LMS For Corporate Learning: An Organizational Perspective

In the competitive business world, ROI of every investment within the organizational structure is of prime importance. With technology-aided learning, e-courses are now readily available for the learners’ consumption anytime and anywhere. Learning Management Systems are put in place to make learning available in an easily accessible manner. But at the same time, organizations have to be concerned about the costs of using learning management systems to train employees. It takes considerable time and money to create and implement an organization-wide training program. Then there’s the ongoing need to update courses, create new learning content, and implement a LMS that has all the best features. Learning Management Systems today need to be equipped to do much more than making e-content available and tracking the learners’ progress. They need to create a sustainable system of training support that reinforces learning, assesses learners, provide intelligent inputs on the way forward for future learning and more.

According to a recent survey, there are some emerging trends which all organizations should keep in mind when choosing the appropriate Learning Management System and implementing it for continuous learning delivery.

• Most modern corporate LMSsare designed specifically to align to the needs of corporate learning, as opposed to being only academic-driven.
• LMSs are often rejected due to the lack of features that most corporate learners want. Many such LMS do not have the ability to schedule and conduct live instructor-led sessions.
• LMS vendors with multiple implementation and training options are now preferred because there is a perceptible shift towards SaaS learning management systems.
• Customer service and ease-of-use were the main areas of any LMS that can support a better outcome for learners.
• A system that can handle varying user load whileproviding users a much more pleasant experience is most preferred.
• Learning management system should provide effective learning and recall later on-the-job – and hence better ROI.
• The learning platform can be a powerful way to market the brand of the company and should be able to include logos and company colors and so on.
• Learning management system should also support the overall user experience and provide consistency across all forms of learning, e-learning, virtual classroom learning or classroom training.
• The best learning platforms for corporate learning are those that are highly adaptable. With increasing global spread of most companies, where employees are spread out across the map, training efforts have to be flexible to bridge the gap between skills and capabilities across the wide spread of the company.
• With the advent and growing popularity of mobile learning, LMSs are also aligning to the new platform of learning to increase the reach and accessibility of learning.New-age LMSs are now accessible on the mobile platform – most popularly through mobile apps. These apps once downloaded, allow learner to access the LMS from anywhere.
• Modern LMSs also have multiple avenues for learners to congregate and collaborate on social platforms like wikis, discussion boards and chat within the confines of the system. They also provide instant connect with social media platforms outside the system like LinkedIn or Twitter to mingle with experts as well as other learners from different backgrounds.

Today there is a definite shift across the corporate world and learning management system providers to take the needs of the learners as well as the organizations while developing the LMS. Modern LMS should be built to provide not just training but sustained support to make sure that it most effective for corporate learning.