Using an LMS to Drive Talent Management

Posted on August 30, 2019

Recruiting and nurturing talent is the key to long-term success for all businesses. Nurturing the right skill base in your workforce requires a hands-on commitment, especially if you rely on skills that are unique to the position or ones people don’t typically pick up in formal education settings. When you are looking to develop and manage top talent in your company, you need a solution that doesn’t add a lot to someone’s workload or require a lot of infrastructure overhead. That’s where a learning management system (LMS) comes into play.

Why Should You Use an LMS for Talent Development?

Today’s learning management software goes beyond the concept of a virtual classroom to encourage a blended learning approach, rethinking the idea of a learning space only consisting of an abstract environment navigable by hypertext documents and multimedia presentations. This helps with talent development in a variety of ways when it is brought into your professional space. A blended learning approach supported by an LMS allows you to:

Conduct training across all shifts and departments simultaneously
Set up learning modules your talent can navigate as they are ready, allowing for individualized pacing
Provide optional training and qualification courses for specialized tasks or host certifications on a rolling basis
Cater to a variety of learning styles with multi-modal presentations that bring together original content and links to outside readings
Encourage discussion across roles at the company with a virtual messaging space dedicated to training and learning
Allow for the creation and delivery of employee-generated training modules and courses, which can help with cross-training

Furthermore, when used the right way, an LMS could be your opportunity to identify and support the people who will lead your company in the future. That alone is an incredible tool for developing talent that helps companies support employees on leadership paths and promote from within.

With the help of an LMS, employees are given the skills they need to excel and are rewarded by increased visibility, in-organization networking, and a sense of acknowledgement for their training efforts. As you consistently provide effective education and training to your team, even your most advanced employees will continue to feel driven to better perform their job and reach organizational goals.

What Makes an LMS Effective for Talent Management?

Learning systems are only as effective as their design, because when participants have a hard time navigating them, they simply won’t use them. Your presentations and courses can’t be effective if they aren’t being seen, so you need to be sure your LMS satisfies a few basic best practices.

First, your LMS it needs to be intuitive to use, with the ability to relabel controls to keep everything simple. You also need people who understand how learning works, which means either professional instructional designers in your organization or customer service professionals from your eLearning provider who can give you the insight needed to make sure your modules work for both instructors and learners.

It’s also important to have the ability to customize, because no two course needs are the same. You need to be able to shift the structure between a variety of options, from seminar-style video lectures with quizzes and interactive discussion boards to readings-based traditional online classrooms and everything in between.

Thinking Beyond Talent Training and Onboarding

Of course, the LMS can be used for more than just professional development. You can also deploy it to help employees with compliance training, as well as for informational sessions like benefits management.

While nothing can replace the chance to ask for help to understand policies in person, quick answers to common questions and step-by-step tutorials for completing the administrative paperwork and verification steps can go a long way toward saving your staff time and maximizing your return on your investment in your employees’ well-being.

Find the Right LMS for Your Organization

When implementing an LMS, it’s vital that you find an eLearning provider who can help take your eLearning goals into achievable and actionable results. With expert support behind you to determine your specific needs based on your industry, you will have the help you need to turn your LMS into a training and talent cultivation engine.

eThink offers fully-managed eLearning solutions for the open-source Moodle and Totara Learn Learning Management Systems. These flexible and configurable platforms help organizations meet their specific educational and business needs with the desired level of support to help efficiently and effectively reach goals.