All of us have read a plethora of articles about the advantages of using an LMS. These include simplified onboarding, managing training costs, and integrating all training content. Yes, these things are true, but there is much more to using an LMS than these things that are constantly quoted in LMS-related articles and when you speak to LMS sales staff.
When addressing the question of “just why is an LMS so important,” salespeople, industry leaders, and even you frequently neglect a few crucial points.
These points, for the most part, might appear insignificant at first glance, but the larger picture over time shows otherwise.
These ideas pack a powerful punch, so you should always keep them in the back of your mind despite how minor or unimportant they may seem. However, it is crucial first to understand what is an LMS before moving on to look at the four unique advantages of using a Modern LMS.
What Is An LMS
A learning management system (LMS) is a software program or web-based technology used to assemble, carry out, and evaluate a particular learning process. It is used for eLearning practices and, in its most basic configuration, consists of two components: a server that handles the essential functionality and a user interface controlled by online instructors, learners, and admins.
Online instructors can create and deliver content, track participation, and evaluate outcomes using a learning management system. Additionally, through a learning management system, interactive tools like video conferencing, forums, and threaded discussions may be made available to learners.
4 Uncommon Advantages Of Using A Modern LMS
1. Increased Learner Interaction
There is no question that learning and development are essential for an employee in the corporate world. Therefore, it should go without saying that if a company wants to prosper at something, its employees must first excel at it. However, this is something that everyone takes for granted. After all, how many of your employees participate in skill-building training or go to training sessions that outline proper procedures that are advantageous to your company?
Two factors primarily cause the inadequate response to such training programs among employees:
The traditional training methods of books, manuals, lectures, and documents are no longer appealing. These types of training were once mandated by law. However, that is shifting as more businesses adopt the LMS as the best way to train their staff. The critical thing to remember is that technology makes everything a little more interesting, including learning and training.
Today, consuming online content from blog posts, video content, newsfeeds, and other media is a common way for people to stay updated and learn about new developments.
Traditional training methods are considered old-fashioned, time-consuming, and boring in the context of exposure to such information.
A technologically advanced modern LMS that allows for training at your employees’ convenience and the perfect blend of microlearning can make a difficult or tedious subject easier to understand.
The takeaway is that if training and learning new information is necessary, your staff would prefer to complete it on a mobile-friendly LMS rather than reading a dense manual.
2. Easily Cover Complex Topics
Traditional training and learning take a two-dimensional approach. Traditional training is practical as long as the subjects are straightforward and compatible with two dimensions. The first approach teaches learners through textbooks, presentations, visuals, and occasionally videos. The second approach consists of assessments done on paper, in person, or infrequently on a computer.
What comes to light, though, when the subjects are multidimensional? The need for thorough evaluations highlighting growth, strengths, and trouble spots for both learners and educators comes next.
An LMS that allows you to create reports that are comprehensive and precisely provide you with a plethora of information to make informed choices about your learners is the ideal way to store and deliver such complex topics. Learning through simulations and videos is far superior to lectures and tests in industries that rely on intricate production processes or where safety courses are an issue.
Simply put, text alone cannot convey the complexity of the topics covered here. The better training tool, in this case, is an LMS that can store simulated courses and other multimedia elements.
3. Managers Can Develop And Train Their Teams
Is administering online training courses and evaluating results solely your job? This is a great question to ask yourself as an HR or L&D professional. Naturally, the answer is no when using an LMS.
A modern LMS is designed to be an effective authority-delegating structure and a system for handling online training courses. Simply put, as an HR or L&D professional, you can give team managers and leaders the power to assign classes based on their team’s current requirements since they know those needs better.
Team managers are more likely to evaluate their teams and determine which areas require progress. They can identify team members who are prepared for the next level while determining which group member is falling short in a particular skill set. Team managers and leaders are better equipped to use an LMS to deliver personalized online training courses after receiving such vital information.
These programs focus on helping team members resolve real-world issues that differ from person to person and team to team.
As an employee of HR or L&D, you must evaluate the effectiveness of each team manager and their teams across the entire organization. The ability to enable your team managers to develop their team like real leaders by identifying strengths and weaknesses and tackling them is the true benefit, not the lessening of your load.
4. A Method To Determine Real Future Leaders And Managers
In most organizations today, promotions are given to people based solely on their past performance, regardless of whether they have any prior managerial experience. But as is well said, “Good leaders are made, not born.”
So, how do you develop effective leaders? The short answer is that an LMS is the best system with suitable training to determine and establish a person’s leadership qualities. A real leader can be distinguished, outlined, and produced with historical data on a worker’s capacity for learning new concepts, performance graphs, and the ability to offer training to develop leadership qualities. You could almost say the agile process is to blame.
You could almost say it’s an agile process of developing talent, carefully choosing a small number from a large number based on historical data, and further evaluating them on more advanced topics like philosophy, compassion, stress management, and interpersonal skills. The LMS is an excellent tool for identifying potential leaders because it makes it simple to administer all of these tests while also giving you detailed reports on every aspect of the candidate you are considering for promotion.
Bottom Line
The advantages of utilizing technology, such as an LMS, to support a corporate environment’s dynamic training scenario are immeasurable from an HR and L&D perspective. Aside from the previously mentioned points, more advantages become apparent and manifest themselves with actual usage on a personal level. It makes sense why Statista estimates that the global e-learning market is anticipated to grow to almost $400 billion by 2026.
