Your Learning Management System is the ideal tool for training employees online, but did you know an LMS can play a critical supporting role in HR too?
While it may be tempting to think of eLearning software as simply useful for upskilling your workforce efficiently, you could be missing out on a host of other benefits for your Human Resources department. Top-class, flexible training material for your whole company is just one aspect of an LMS, so here’s our run-down of six key areas where the latest online training systems can assist your HR folks.
Ultimately, when adopting an LMS you’re looking to train and retain happy employees, which in turn, will boost your company productivity. Your Human Resources team are absolutely part of this picture too.
Easy and Accurate Data Entry
To get started with your LMS, it’ll require you to input a good quantity of information about your employees so you can start them off on an appropriate set of online courses. Quality Learning Management Systems should have an easy way to do this with a clear and hassle-free interface for your administrative staff. You may already have an HRIS, (Human Resource Information System) but LMSs are streets ahead in terms of software development for ease of use and integration with other platforms.
It’s also worth pointing out here that on the whole, Learning Management Systems are also much more cost-effective than HRIS. Rather than upgrading your existing HRIS, we say integrate it with an LMS and enjoy the benefits of one-time data entry (such as increased input accuracy and more ways to see that data) while ensuring your whole workforce gets a personalised learning journey.
Easy Online Onboarding
As soon as a new hire joins your team, you’re going to want to make sure they have everything they need to feel welcome, supported and ready to contribute to your company’s success.
Traditionally, this process would begin on their first day in the office, but if your Human Resources Team are working with a Learning Management System, things can start from the moment an individual signs their contract with you. All that’s needed is an LMS login for them and going forward, you can offer a wealth of information to new recruits. This can be a whole suite of media thanks to the rich interface that most LMSs now offer. Whether that’s a friendly video that introduces your work culture and presents key information that might be important for the first day, or, you can offer access to a library of manuals for the basic operating procedure they may want to take a look at. The more informed new hires are before they show up for work, the more confident they’ll be. The more supported they feel, the faster they’ll settle in!
Cost-Efficient LMS Induction
A further benefit to induction via LMS is that your Human Resources department need only create one onboarding course if that’s all you need. This can then be rolled out for as long as it’s relevant – meaning HR staff can easily manage multiple new hires at once. Plus, a one stop shop for onboarding is pretty cost-effective too, so wave goodbye to expensive classroom based orientation days. The budget required for learning materials, such as printing and the organisational hassle of finding a physical space and bringing in an instructor is vastly reduced with online induction. And, if your new team members have queries, you can pre-empt some of the most frequently asked questions with a FAQ video or factsheet that leaves experienced team members to get on with their day.
Identify Talent Via LMS For HR
A Learning Management System is not just course delivery software, it’s also a lean mean statistics machine. As your employees progress through their online training, HR personnel should be able to drill down into the data to see how everyone is getting along. An LMS with strong reporting tools and an easy-to-navigate dashboard is essential for a Human Resources team with a clear company overview, and we needn’t remind you how important this is for your business.
Automatically generated, downloadable, and sharable reports enable managers to see at a glance which staff members are progressing well, and who might need further support from the Learning & Development team to achieve their training goals. Using LMS-generated data, HR can easily identify top talent within your company, spotting quick learners, motivated individuals and those training toward specific career paths. With eLearning software, your Human Resources team should be able to pick out who may be in line for a promotion, and who might thrive better with a department switch.
Effective LMS Training
While online training is an easy and cost-effective way for you to train your workforce, it’s also a more accessible and engaging way for your people to learn. By following courses that include gamification, multimedia, and segmented courses – we call this microlearning – picking up new skills can be both fun, and compatible with a busy work day.
However, if your Human Resources department can see how everyone is progressing through LMS reporting, it also means courses can be improved and tailored to offer the best learning experiences to everyone.
For example, if learner data patterns show that the entire company is struggling with a module, it may be that the course content is a bit confusing and could use a little editing. Perhaps some content is being rolled out too quickly to new hires. Maybe there’s some eLearning content that’s no longer relevant to your operations and requires an update. Poor engagement with a module doesn’t necessarily indicate that staff don’t want to learn – it may just be that a suggested training nugget isn’t relevant to them and their work. HR will have access to this data and be able to pass the information along to the team or individual that develops eLearning material. The upshot here is that you can tweak and improve your online learning offering before things go south.
A great Learning Management System will help HR see an employee’s complete record too, encompassing key information such as roles held, and past performances in terms of their training. In this way, personalised learning routes can be generated with minimum fuss, helping folks happily stay on a solid learning path to their career goals.
Monitor Analytics and Patterns
Next, let’s talk integration. You may already have an HRIS, and this is where your HR team will keep key information about staff from the moment they’ve begun working for you. By choosing a Learning Management System that you can seamlessly integrate with your HRIS, HR will be able to identify patterns across a wide variety of data areas, including staff turnover, training-linked promotion, training satisfaction and levels of productivity pre and post online learning courses.
Using an integrated LMS will mean that HR can send regular reports to team leaders, demonstrating which employees deserve recognition and reward, and how productive a team might be as a whole. The upshot of this is increased opportunity for strong strategy development in the upcoming period and therefore, higher productivity levels or improved client service in the future.
In the end, eLearning software isn’t just limited to teaching your staff valuable skills online because an LMS allows your administrators to complete multiple tasks across one platform. Automation tools that come as standard with most online learning software packages, take the headache out of registering, onboarding and supporting the people who work for you.A Learning Management System gives your Human Resources team the ability to generate clear and accurate training result reports for departmental supervisors, and this information can help strategists plan or skilled workers move up into more challenging and enjoyable roles. Deploying a Learning Management System in the realm of HR means working smarter, and supporting your whole company to be the best they can be in the most efficient way possible.