What is on-demand training?
On-demand training makes courses and resources available to employees anytime, anywhere, without a scheduled session. Also called just-in-time training or asynchronous learning, the approach has been part of corporate training for years. Remote and hybrid work have raised the stakes: employees now expect to find the knowledge they need the moment they need it, not two weeks from now when a facilitator is free.
With on-demand e-learning, employees study at their own pace and apply new knowledge right away. That timing matters. When someone learns something and uses it the same day, they retain it far better than when days pass between learning and application.
On-demand versus instructor-led training: when each wins
On-demand training and instructor-led training are not competing philosophies. They solve different problems. Knowing which to reach for saves time and produces better results.
Instructor-led training works well when the learning depends on real-time conversation: onboarding cohorts that benefit from shared experience, workshops where peer discussion is half the value, or sensitive topics like leadership development where a facilitator can read the room and adjust. If the goal is building relationships or working through complex scenarios together, a scheduled session usually wins.
On-demand training works better for everything else. A new sales rep who joins mid-quarter cannot wait for the next product training cycle. A warehouse supervisor who needs a safety refresher before a shift cannot pull the team off the floor for a full day. A customer service agent who hits an unfamiliar product question needs an answer in two minutes.
The honest version: most organizations rely too heavily on scheduled delivery for content that could be self-serve. If employees are sitting through a one-hour session to get twenty minutes of information they actually need, that is a scheduling problem, not a learning problem.
As a rough guide:
- Use instructor-led training for onboarding cohorts, leadership development, and anything that needs live discussion or practice
- Use on-demand training for product knowledge, compliance refreshers, process guides, and anything employees need at the moment of doing the work
- Use both together when a topic needs a live introduction followed by reference materials employees can return to
To go deeper on the differences, read our article on asynchronous versus synchronous learning.
Why on-demand learning works
The shift from scheduled to on-demand is not just about convenience. It changes how learning connects to work.
Think about the moments scheduled training cannot serve. A new sales rep joins mid-quarter and needs to get up to speed before their first customer call. A warehouse supervisor needs a safety refresher before a shift, not after. A customer service agent hits a product question they have not seen before and needs an answer in two minutes.
On-demand training is built for those moments. Here is what that looks like in practice:
- Employees choose when they learn, which increases engagement because the learning fits their workflow rather than interrupting it
- Employees can apply new knowledge right away, which improves retention compared to learning delivered weeks before it is needed
- Content stays relevant because it is created in-house by the people who know the work, not outsourced to a vendor who has never seen your processes
- Costs drop because you are not booking rooms, paying facilitators, or pulling teams off the floor for a full day
- Training time shrinks because learners only take what they need, when they need it
How to implement on-demand training in your organization
Getting an on-demand training programme off the ground does not require a full L&D overhaul. It requires three things: the right platform, the right people involved, and a feedback loop that keeps content sharp.
Get an on-demand learning platform
The platform you choose determines how easy it is for employees to create, find, and complete on-demand content. A tool that requires IT support to publish a course will not scale. One that lets a subject-matter expert build a short course in an afternoon will.
Look for a platform that handles creation, sharing, and tracking in one place. On-demand training only works if employees can actually find what they need. If content is buried in a shared drive or spread across three systems, the strategy falls apart before it starts.
Easygenerator is built for this. Subject-matter experts can build a course without L&D involvement, using how-to guides, checklists, and structured course templates. The result is a library of company-tailored content that employees can search and access whenever they need it.
Involve your team
On-demand training works best when content comes from the people who actually do the work, not just the L&D team. A single L&D professional cannot know every process, every product update, or every compliance requirement across the business. The managers, team leads, and subject-matter experts who run those areas do.
Bring them in early. Show them how quick it is to create a short course or a how-to guide. When they see that publishing a resource takes an hour rather than a month-long production cycle, most are willing to contribute.
Also make sure employees know the library exists and how to search it. A well-built course that nobody finds does not help anyone.
DHL took this approach when it needed to scale training across a global workforce. Meredith Wellard, VP Group Talent Acquisition, Learning and Growth at DHL, found that bringing subject-matter experts into the content creation process was the only realistic way to meet demand. The L&D team could not produce everything on their own. When subject-matter experts were given a tool they could actually use, the library grew fast and the content stayed close to the work.
Use data and feedback to improve over time
Once your on-demand training is live, the data tells you what is working. Look at which courses have high completion rates and which ones employees abandon halfway through. High drop-off on a specific module usually means the content is too long, too generic, or not relevant to the moment employees are in when they open it.
Feedback from learners fills the gaps that analytics miss. A short survey at the end of a course asking “Did this help you do your job better?” gives you more useful signal than completion rates alone. Use both to decide what to update, what to retire, and what to build next.
On-demand training and in-person training: do you need both?
On-demand and in-person training are not competing approaches. They serve different purposes.
On-demand learning handles the knowledge employees need to find quickly, revisit regularly, or complete at their own pace. In-person or live-virtual sessions work better when real-time discussion, practice, or collaboration matters: leadership development, complex role-plays, or team alignment workshops.
The clearest way to choose is to ask whether the learning requires a group to work. If employees can absorb it alone and apply it immediately, on-demand wins. If the value comes from the room, keep it live.
Most organisations that do this well use a blended model. On-demand content covers foundational knowledge, procedures, and quick references. Scheduled sessions focus on the conversations and exercises that genuinely require a group.
Electrolux is one example. Cecilie Tystad, Training Director of Sales & Service at Electrolux, used Easygenerator to build a library of on-demand content that freed up live training time for the conversations that mattered most, rather than spending session time on content employees could read on their own.
Create on-demand training with Easygenerator
Easygenerator is an authoring tool built for subject-matter experts. That means anyone on your team can create on-demand courses and resources without needing design skills or L&D experience.
With How-to guides, Checklists, and ready-made course templates, your team can build a just-in-time resource in an afternoon and publish it the same day. L&D keeps oversight and quality control. The rest of the business contributes the knowledge they actually have.
If you are ready to give employees training they can access on their own terms, start with Easygenerator.
