Global Training and the Associated Demand to Offer Training In-language
The COVID pandemic has forced organizations around the globe to shift to working remotely. This is likely to be the paradigm that will persist for the near future, and when things do go back, remote work will likely become a much more common way for many organizations to operate. As these organizations that have gone remote have ensured the continuity of their day-to-day operations, they’re going to start to look at their extended on-going needs and part of that will be training. Companies that have always had the ability to train employees and customers in-person will no longer have that capability and they’re going to look for solutions for remote training. This is going to create a lot of new opportunities in a space that has already been growing rapidly in the past several years.
The Demand for Remote Training Services is Global
What you as an eLearning / remote training specialist needs to consider is that this is a global demand for remote training content and platforms. The impact of the pandemic is global and organizations around the world are all struggling with the same challenges when it comes to trying to develop remote training programs. This is where you can help and at the same time gain exposure to brand new opportunities. By adding the ability to provide your customers with content in multiple languages you are not only serving them better, but you are setting yourself apart from your competitors who are providing their content only in English. Adding multi-language support to your offering may be easier than you realize.
How Can You Support the Global Demand and Capture New Opportunities?
The easiest way to add multi-language support is to work with an eLearning translation service that has well-rounded experience translating a variety of content. Here are the things to look for to determine whether you’re engaging an experienced eLearning translation service:
Do they offer source review / cultural consulting? – Some training content will need to be adapted to be appropriate for the language and culture that you’re targeting. Your translation partner can work as a consultant prior to translation, reviewing your content and offering advice in regards to content that may not translate well, or may not be appropriate for certain cultures. By culturally adapting your content you can make it more effective, and save time and cost by addressing issues prior to the translation process.
What is their quality management process? – You want to see that your eLearning translation service has a formal, documented quality management process. This is especially important when it comes to translation because you likely won’t have a way to assess the quality of the final product.
Do they provide a full-service offering? – Does your provider offer source review & cultural adaptation, engineering, a quality controlled translation process, multilingual audio services, and SCORM testing? The more of these services your eLearning translation service provider offers, the less work that will be required on your end. Ideally, you can provide your translation partner with the English source files and they will send you back fully functional, SCORM tested, foreign language versions.
Where do you start?
The best approach is to be proactive in developing a translation process that will competently allow you to offer multi-language support. This will let you get ahead of new incoming requests, or better yet, proactively offer multi-language support to your end-clients before they even ask for it. By connecting with a few eLearning translation service providers and even just assessing their offering against the above questions you’ll already learn quite a bit and get a great sense of what’s out there.
Once you find the right partner you can lay the framework for your translation process and then the next time an opportunity presents itself, as it undoubtedly will in this “new normal” you will be ready to support your customers as they support their customers and employees all around the world.