LMS implementation for your startup is one of the smartest ways to place your new company ahead of the competition right from the very beginning. There’s a whole raft of advantages to adopting the correct Learning Management System for you; from cost-effective, targeted training for your team, to providing organised and accessible data storage as your startup grows.
So, let’s run through some of the key things that eLearning software can do for you from day one!
Get started with tracking and automation
Building online training into your staff timetables from the get-go is not only good practice in terms of the skills you can give them; you’ll also be able to track the progress they’re making on your LMS dashboard. Personal growth is an important element to job satisfaction, and with eLearning software, you’ll be able to reward your folks with things like points, badges, and certification as they complete levels of training.
Automation is another comes-as-standard LMS tool that will benefit your business as you begin trading. In the early days of any company, there’s so much to do, and while the temptation to manually oversee everything might be strong, do make use of your learning software’s automation capacity. Sending reminder emails, course invites, links to introductory modules for new recruits, statistics reports for managers; all these time-consuming tasks fall into your LMS’s remit. Why lean on your already-busy team members when your Learning Management System can do it for you?
It’s Cost-Effective
A robust Learning Management System is a highly cost-effective way to train your workforce. At the very beginning, it may be the case that budgets are tight until your company finds its feet, but investing in eLearning from the outset will save money in the long run. The ROI of an LMS is generally agreed to be very favourable if it’s the right software match for you. Why? Well, whatever your business sector may be, you can develop and roll out online learning modules directly to your staff, wherever they may be based.
Elearning can be as general or as specific as you need it to be, and moreover, digital training reduces or removes costs associated with traditional training approaches such as venue hire, printing costs and speaker fees. Ultimately, a highly-trained, adept workforce that happily engages with regular training is the most valuable asset your company can have in its arsenal.
Learners are now used to having an LMS
An LMS isn’t a new-fangled extra on the business landscape, but an essential and familiar tool these days for many employees. Across a wide variety of sectors, learners are now pretty used to logging onto a Learning Management System, and today’s intuitive interfaces make for an attractive, enjoyable learning journey.
Most folks expect on-the-job training in some form, so make sure that your startup is at the cutting edge of content delivery. Fun and varied learning modules that can be completed when it suits each member of personnel is a proven route to user engagement and consequently, a confident, able team of employees.
Harness your workforce knowledge
Your employees are the bedrock of your company. Their skills are the very thing that’ll push your startup forward and so harnessing their knowledge is a wise move. Through your LMS, you can allow them to upskill at their own pace and on a trajectory that dovetails with their desired career path. But also, you can offer them the option to share their knowledge across the company. Great online learning software provides a platform for SMEs to impart their skills to colleagues, and the social learning aspect of an LMS can help strengthen team bonds too.
As a brand-new startup, your team might not have known or worked with each other for very long, so your LMS can be instrumental in getting them to learn, work and grow together. You may have some great content creators or natural teachers in your midst, and a Learning Management System is an easy-to-use platform for these individuals to share a wealth of expertise within and across departments. Blogs, vlogs and social media content are all ways in which knowledge can be disseminated via an LMS, and this kind of content can be both enjoyable to put together and learn from.
All your knowledge-base in one place
Your LMS should be designed to offer the best user experience for learners to get to grips with workplace learning, but online training isn’t all your Learning Management System can do.
Let’s talk data. Whether your company has a bricks and mortar headquarters or is a team scattered across multiple locations, where you keep your essential information matters. Many firms end up with reams of paper hidden away in binders and files, never to be found or read again – or worse – this stuff is endlessly and uselessly duplicated.
Start off on the right foot and begin your business story with centrally stored, easily searchable cloud-based files. Your Learning Management System is the perfect home for your company information and it’ll be accessible to all, sortable, sendable, safe and even editable with permissions to make sure everything stays relevant.
Automate Onboarding
As your startup graduates to a fully-fledged business (and hopefully a thriving one!), you’re going to need to grow your workforce. Stepping into a new role in a new company can be daunting for fresh recruits so make sure you have a Learning Management System there to onboard and support them.
Automation tools built into your LMS will assist you and your managers in orientating newcomers to your teams by automatically offering up key courses to these individuals. These can contain essential information delivered in a multitude of ways; from welcome videos covering the basics to other media such as handbooks and manuals in digital reference library formats so that new staff don’t have to go digging in dusty boxes for basic help. Onboarding new employees in terms of key company information can stretch already-busy staff, so automated delivery of the essentials – right into an email inbox – is a hassle-free way to start the process of bringing new people into your workplace community.
Establish a two-way training channel with your new employees
A Learning Management System is more than a teaching tool: it’s a line of communication that runs between you and whoever you’ve hired. Indispensable for the rollout of courses and modules that cover every aspect of your business, eLearning software can also alert you to skill gaps in your teams and highlight areas where individuals could use a little more support. LMS features such as direct messaging, chatrooms, noticeboards and forums offer numerous avenues for course feedback and troubleshooting. Ensuring your eLearners have direct input is a valuable aspect of digital learning, helping you develop truly useful and enjoyable courses for your employees.
Additionally, this kind of open channel between management and workforce means that you can address other topics outside of work tasks – including offering mental health resources and support for your folks in these difficult times. A caring workplace is likely to have a low staff turnover, and you’ll want to hold onto talented, happy employees to ensure your startup goes the distance. Blogs and modules designed to promote a healthy, respectful and collaborative work culture are an integral part of a balanced training program.
Employee training expectations are becoming more demanding
When it comes to staff training, gone are the days of lengthy seminars or class-based teaching as the only way to impart workplace knowledge. Not only are employees becoming more discerning when it comes to their learning journey, but a significant chunk of your workforce will also likely be made up of digital natives, and individuals used to multi-media learning experiences.
Through your LMS, you’ll be able to provide all kinds of dynamic training for your people, including courses that feature gamification, uniquely tailored learning paths, social learning and microlearning too. The more engaging your company training, the more likely it is to be popular among learners. Your Learning Management System will allow you to not only create appealing courses but also provide an avenue for feedback from them and multiple ways to devise courses accessible to all levels and abilities.
Quick to respond to changes in your workforce and turnover
A successful business is a nimble one, and so agility in terms of changes to your workforce and turnover needs to be a key pillar of your startup business plan. Investing in a Learning Management System from the outset will ensure that you have the best tool at your disposal to do this.
Your Learning Management System can help you target skill gaps across your whole company or in a specific team through easily navigable data reports. The ability to drill down and see course progress or stumbling blocks at a glance via your LMS dashboard is a quick and efficient way to ensure you’re offering the right courses to the right learners.
From a management point of view, a great LMS will let you generate reports at the click of a button, and then send them to relevant managers for example; supremely useful when it comes to devising your future strategy.
Your Learning Management System is a flexible piece of kit that can grow with your firm, and so should your business goals shift, or you venture into new sectors, you’ll be in a position to rapidly offer online training, and information to support this. Plus, new staff members – whether we’re talking a couple of individuals or whole departments at a time – can be brought up to speed quickly while receiving and giving constructive feedback.
All sounds pretty good, right?
While investing in a Learning Management System for your startup might seem like an expensive job for later, if you take the plunge at the earliest possible opportunity, you’ll rapidly see positive results for both your business operations and your staff members, that more than justify the initial outlay.