I have had the unique opportunity to serve in all the different roles involved with freelance instructional designers.
First, as a corporate employee working as an Instructional Designer, I got to see the occasional freelancer jump in on a project when we had too much to get done.
Next, as a Performance Development Manager tasked with oversight of Instructional Design, I often hired and managed both instructional design consultants and L&D vendors.
In the next career phase, I was the instructional design consultant working on projects at a variety of corporations.
The next career jump had me finding opportunities for instructional design consultants with corporate clients and making sure all parties were happy with the result.
While my perspective was different in each of these roles, one thing was a constant: Instructional Design Consultants bring a variety of benefits to speed productivity and enhance learning programs. Here are 5 compelling reasons to consider adding an instructional design consultant the next time you have too many projects and not enough people:
1. Expertise and Specialization
Freelance consultants are often seasoned experts with specialized skills in instructional design. These consultants are constantly learning and adding new skill sets to ensure they remain at the forefront of the industry. They stay abreast of the latest trends, technologies, and methodologies in Learning and Development (L&D). Keeping up with these advancements is integral to their professional success and marketability. Essentially, they are paid to be perpetual learners, honing their craft to provide the most innovative and effective solutions.
By bringing this deep expertise to your team, an instructional design consultant can significantly enhance your organization’s capabilities. Your full-time employees benefit from exposure to cutting-edge practices and fresh perspectives that might otherwise be unavailable internally. This collaborative environment fosters professional growth, encouraging your in-house team to adopt new techniques and improve their own skills. This not only enhances the immediate project outcomes but also builds long-term competency within your organization. Ultimately, the presence of an instructional design consultant acts as a catalyst for continuous improvement and innovation, ensuring your L&D initiatives remain dynamic and competitive.
2. Scalability and Flexibility
One of the primary advantages of working with an instructional design consultant is scalability. Most Learning and Development (L&D) departments are staffed to handle the baseline level of projects, ensuring everyday operations run smoothly. However, when unexpected projects arise, or even when anticipated projects demand more resources than your team can handle without compromising other responsibilities, instructional design consultants offer an ideal solution. They can quickly and seamlessly integrate into your team to handle aspects of additional projects, providing the extra capacity needed to maintain productivity across all initiatives. Once the project is complete, the consultant transitions out without any disruption, allowing you to return to your standard operating levels without the complications or costs associated with hiring and potentially laying off full-time staff. In fact, consultants often prefer moving on to new assignments, bringing their expertise to a variety of projects and organizations.
The second advantage is flexibility. Instructional design consultants can adapt their schedules based on your project needs and the availability of content and subject matter experts (SMEs). Whether you need someone to work intensively for a short period or spread their efforts over a longer timeframe with intermittent stops, a consultant can accommodate these requirements. This flexibility is particularly beneficial in L&D, where projects often experience starts and stops due to various dependencies and logistical challenges. By engaging a consultant who can flexibly adjust their hours and availability, you ensure continuity and momentum in your projects, reducing downtime and maintaining progress even through unforeseen delays.
The combination of scalability and flexibility that an instructional design consultant offers ensures that your L&D department can respond dynamically to varying workloads and project demands. This strategic advantage allows you to optimize resources, maintain efficiency, and achieve your organizational objectives with greater agility and effectiveness.
3. Cost-Effectiveness
Hiring a full-time employee involves costs beyond salary, including benefits, training, and overhead. These additional expenses can significantly increase the overall cost of employment, impacting your budget. Benefits such as health insurance, retirement contributions, paid time off, and other perks can add up quickly. Additionally, there are onboarding and training costs to ensure new employees are fully integrated into your company and familiar with its processes and tools. Overhead costs, including workspace, equipment, and administrative support, further compound these expenses.
With a consultant, you can bypass many of these costs. Consultants come ready to contribute from day one, with their training and expertise already in place. You only pay for the specific services you need, precisely when you need them, allowing for a more flexible and targeted allocation of your budget. The absence of long-term financial commitments with consultants provides significant cost savings. You are not obligated to provide benefits, ongoing training, or career development support, which can be substantial investments for full-time employees. Instead, you can direct these savings towards strategic initiatives, technology upgrades, or other areas that drive business growth and innovation.
Another cost-effective aspect of hiring a consultant is the reduction in recruitment and hiring expenses. The process of advertising, interviewing, and onboarding new employees is time-consuming and costly. By letting TrainingPros take on these costs for you, you eliminate these steps, streamlining the process and focusing on immediate project needs.
In essence, the cost-effective nature of hiring an instructional design consultant allows your organization to manage its financial resources more strategically.
4. Access to a Broader Network
If you hire your instructional design consultants through a nation-wide specialized company such as TrainingPros, you have access network of 15,000 professionals, including graphic designers, e-learning developers, project managers, or any other skill required on the project. This network will allow you to contract specialists for your project, ensuring that every aspect of your instructional design needs is met with the highest level of expertise. When you work with a company like TrainingPros, you’re not just gaining one individual’s expertise but tapping into a collective pool of knowledge and skills.
