“Why do I need an LMS?” That’s a question that you’ve probably asked if you’re a small or medium business.
The answer is that many businesses of similar size are already using an LMS to gain a competitive edge.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a lot of people to work – and access training – from home. Now, many employees want the option of continuing to work remotely. While the option for remote work is an attractive perk for current or prospective employees, it makes in-person gatherings for learning and development (L&D) programs much less feasible.
The good news is that most businesses can supplement (or replace) traditional instructor-led training with an LMS. With an LMS and an internet connection, employees can access learning and training anytime, anywhere. In fact, many companies are finding it more efficient to just skip the physical classroom.
Besides ease of access, there are several other reasons for purchasing an LMS:
Increased Learner Engagement and Retention: Using an LMS allows your employees to take more of the initiative in their own learning. E.g., they can do the following:
- Assess what they currently know and what they need to learn
- Set their own learning goals
- Choose the resources and courses they’ll use to achieve those goals
When they’re able to take charge of their learning, employees become more deeply engaged. In addition, they can absorb material from the self-paced courses within an LMS at a speed that works for them.
Easing Administrative Burden and Evaluation of Learning: Recording and analyzing the results of training initiatives is tedious and time-consuming for your instructors and L&D administrators. Another time stealer is managing the learning function (e.g., enrollments, course cataloging, classroom facilitation, etc.)
An LMS can track and analyze results in real time and automatically administer learning functions. That gives L&D staff more time for higher-level tasks:
- New content creation
- One-on-one coaching
- Analyzing and assessing the success of the training program from a global perspective
Solving Company-Wide Needs: Using an LMS makes it much easier to deliver training to a wide range of employees across your business. E.g., employees will have fast, easy access to compliance training or standardized exercises. Adding new information about products or services to courses is also quicker and easier. As a result, sales, customer service, marketing, and other departments will have easy access to the latest information. And if you hire a lot of employees, the system can help you deliver orientation sessions for new hires.
In the end, you have the final say about whether or not your organization needs an LMS. So, ask yourself: are there components of your training that could be more efficiently managed and deployed using self-paced online training and automatic tracking of results? If so, an LMS could be a great asset.
Once you’ve decided to integrate an LMS into your L&D program, you’ll need to find the one that best suits your needs. We’ll cover the most popular features in an upcoming post. In the meantime, learn more about LMS basics with our white paper “What is an LMS? Definition and Features.”