What Is A Learning Management System (LMS) And Why Do You Need One

When considering the overall management of employee learning and development activities, you should not discount a Learning Management System (LMS). Approximately 83% of organisations have currently deployed an LMS and continue benefiting from all it has to offer.

LMS’s have evolved over time and continue to manage employee education and development efficiently and effectively. Let’s discuss what an LMS is in detail.

What is an LMS?

An LMS helps plan, execute, and evaluate learning programs for employees. It has the framework to support all aspects of an employee learning process. It can also be known by other terms such as learning activity management system, training management system, or learning experience platform; it essentially works to provide the same features. An LMS is largely used to provide employees with e-learning that can be accessed anywhere using the internet. Employees can learn new skills based on their requirements. Each learning program may or may not be assigned a specific time limit for completing the training.

An LMS is an essential part of the employee learning and development mechanism and can be incorporated into an automated Human Resource Management System (HRMS). An LMS helps HR personnel and organisational managers, who are often in charge of learning and development, to identify the need for training, upload training based on needs, define and analyse individual and organisational learning goals, track the progress of each learning program towards meeting those goals, and collect and provide information to decision-makers.

Why use an LMS?

The main purpose behind using an LMS is to enhance the learning process for both the employees who are learning and the managers who are administering this process.

It is used not just to host online learning sessions for employees but also to manage the registration of courses, skill gap analysis, tracking and reporting the data from each learning program, etc.

Various industries can use an LMS for purposes such as compliance training, upskilling, product training, collaborative learning, etc. Being an online tool means it can be accessed anytime, irrespective of geographical location. Some of the other benefits of using an LMS include:

Benefits of using an LMS

Leveraging technology

The majority of the workforce is equipped with high-end technology at work. Employees use powerful computers either in the form of laptops or desktops. An LMS makes use of these resources to provide the required training and efficiently deliver it at an individual level rather than classroom training which requires substantial coordination.

Centralised learning to save time and costs

All the essential learning resources can be stored and accessed from one centralised location using an LMS. HR personnel and managers can easily assign and manage training for every employee throughout an organisation. This centralised mechanism serves as a way to reduce the time and costs required to manage employee training.

Better evaluating, tracking, and reporting

With an LMS, the tasks of evaluating individual performance and tracking the progress of learning for every employee become easier. Decision-makers now have detailed evaluation reports which are helpful to design and provide future learning programs.

Streamlined learning and development process

Technology makes the learning and development process easier by integrating training programs that can be assigned easily and completed efficiently. The interactive user interface provided by an LMS is simple to use and requires no learning time for employees or HR personnel.

Easy upgrades

As mentioned above, a Learning Management System is easy to use. It is also designed to be simple to implement and upgrade when required. Due to a centralised learning content management feature, any changes to previous programs and the creation of new programs can be accessed immediately by employees.

Conclusion

An LMS can help efficiently manage employee training and completion. Often paired with other employee management activities, an LMS is an integral part of Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS). Sentrient’s HRMS consists of an LMS along with other HR modules. Contact Sentrient HR today for more information.