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Training is a necessary investment for businesses, but it can be more time-consuming and less effective than managers might like. Businesses can streamline training, performance tracking, and onboarding by adopting a learning management system (LMS). Properly implemented, a learning management system can bring five productivity benefits by making a training program more flexible, easier to deliver, and easier to monitor. First, to understand how an LMS can deliver these productivity benefits, you need to know what the software does and how, how it works, and how organizations use it.

A Very Short Introduction to Learning Management Systems

A learning management system delivers online learning but that is only a fraction of what these systems do. An LMS also tracks each student’s learning, allows administrators to track progress, helps trainers or educators upload learning materials, and more. Numerous companies offer a learning management system, at a variety of price points, from almost nothing to hundreds of dollars a month depending on the subscription plan, the number of users, features, and a few other variables.

Most learning management system software can:

• Deliver and record compliance training
• Handle onboarding
• Offer continuing education or professional development courses
• Monitor progress and performance
• Support for learners with hearing or vision problems.

The pricier systems also support additional activities and functions. Course creation is one example where some products do not include course creation tools; others have simple features and a few offer advanced tools for creating self-paced learning and testing. Some software enables gamification and mobile learning. Any LMS should also support communication via chatrooms or video conferencing.

Bear in mind that a learning management system can be a powerful tool but buying and implementing one is not always easy. Users need to load some or all of their courses and training material. They may also be responsible for design work, to make the user interface match their brand. Getting the LMS set up and ready to serve the company’s training needs can take time and money so that should be considered as well.

Benefits of Learning Management Systems

Faster On-Boarding

Every business does some training on business practices and policies. Some of the learning is one-on-one. Other times, employees sit and read documents then click some boxes to indicate they read and understood the material. Other training may be done in a classroom or a webinar. Whatever the medium and method, a learning management system can speed up the time it takes to get a new employee trained and oriented. In a larger organization or one where high turnover is the norm, cutting this process from eight hours of work to six, adds up to substantial savings over the fiscal year. However, the real benefits come with ongoing training and professional development.

Streamlined Training

In-person training is effective and can be essential for some things. Making sure your employees know how to use Slack or SharePoint is different. Self-paced training that an employee completes on-site while between other things, saves time. Those employees can do things that add value versus traveling to and from a training site.

Many online learning vendors sell courses that buyers can run in their own LMS. Having an LMS may open up other opportunities for custom learning designed by the company. Numerous software development firms offer custom LMS implementations and even custom e-learning development so clients can increase their employees’ effectiveness.

Improved Performance

Ideally, most training gives an employee a new skill that makes them more productive in their assigned duties. Measuring soft skills can be tough, but with many skills, you can quantify an individual’s performance. This could be as simple as measuring data entry speed and accuracy or tracking what percent of prospects your sales team can turn into clients. An increase from 3% to 4% for the same amount of labor would be a huge improvement. Managers and executives can use the LMS to easily see how employees are doing in their training.

Easier Tracking of Employee Learning

This is a benefit to employees, who can see their skills increasing and measure their performance on various tests and exercises. Managers and executives can also see how employees are progressing through their courses, mandatory compliance, and training. This can save a little time and trouble because managers are not stopping work to check here and there for information. The biggest single productivity gain may be in the area of skill development. A good reporting and tracking mechanism also helps managers see who is not learning what they should and who might need training on a certain skill.

Faster Upskilling

Imagine a mid-sized firm that sells insurance to companies around the United States. They have a business development team that relies on some traditional prospecting tactics and a few modern tactics like sending personalized messages to executives they find on LinkedIn. A new prospecting strategy might allow them to get more leads in less time. Using on-demand training makes it easy enough for the team to study this new and better method while doing their other work. Most of the team finishes the self-paced training while they might have been waiting for a traditional workshop to start. Instead of being in that three-day workshop and not out looking for prospects, they are not using their training to contact prospects and potentially turn more of them into customers.

A Powerful Tool for Training and Productivity

A business can realize several benefits by using a learning management system to handle training, onboarding, and performance management. The LMS speeds up onboarding and training while also saving the time and money that traditional training can cost. However, adopting a learning management system can be complicated. Contact DevDigital to talk about your learning management system needs and plans.