Maximizing Employee Training Success with a Learning Management System (LMS)

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, continuous employee training is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Companies are increasingly recognizing the value of investing in their employees' development to improve productivity, boost morale, and stay competitive. Online learning has emerged as a powerful solution for delivering effective and scalable training programs. At the heart of this online revolution lies the Learning Management System (LMS), a software platform designed to streamline the creation, delivery, and management of e-learning content.

The Rise of Online Learning and the Role of LMS

The shift towards online learning has been gaining momentum for years, with Training Magazine's 2019 Training Industry Report revealing that 44% of businesses anticipated investing in online tools and systems to facilitate learning. This trend has only accelerated with the increasing prevalence of remote and semi-remote work environments. While remote companies have been quick to embrace e-learning, almost every organization can benefit from the flexibility and accessibility of an asynchronous learning model.

However, simply creating and hosting online courses is not enough. A well-structured and managed learning program requires a solid foundation, and that's where the LMS comes in. An LMS provides the platform to create, distribute, and manage courses, effectively becoming the central hub for all online learning activities.

What is a Learning Management System (LMS)?

A learning management system (LMS) is a software application used for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, or learning and development programs. It is, in essence, the backbone of any successful online learning initiative. Organizations use LMSs and related software to manage their online learning programs. Similarly, a learning content management system (LCMS) is a platform that gives L&D teams the ability to create and share eLearning and training content online, but focuses more on content authoring and management, rather than the administrative aspects.

Learning management systems first appeared in the higher education sector in the late 1990s. These early LMSs, such as Blackboard and Moodle, were facilitation tools for organizing instructor-led online courses. The software was pretty basic, consisting mostly of defined class modules and assignment-submission features. Most classes involved prerecorded classroom lectures and written course materials.

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In the early 2000s, the corporate world began adopting and adapting LMS software to help meet their learning and development (L&D) needs. With an influx of interest and cash, LMSs evolved from clunky e-learning course-delivery systems to comprehensive online learning platforms with course-building, administration, and analytics features. Today, corporate LMSs are a multi-billion dollar business, with a significant majority of users outside of the education industry.

How LMSs are Used in Employee Training

LMSs empower learning managers to oversee the complete lifecycle of the learning process within a company. They are an indispensable tool for any organization committed to running a comprehensive online learning program.

Course Creation and Delivery: Companies use LMSs to build online courses to train and educate their employees. Some LMSs require a separate authoring tool for course creation, while others let you build directly on their platform.
Content Management: Learning management teams use their LMSs to store, organize, and distribute courses to employees as needed.
Learner Experience: Employees take courses and submit feedback using the LMS interface. A good LMS lets admins monitor employee progress, view analytics, and recalibrate their learning programs for maximum impact.
Program Management: Learning managers also use LMSs to manage learning programs within the company. They assign roles and permissions to different users to designate between teachers and learners. Admins organize courses by subject or create specific tracks that employees follow (for example, an onboarding track for new product managers, or a sales training track). They can then track individual employee’s progress and their feedback.
Personalized Learning: Tailored learning paths provide unlimited access to one source of truth, catering to individual employee needs and fostering continuous development. LMS delivers personalized content to educate and engage your team, ensuring compliance. It lets stakeholders create, manage, and track training to boost engagement and performance.

Benefits of Implementing an LMS for Employee Training

Investing in an LMS can significantly enhance your employee training programs and yield a multitude of benefits:

