What precisely is an LMS? Well, according to Yalantis.com, an LMS, or learning management system, is an eLearning type of software that manages pupils, their learning materials, and all of the associated relationships between them. They describe that a typical LMS consists of two different components. One is a server that facilitates a means for authenticating users and is the main implementation of the system that allows for building, managing, and providing courses to users. The second component is an interface, typically browser-based, in which pupils, their teachers, and administrators can all use.
On the same resource page at Yalantis.com, it’s detailed that there are four different key features to the typical LMS. These include the ability to create eLearning content, being able to organize content into courses, and also the ability to manage users and track as well as assess user progress throughout their assigned coursework.
Now that you’re aware of exactly what an LMS is and consists of, let’s explore five key benefits to utilizing an LMS.
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Five Distinct Benefits to Businesses that Use Learning Management Systems
Improved Business Results: According to a recent LinkedIn study, 94% of employees stated that they would remain at their employer longer, if their employer invested in their learning and development. That is a substantially high percentage of employees!
Considering the present labor shortage and many industries ‘ high turnover rates, being able to retain employees for longer would prove very beneficial. Having your own in-house LMS for your staff proves that you are indeed interested in your employee’s learning and development, providing a substantial benefit to your business.
Another big bonus from utilizing an LMS is a higher rate of employee engagement. This is because the training that the LMS provides directly translates into direct engagement with the company providing the training. As their skills and education improve, these employees can perform additional job duties and other tasks that they could perform before the training, they can now perform with greater efficiency and even, accuracy. This all leads to better business results.
Instant Access to Training Materials: Almost every employee, regardless of how many responsibilities they have, is going to have some downtime. That is time that they’re not involved working on any particular project or some other productive task while at work. This is where an LMS can prove beneficial to your business.
Instead of that employee deciding then to take a break or something akin to taking a break, whereby your organization is paying wages for labor that isn’t producing any results for your business, it’s great for that employee to be able to login to your company’s LMS and further their education and skills at their position. They’ll even want to do so assuming your business takes the time to integrate incentives and rewards into your organization’s learning management system. Without an LMS for training and learning purposes, the training would prove more traditional with classrooms, teachers, and set times for the training to occur. This simply doesn’t translate in the aforementioned scenario whereby an employee randomly happens to have ten to fifteen minutes on their hands.
Centralized Data Storage: Yet another huge benefit to your organization using an LMS is the convenience of centralized data storage for all of the associated files. Rewind before the introductions of LMS for businesses and everything associated with training would’ve been kept in various formats, mostly paper in nature, and could even be scattered throughout multiple locations.
If one were to try to accumulate all of these documents at once to peruse them, it could easily prove to be a nightmare of a task. How truly convenient is it that all of these related files are easily located in one, centralized place?
Easy Tracking of Learner Progress: Expanding on from the previously mentioned business benefit, is the additional benefit of being able to easily track your employee’s progress as they learn. An LMS is going to have features built-in that track what has been viewed, provide quizzes or other assessments with which to gauge an employee’s understanding of the viewed material, and is going to keep all of this information within a centralized data storage medium.
It’s so easy then to simply access this centralized data on the LMS server, which likely can quickly be done through a workstation networked to the server through an administrator’s user interface and then tracked. This ability to easily keep track of an employee’s learning progress through the learning management system can help an organization decide which employees are best for promotions and raises and which employees may need some rearing to encourage further learning and skill-building.
Reduces Learning and Development Costs: It is so cost-effective to utilize and invest in an LMS for a business that it’s a no-brainer for any organization that is interested in training and learning for its employees. True, there are costs associated with either procuring an LMS or developing a custom LMS for your business and some minimal costs associated with maintenance, upkeep, and adding additional content over time.
However, there are so many ways your business can save by having its own LMS. Ways your business can save is by cutting out expenses such as: renting a conference room or office for training purposes, saving on instructor’s teaching wages, saving on travel costs associated with training in remote places, and also by saving on having to spend on printed materials.
So while you may incur an initial expense with the LMS, along with some minimal ongoing expenses, these will all be minimized greatly by the other traditional expenses that your business will never have to occur that were previously mentioned. Once your LMS is in place, you can rest easy knowing that this was a wise investment as your business is going to be saving substantially overall, as it moves forward into the future.
Conclusion
It pays off in great dividends to know that your employees are well trained for their positions. Workers who know the expectations of their roles and how to perform sufficiently to meet these expectations are going to be much more likely to prove themselves out to be valuable employees. It is along these lines that businesses have always been willing to invest in their employee’s educations and training for their positions at the company.
That said, why not consider investing in an LMS solution for your business? With an LMS in place, you’re likely to retain more of your employees over time as they’ll appreciate your organization’s willingness to invest in their future at your company. This will result in a reduced need to always be hiring and training new candidates. However, training new candidates will also prove to be a much easier endeavor than before with the LMS.
Furthermore, the LMS and the instant access to training materials it provides is going to directly translate into greater worker productivity, giving them additional knowledge to perform their tasks more efficiently and also something to do in their downtime. Also, it’s so very cost-effective, once in place, compared to more traditional means of training and educating employees, that with all of these numerous benefits to a business of using a learning management system, what is there not to love about an LMS?
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