advantages of adopting a BPO strategy for your learning and development initiatives.

Outsourcing Training Talent is a Flexible Solution for the Changing Needs of Your Company

The changing and different demands on a training team require the team to scale and support these training initiatives (often without having enough internal resources). Outsourced L&D talent teams provide your organization a scalable solution to the challenge by providing the right talent at the right time. The agility of outsourcing helps eliminate a backlog of training requests that can often bog down in-house teams.

This flexibility of on-demand training means that teams can receive the training they need when they need it. Engaging these short-term training partners means that in-house teams can offer more training when needed without increasing their full-time headcount. This financial benefit cannot be overlooked when considering direct and indirect costs and how much time it takes to upskill on new topics.

Broaden the Reach of Training Resources to Field Offices and Remote Workforce With a Scalable Solution

The recent surge in employees now working remotely amplifies the complexities of providing consistent and equitable training resources to all employees. Providing training to those working in field and satellite offices has long been a challenge for learning leaders. Outsourced training partners can be utilized in a variety of ways to deliver consistent training at scale.

This new remote workforce has provided many opportunities for new training delivery methods. Delivering content through virtual online platforms such as Zoom has been invaluable over the last two years as many employers and training providers have looked to continue their training in a remote environment.

For example, a Fortune 500 international hotel company used an on-demand learning strategist and dozens of bilingual trainers to roll out technology training to over 25,000 global business managers and associates over a three-week period. The virtual training program ran in seven languages and across 30 countries throughout many time zones, daily. They were able to complete the training project quickly, without disrupting their usual customer service experience. This approach minimized costs and accelerated the delivery speed and scale significantly.

Although virtual training has significantly increased, training is still happening in person. Outsourcing can help in this area as well, since it allows you to tap from a large pool of local talent. Team members in field or satellite offices can receive in-person training from outsourced partners as this talent is more readily available, more geographically diverse and can travel to a company’s location to offer on-demand training.

Leverage Expert Talent From Outside Your Full-time Workforce

Oftentimes, learning strategy, instructional design and content development are not core competencies in organizations. Leaders often find that outsourcing these skills is the best strategy.

Product development, technology adoption, regulatory compliance and many other necessary business priorities require coaches, trainers, content developers and other specialists trained in niche topics that may not already be part of your team. Using an outsourced training provider allows your staff to learn from a subject matter expert that can share their broad experience and training expertise.

For example, a staff trainer could be with the company for five years, but a contractor can bring a depth of experience working with a large number of companies across a variety of industries and disciplines.

Using outsourced L&D talent allows learning leaders to curate worldwide expertise in a variety of different industries, especially when more than one resource is needed. This process ensures that the best strategy is used, which helps reduce time to implementation and integrates best practices, giving your training and development initiative a greater potential for high success.

Partners in High-performing Teams

Training partners can help you leverage on-demand talent to execute training strategies and programs. Through the use of L&D subject matter experts (SMEs), partners can identify training needs and strategies to grow a high-performing team in a model that is scalable, adaptable and robust.

This untapped potential of freelance talent can make experts available in a scalable model that is ready at the right time and place to meet the changing needs of your company and the dynamics of your workforce.

A focus on L&D programs leads to higher employee motivation, lower turnover and improved learner retention. Using an outsourced training organization for these programs can help prevent burnout and can be an on-demand extension of your team. A high-quality partner will also bring innovative learning solutions that accelerate the speed of learning and allow you to offer all the training you need.

To learn more about the benefits of partnering with a training provider, read about the different ways companies are seeing success.