Increased Employee Satisfaction: Online learning programs are more convenient and more enjoyable than sitting in all-day workshops or long training lectures.
Greater Employee Retention: The link between career development and employee retention has been well established. Helping employees learn new skills and grow on the job is a great way to show your commitment to them. An LMS significantly improves employee retention by providing personalized learning paths and continuous development opportunities.
More Comprehensive Onboarding: A solid onboarding process sets the tone for life at your company and helps engage and hold on to new employees. Studies have shown that a comprehensive onboarding process makes employees more likely to stay at the job for three years or more. Automate new hire training and keep skills sharp with recurring courses, bulk assignments, and targeted learning paths.
Increased Knowledge Retention: Online learning gives employees more control over the learning process. They can take their time learning complicated concepts or go back and review past modules as needed. As a result, the Research Institute of America found that e-learning boosted retention rates significantly.
Reduced L&D Costs: An LMS is an investment in the future of learning in your company. While the costs may be high initially, creating online courses that can be repeated as many times as needed is significantly cheaper than running in-person courses. Many large companies have saved thousands or even millions of dollars by switching to an online learning model.
Easier Team Building: While online learning might seem like a solitary activity, new collaborative learning platforms give you the opportunity to pull employees into the process of assessing training needs, building courses, and leaving feedback.
Better ROI on Training Programs: An LMS gives you the tools you need to measure the efficacy of various educational programs. Fine-tune them to get the best return on investment. Some LMSs integrate with other tools (like Salesforce) so that you see the direct correlation between your training and sales numbers. This data lets you allocate your training resources more effectively so that your training dollars stretch further.
Preservation of Internal Knowledge: Online learning also helps preserve valuable internal knowledge within the company. If employees share their expertise in an online course, it remains there long after they’ve moved on from the company.
Maintaining compliance: An LMS significantly improves employee retention by providing personalized learning paths and continuous development opportunities. Ensure employees get the training they need at the right time, without manual workloads. Avoid work-related fines, minimize illnesses and injuries, and boost morale. With an out-of-the-box Safety Training Bundle, there’s no need to source with multiple vendors and keep files up-to-date over time.

Use Cases for LMS E-Learning in Organizations

Most companies use an LMS to create standard employee trainings, but the possibilities go far beyond that. Here are just some of the ways you could use online learning to enhance your company’s learning programs.

Onboarding: As mentioned above, a strong onboarding process will set the tone for working at your company and will lead to more confident and prepared employees. Organizations that improve their onboarding processes see an increase in new-hire retention and productivity. Onboarding is even more important for remote companies, where employees don’t have the chance to learn from each other in person. A strong remote onboarding process makes up for that knowledge gap and makes sure employees are prepared for both their jobs and their lives at the company.
Technology Upskilling: According to a report by IBM, more than 120 million workers across all industries will need to be retrained or reskilled over the next three years to handle advances in AI automation. Online training programs are one of the most cost-efficient ways to help employees stay up to date with new technology.
Soft Skill Training: Soft skills are some of the hardest to train for. Create courses to teach conflict resolution, leadership, time-management techniques, and more.
Sales Enablement: Sales teams benefit from in-depth product training starting from onboarding and moving forward throughout their career. Increasingly, we're seeing a move towards using an LMS to facilitate remote sales training.
Compliance Training: An LMS is perfect for running compliance training to mitigate company liability and risk because there is a clear record that the employee completed the training. Courses on workplace safety, harassment training, and diversity training all reduce risk and encourage a happier, safer work environment.
Customer Training: You don’t have to limit your course offerings to people inside your organization. Some companies use their LMS to educate potential clients, onboard new customers, or teach existing customers about new features. Creating a standardized online course is more cost-effective than arranging in-person training for each and every customer.

Types of Learning Management Software

While learning management systems have become the standard term for software that facilitates online learning, there are several adjacent types of learning solutions. Some overlap with LMSs and some serve an entirely different purpose.

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All of the learning management acronyms are quite confusing: LMS, TMS, LXP, etc. It’s important to understand the distinctions of each so that you choose the right system to meet your needs.

LMS: Learning Management System: As discussed above, an LMS is a software for managing online learning programs. These platforms facilitate online learning and are a high-level solution for creating, managing, and delivering courses. Moodle, Coursera, Blackboard, and Adobe Captivate are examples of a traditional LMS.
LXP: Learning Experience Platform: A learning experience platform (LXP, or sometimes LEP), helps distribute courses to employees in an engaging and interactive way. LXPs have some overlap with LMSs (and many new LMSs have built-in LXP solutions) but often you need both for an effective learning experience. An LXP personalizes the employee’s learning experience. Instead of an admin assigning relevant courses, employees explore the courses on offer and select those that interest them. It is course content on-demand, kind of like Netflix. Traditional LMS systems were not designed to be employee-centric. They were created to make managing and distributing courses easier for L&D departments. LXPs, on the other hand, offer a better experience for the learner. They are stand-alone portals for viewing and interacting with content. They provide intuitive design, interactive features, and on-demand access to e-learning content.
Collaborative Learning Platform: Collaborative learning platforms are a new breed of online learning software that decentralizes the learning process to create a more democratic learning environment. 360Learning is a collaborative learning platform. While traditional LMSs and LXPs put the onus of course creation on the L&D department, collaborative learning platforms make it possible for anyone in the company to create learning content. Employees identify training needs and make course requests. Other employees volunteer to meet those needs and create courses. Administrators help prioritize learning needs and oversee course quality. Learning coaches create learning paths for individual employees. Whereas LMSs and LXPs offer more traditional top-down approaches, from leader to employee, a collaborative learning platform is bottom-up. This bottom-up approach to course creation is faster, more relevant, and more impact-driven than the traditional centralized approach. The concept of continuous iteration is embedded in the collaborative learning process. People are constantly making requests, creating new courses, and leaving feedback on courses. This results in significantly higher engagement and course completion rates. Overall, the company learns faster and more efficiently.
TMS: Training Management System: The difference between an LMS and a traditional training management system (TMS) is subtle but extremely important. TMSs are not used to organize online learning programs. They instead help organizations optimize back-office training practices for in-person or online instructor-led training. This software is used to do things like schedule courses, handle logistics, manage resources, and track attendance for live training sessions.