In addition, leveraging this network can lead to faster project turnaround times. When specific expertise is needed, we can quickly bring in the right resources without the delays associated with recruiting, hiring, and onboarding new employees. Or worse, trying to train the skill needed in-house. This agility ensures that your projects proceed smoothly and are completed on schedule, even when they involve multifaceted elements that require collaboration from various experts.
10 Interview Questions to Ask an Instructional Design Consultant
5. Tailored Solutions
Every organization is unique, and so are its learning and development needs. While off-the-shelf solutions might seem less expensive initially, they often come with ongoing costs and limitations that can add up over time. These generic solutions are not customized to fit your specific corporate culture, goals, and challenges, potentially resulting in lower engagement and effectiveness.
Organizations frequently hire instructional design consultants to support eLearning for business initiatives such as employee onboarding, compliance training, leadership development, customer education, sales enablement, and technology adoption. Because every organization has different goals, audiences, systems, and performance requirements, customized learning solutions often deliver stronger results than generic, off-the-shelf content.
By partnering with an instructional design consultant from a company like TrainingPros, you receive fully customized content that reflects your organization’s unique environment and objectives. This tailored approach ensures that the training materials resonate with your employees, fostering greater engagement and more impactful learning outcomes.
One of the key benefits of working with a consultant is that your company owns the content and source files. This ownership translates into significant long-term cost savings. You are free from residual fees and ongoing payments typically associated with proprietary, off-the-shelf solutions. Additionally, you have the flexibility to update and modify the content as your business evolves, without incurring extra costs for maintenance or upgrades.
5 Reasons to Hire an Instructional Design Consultant
When Should You Hire an Instructional Design Consultant?
Many organizations wait until projects are already behind schedule before considering outside support. However, instructional design consultants can provide significant value long before a project reaches a crisis point.
Organizations commonly hire instructional design consultants when launching large initiatives that require specialized expertise or additional capacity. This may include onboarding redesigns, leadership development programs, compliance training, software implementations, sales enablement initiatives, customer education programs, or large-scale eLearning development projects.
Instructional design consultants are also valuable when internal teams are stretched thin. Most Learning and Development departments are staffed to support ongoing work, not sudden increases in project volume. Rather than delaying important initiatives or overloading existing team members, organizations can quickly add a contract instructional designer to increase capacity and maintain project momentum.
Consultants are particularly useful when a project requires expertise that does not exist internally. Whether the need is learning strategy, performance consulting, instructional design, eLearning development, curriculum architecture, or learning technology implementation, bringing in an experienced specialist can help organizations avoid costly mistakes and accelerate results.
If your L&D team has more projects than people, hiring an instructional design consultant may be one of the fastest and most effective ways to keep critical learning initiatives moving forward.
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Does your L&D team have more projects than people?
Many organizations in this position turn to contract instructional designers to scale training without overloading internal teams. If you’re exploring options or comparing eLearning development companies, you should learn more about how organizations design and scale these solutions.
TrainingPros is a learning and development company that connects organizations with experienced instructional designers, eLearning developers, and performance consultants. We’ve been named a Top 20 Staffing Company by Training Industry and a Champion of Learning by the Association for Talent Development (ATD), recognition that reflects our commitment to delivering high-quality, tailored learning solutions.
If your learning initiatives require additional support, whether for a single project or a large-scale rollout, our relationship managers can help you find the right expertise quickly and confidently.
When you have more projects than people™, let TrainingPros find the right consultant to start your project with confidence.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hiring an Instructional Design Consultant
What does an instructional design consultant do?
An instructional design consultant helps organizations create effective learning experiences that improve employee performance and support business goals. Depending on the project, consultants may conduct needs analysis, design curricula, develop training materials, create eLearning courses, facilitate stakeholder discussions, evaluate learning effectiveness, or recommend broader performance improvement solutions.
When should I hire an instructional design consultant?
Organizations often hire instructional design consultants when they have more projects than their internal team can support, need specialized expertise, are implementing a new system or process, launching a major training initiative, or need to accelerate project timelines. Consultants can provide immediate support without the long-term commitment of hiring a full-time employee.
How much does it cost to hire a contract instructional designer?
The cost of hiring an instructional design consultant varies based on experience, project scope, industry expertise, technology requirements, and project duration. Some consultants work on an hourly basis, while others provide project-based pricing. Organizations should evaluate the overall value, expertise, and potential business impact rather than focusing solely on hourly rates.
Can instructional design consultants work remotely?
Yes. Many instructional design consultants work remotely and collaborate effectively using virtual meeting platforms, project management tools, and learning technologies. Remote consulting allows organizations to access specialized talent regardless of geographic location.
What industries hire instructional design consultants?
Instructional design consultants are used across a wide range of industries, including healthcare, financial services, technology, manufacturing, insurance, retail, telecommunications, government, higher education, pharmaceuticals, and professional services. Any organization that needs to improve employee knowledge, skills, or performance may benefit from instructional design consulting services.
Can an instructional design consultant help with eLearning development?
Yes. Many instructional design consultants specialize in eLearning for business and can design, develop, or oversee online learning solutions. They may create custom eLearning courses, blended learning programs, virtual instructor-led training, onboarding programs, compliance training, customer education, and other digital learning experiences tailored to organizational needs.
