Today, companies of all sizes and from just about every industry understand that their employees are their most valuable asset. They also know that investing in the knowledge and skills of their workers is one of the best investments for making to ensure their company’s viability and competitiveness in an increasingly complex corporate climate.
Some years ago, the only option a company had for employee training was classroom-led instruction. But in recent years, as cloud-based technologies have continued to evolve and workers have become increasingly remote, online learning (also known as “eLearning”) has emerged as the preferred option for employee training and skills development. And the cornerstone technology that support eLearning for corporate training is a Learning Management System (LMS).
What is an LMS?
An LMS is a software application that supports all types of eLearning programs, including corporate and employee training. An LMS allows these organizations to build online courses and quizzes. It also includes all of the tools to measure student engagement and success. In the corporate world, an LMS is commonly used not only for employee training, but for partner and customer training as well.
While a company can choose to run their LMS on-premises (housed in their own environment and on their own servers), this option is typically more appealing to very large organizations that have the in-house resources to deploy and manage the system. It is more common for smaller and mid-sized companies to leverage a cloud-based LMS offered by a third-party vendor.
The Benefits of a Cloud-Based LMS
A cloud, or SaaS-based LMS offers a number of benefits over the deployment of an on-premises, including:
Minimal Up-Front Costs
Working with a cloud-based LMS eliminates (significant) up-front, capital expenses, such as the cost of the software and hardware, as well as the labor required to set it up. A cloud-based LMS also removes the operational expenses associated with the ongoing management and maintenance of the system.
Fast Deployment
A cloud-based LMS is the best option for a company that wants to be up-and-running quickly with their employee training program as it eliminates the need for long planning cycles and the time-consulting rollout of the application. With a cloud-based LMS, most companies can be using the system within minutes of signing up.
Subscription-Based
One of the unfortunate aspects of rolling out an on-premises LMS is the need to deploy additional capacity to supported forecasted growth. This means that your company is paying for capacity that it does not yet need. A cloud-based LMS eliminates this challenge by allowing you to choose a plan that meets your company’s current needs. You can then change your plan at any time as your needs grow and change.
State-of-the-Art
Another challenge of deploying an on-premises LMS is the fact that the system ages over time, making it difficult to keep up with new and enhanced features. This is true for your hardware deployment, as well. With a cloud-based LMS, however, the vendor make sure that their clients are always working with the “latest and greatest” that the industry has to offer.
Types of Employee Training Programs for an LMS
While an LMS can impact any number of areas within your organization and employee training program, some of the most common use cases include:
New Employee Orientation and Onboarding
Offer courses to new employees to set them up for success at your company. Give them the initial information they need to be successful and immediately productive.
Skills Building and Enhancement
Leverage your LMS to help employees build and grow their skill sets to the benefit of your company and to support them in their career objectives.
Compliance Awareness
Most every company today, especially those that operate in industries such as healthcare and financial services, must be aware of and adhere to the rules and regulations that apply to your company’s operations. Leverage your LMS to help ensure your employees understand how to operate within these guidelines and build a database of training history for audit purposes.
Sales and Customer Service Skills
Your customer-facing employees must develop the special skills required to handle the unique challenges they face in working with customers on a daily basis. For these employees, it can help to include “soft” skills training, such as listening and communication skills development.
LMS Portals: An LMS for Employee Training
LMS Portals offers a cloud-based, multi-tenant LMS that allows our clients and partners to launch and manage multiple, private eLearning environments to support the unique training needs of each of their learning audiences. The system offers includes the ability to dynamic generate new learning environments (portals) on-demand, with each portal offering its own branding, user onboarding, collaboration tools, analytics, and more.
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