Key Features to Look for in an Employee Training LMS

When selecting an LMS for employee training, consider the following essential features:

Intuitive User Interface: An LMS should be easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to like, with an intuitive interface that both administrators and learners can navigate effortlessly.
Mobile Accessibility: Ensure that the LMS offers a responsive design, allowing employees to access training materials anytime, anywhere, on any device.
Customizable Learning Paths: The LMS should support customizable learning paths, enabling organizations to tailor training programs to specific job roles and individual employee needs.
Content Management Capabilities: Look for content management capabilities that support various media formats and assessment tools.
Reporting and Analytics: A good LMS provides robust reporting and analytics features, allowing administrators to monitor employee progress, track completion rates, and measure the effectiveness of training programs.
Integration with Other Systems: Consider whether the LMS integrates with other tools and platforms used within the organization, such as HR systems, CRM software, and communication platforms.
Scalability: Choose an LMS that can scale alongside the company, accommodating a growing number of users and courses without compromising performance.
Automation: Automate new hire training and keep skills sharp with recurring courses, bulk assignments, and targeted learning paths.
AI-Powered Features: Embrace AI to generate comprehensive training content quickly and efficiently.

Choosing the Right LMS for Your Organization

Selecting the best LMS for your employee training needs requires careful consideration of your organization's specific requirements, budget, and goals. Here are some steps to guide you through the selection process:

Define Your Objectives: Clearly define your online training objectives and business goals. What do you want to achieve with employee training? What skills do you need to develop?
Know Your Audience: Identify your learning strategy requirements by understanding your audience and their learning preferences.
Determine Your Needs: Distinguish your needs by determining business goals and objectives.
Research and Compare: Explore the market and research different LMS vendors. Read LMS reviews and view ratings in niche directories.
Ask for Recommendations: Ask friends and colleagues which solutions they are using.
Evaluate Features: Take a closer look at the features offered by each LMS. Do they align with your needs and objectives?
Consider Success Stories: Look for success stories from other companies that have used the LMS.
Request a Demo or Free Trial: Request a demo or start a free trial to experience the LMS firsthand.
Pricing and Budget: Take into account how much you are willing to spend. Then you need to figure out what you need to accomplish.
Evaluate Vendors: When you end up with your top candidates, you can start evaluating vendors.

Overcoming Challenges and Ensuring LMS Implementation Success

Implementing an LMS is not without its challenges. Here are some common hurdles and strategies to overcome them:

Resistance to Change: Employees may resist adopting a new learning system. Communicate the benefits of the LMS and provide adequate training and support to encourage adoption.
Lack of Engagement: Ensure that the training content is engaging and relevant to employees' needs. Use a variety of media formats and interactive elements to keep learners motivated.
Technical Issues: Provide technical support to help employees troubleshoot any issues they may encounter.
Content Creation: Developing high-quality training content can be time-consuming. Consider using ready-made courses or partnering with a content provider to supplement your internal resources.

The Future of LMS in Employee Training

The field of learning management systems is constantly evolving, driven by technological advancements and changing learning preferences. Here are some trends to watch for in the future:

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Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI is being integrated into LMS platforms to personalize learning experiences, automate tasks, and provide data-driven insights.
Microlearning: Short, focused learning modules are becoming increasingly popular as they are easier to consume and retain.
Gamification: Incorporating game-like elements into training programs can increase engagement and motivation.
Social Learning: Collaborative learning platforms are fostering a more social and interactive learning environment.
Integration with other HR Technologies: Seamless integration with HRIS, performance management and talent acquisition systems for a unified employee experience.

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