Does your LMS meet your expectations?

One of the challenges of handling employee training for international organizations is finding a learning management system (LMS) that meets the expectations of the Human Resources department.

Based on a survey by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), that may not be easy to accomplish. Their figures showed that the number of people who are very unsatisfied with their LMS purchase has doubled in recent years and those who were very satisfied decreased by 25 percent.

What is the problem?

An LMS, which is either a piece of software or a web-based program that manages training, cannot in fact be all things to all people. It is only as good as its design, its technology and its methodology for delivery and those are aspects that are in the hands of those who make it to meet specifications that often come from human resources department requests.

How can you ensure that your LMS does the job of training employees across a number of different corporate stations and ensure that training is consistent and effective?

Here are three key factors for any effective LMS:

1. Flexibility- Your system needs to be easily customized to your unique training needs including being able to be updated frequently. While it needs to have a centralized administration to ensure consistency of training, it also needs to offer self-guided services.
2. Portability- With offices in different countries with varying technical standards and methods of access, your LMS needs to be able to work in many different formats and browsers. The end users need to be able to log in and out from computers or tablets in both private and public settings.
3. Compatibility- An LMS needs to be intuitive to how people learn. All systems need to be geared to the latest findings on the pace with which employees need to receive their content and absorb it. They must also allow for interactive learning aids and provide the means for repetition as needed. Finally, they need to allow people to interact either through video conferences or threaded discussion or social media programs.

With so many LMS options out there, and with some research, you should be able to find the LMS perfect for your organizations needs. With different pricing plans as well, you may be able to choose which features you need, leaving features that are not desirable to you out of your platform.