8 Features To Look For In Your Employee Training
Every dollar invested in online training results in $30 in productivity. But with over 700 vendors occupying the global market, finding an LMS worthy of your investment is set to be a tricky feat. Price is no longer a guarantee of quality, which means that you need a list of very specific characteristics to help you make a purchasing decision.
Which leads us to one key question: What makes the best LMS software solution for employee training?
The following 8 features have been chosen by eLearning experts and long-time LMS users as the most valuable employee training software characteristics. If you want to increase your revenue by a whopping 42%, you really shouldn’t settle for anything less. These are the 8 LMS features you can’t do without:
1. Opt For Intuitive User Experience
Research has shown that 50% of American companies are not satisfied with their LMS software. For 86% of them, the reason is the interface. eLearning has the potential to reduce training time by 40 to 60%, but complicated UIs and UXs make that virtually impossible. So the first must-have LMS feature is ease of use.
Make sure that your employee training software is effortless to install and maintain, and especially easy to use. Your trainees should not experience any problems with logging in, accessing course material, and getting their test results. If they do, it’s time to change your LMS.
2. The Best LMS Must Be Reliable
The employee training experience must be smooth for at least 2 reasons. First, training costs time and money. The longer it takes for your employees to finish their courses, the more time and money your company will lose. And if your employees are willing to learn, but the LMS is making that impossible for them, the damage is even greater.
Their engagement level will inevitably drop. Only a reliable LMS software solution can help you prevent both.
This is the type of tool that will never let you down, whether it is the matter of data discrepancies or system bugs. A reliable system will allow your employees to hit their training milestones within the time scope and under budget, eventually earning you revenue instead of losing it.
3. Choose Versatility Over Specialty
Ask yourself, what kind of employee training software do you have in mind? If your company has already developed content and you need a new LMS to help you organize and distribute it, then you need to be looking for a solution that supports a specific kind of content.
But at the same time, you need to start thinking ahead.
As your company grows, you’ll certainly develop new training programs to support different learning styles and types of employees. You’ll need a system that supports a wide range of content formats, from Instructor-Led Training and video lectures to quizzes and presentations.
4. Personalization Is The New King
Content may still reign supreme, but there’s a new king in the industry.
Modern-day eLearning is all about personalization, and for a good reason. Adaptable learning boosts both engagement and retention rates simply by catering to learners’ individual needs—their unique learning styles, preferences, interests, pain points, and backgrounds.
In the context of employee training, personalized learning must consider a few things more, namely the employees’ fields of expertise, as well as their busy schedules and peak productivity hours. All this is accomplished with some help from machine learning algorithms.
ML collects data on learners and helps personalize their learning paths.
5. Success Depends On Improvement
Speaking of data collection, the next key feature you should look for in LMS software is analytics. The more detailed it is, the better. Visualization tools that help you read analysis reports receive bonus points, so look into that as well. Opt for an LMS tool with the best insights.
Your employee training software should be able to tell you everything from whether or not the correct answer was a lucky guess to how much time each employee had spent solving a certain problem. This insight is crucial for fine-tuning your courses to perfection.
6. An LMS Should Be Motivational
Engagement is a precursor to retention and success.
Without motivated and engaged learners, you won’t have a very successful training program. That said, you should not confuse motivation with incentive—the first is an intrinsic impulse to grow and accomplish something, while the second is usually an instant gratification.
LMS software is not a motivational tool on its own. It needs additional features—like gamification and collaborative learning, for instance—to keep learners engaged and motivated. Providing tangible proof of one’s success, LMS certificates are also a good motivational tool.
7. 24/7 Access Is Just As Important
Nothing kills motivation and engagement faster than unavailable LMS.
The main point of eLearning is to allow learners to take their courses and access educational content online, which means anytime, and from anywhere. If your LMS doesn't offer the same, you cannot expect it to motivate your employees. That’s why 24/7 access is extremely important.
To avoid frustration, opt for cloud-based LMS software.
Not only are cloud-based LMS tools available 24/7 across all time zones, but they also offer an effortless exchange of information and ideas between your L&D teams. If you’re developing your own training programs, your course creators will be able to collaborate in real-time.
Cloud-based solutions take rely on secure VPN services to protect your network if you have a BYOD policy in place.
8. Make Training Available On Mobile
Another aspect of 24/7 availability is mLearning support.
To provide personalized learning paths, an LMS must allow self-paced learning. And it cannot do so without mobile accessibility. Your employees would benefit greatly from this convenient mobile-ready option because everything’s easier when available on smartphones. Only 18% of employees study in the office.
Most of them take their courses while commuting to work or while relaxing at home. Make it very convenient for them to do so on their own terms, and the engagement rates will go through the roof. Engaged employees study better and retain knowledge longer.
9. Wrap Up
How can you make sure that an LMS has all of these features?
A vendor will probably tell you what you want to hear, so the only way of assessing the quality of an online training software is by testing it yourself. This is what demo versions are for. Make the best use of this trial period and don’t forget to ask your employees for an opinion.
