Beyond Training Management, here is What Your LMS Should Really Do

Learning management systems emerged to help organizations supplement classroom learning. It was a tool designed to help with learning management and administration, but it didn't provide much else. The world for which these systems were created has now changed, and the learning management systems (LMS) of the past do not fit in this new world where learner experience is the most essential part of learning, especially as more experiences move online.

While training and learning management remain important LMS functions, today's world demands LMS platforms to deliver much more. These systems now need to deliver advanced features and functionalities to;

• Help organizations navigate their skill gaps.
• encourage lifelong learning.
• Help them accelerate innovation.
• Enhance competitiveness.

Here are a few things that an LMS should deliver besides training management.

Competency Development

Traditionally, skill identification and development tasks were solely the responsibility of the learning and development teams. They identified what the learners or the organization needed in terms of skills and created those training programs. The challenge with this approach is that it is not an agile process and is driven by individual gut feelings.

As organizations navigate constant change, technological advancements take place at breakneck speed, and upskilling and reskilling initiatives become crucial, organizations must become more agile and responsive to learning demands.

Unlike a traditional LMS platform that relies heavily on gut feeling and demands effort-intensive processes to create and disseminate programs, a modern LMS augments competency development efforts with ease. A comprehensive LMS platform enables organizations to hear the learner's voice and identify their precise and relevant training needs, making all programmes learner-centered.

With data-backed insights, organizations can augment their teams' competency development, upskilling, and reskilling initiatives. They can implement the culture of continuous learning with ease while ensuring that the learning strategy is aligned with business needs.

Meet Compliance Requirements

Navigating the compliance chasm is crucial for all organizations today. However, this becomes a conundrum for heavily regulated industries such as government bodies, healthcare, banking and finance, etc., where changing rules and regulations are a constant.

In healthcare, For example, there is a growing gap between medical advances and the working staff at every level of the industry. Constant technological advancements in the manufacturing, banking, and finance sectors keep regulatory bodies on their toes.As a result, effectively developing and delivering comprehensive and complete compliance training for OSHA, SOX, HIPAA, JCAHO, ISO, FDA, EPA, and other regulations becomes critical.

Organizations, as such, need to ensure timely deployment and completion of mandated requirements and also have comprehensive reporting capabilities for ease of tracking and record-keeping.

Traditional LMS platforms do not add this competency to the learning and development teams. A modern, unified LMS system, however, makes this complex task simple, quick, and easy.

Also read: Get your compliance training done.

Make New Employee Onboarding Easy

While the world of work assumes a hybrid role, organizations now need to enhance online interactions to mimic offline ones. Onboarding becomes one such area that can greatly benefit from this facelift since its objective is to integrate new members into the organization so that they feel one with it.

A good onboarding process not only makes information dissemination easier but also enhances employee experience and engagement.

• Research shows that 86% believe that great onboarding improves employee retention by 82%.
• New employees with great onboarding experiences are 18X more committed to their employers.
• Structured onboarding can also help organizations improve their year-on-year revenue by 60% while a negative experience can make new hires two times more likely to look out for other jobs in the near future!

Building customized programmes to accelerate new-hire connections, delivering timely training and assignments, and reducing the ramp-up times for new employees all contribute to positive onboarding experiences. With a comprehensive LMS platform, organizations can create and disseminate compelling, customized, and successful onboarding programmes that mimic offline experiences. This promotes faster time-to-performance, increases retention rates, achieves higher employee engagement, and elevates the employer's brand and reputation.

Leadership Development

Leadership development has assumed critical priority as the work world emerges from the impact of the pandemic. That, coupled with new generations entering the workforce, technology advancement, constantly shifting market forces, global markets, and disparate teams, demand a major leadership skill shift.

Leaders today must constantly work on enhancing their skill sets and embracing new, in-demand skills. While advancing technical training and competency is essential, developing crucial leadership skills like communication, EQ, empathy, etc. becomes non-negotiable.

Robust leadership development now needs a comprehensive, unified LMS to capably build personalized learning paths with curated content and assessments. The learning and development teams also need a robust LMS to create and disseminate important training programs. These programmes can be supplemented with webinars to supplement online learning and bring people together, present visual data easily, and stimulate discussion to drive impact.

Improve your Team's Performance with Active Engagement Elements

Successful learning programs need to be engaging and must reduce cognitive load. These programs need to be customized and allow teams and individuals to enhance learning. Active engagement elements like gamification, badges, certifications, etc. become important elements that enable the same.

These active engagement elements successfully build learning pathways leading to certifications and integrate assessments to ensure the readiness of the team. These features enable learners to print and display certificates as well as share Gameboard badges earned as part of their learning journey.

They can also leverage the collaboration tools offered by the LMS to share tips and tricks for increasing informal learning. Mobile accessibility enables anywhere-anytime learning and further encourages healthy competition among trainees and motivates them to perform better.

These engagement elements ensure that the learner is not a passive recipient of information but remains actively engaged with the course content. Higher learner satisfaction rates and improved learning outcomes with lower cognitive load emerge as organic consequences of this move.

In Conclusion

A comprehensive, AI-powered LMS offers a host of features and functionalities. It would be a shame if these were not used to enhance and improve organizational outcomes. This is especially important as the push towards continuous learning has increased and many organizations are looking at adopting the continuous feedback model. An LMS can be a vital tool to drive enablement at work, drive upskilling initiatives, share information and knowledge, and collaborate better. Connect with us to learn more.