In the current public health crisis surrounding COVID-19, every company has to rethink many if not most aspects of their operations. Corporate knowledge growth has always been key to business success. While some companies have taken a very active role in training and developing their employees, others have relied on the passive-gained knowledge from the casual interactions employees and superiors have with each other every day in the workplace.
Now because of COVID-19 the “workplace” has become a distributed, isolated, remote environment where most employees are isolated from colleague interactions most of the time. As most companies are entering their second month of this new reality, those who rely heavily on coworker interactions are beginning to see the strain of social distancing on their employees.
Learning Management Platforms Help Companies Continue To Grow
Decisions companies make during this trying time will determine their long-term health, well after this health crisis has abated. Companies that make a deliberate investment in maintaining and reinforcing the knowledge of their workforce will not only keep morale high but also ensure the retention of their most valuable staff.
So the decision to invest in corporate learning management is the easy part, choosing the path forward with the correct LMS is much more complex and difficult. However, the decision can be made easier by evaluating the particular needs of your organization.
Three Points Of Consideration When Picking A Learning Management System
1. Audience
When considering “who” to train, it's often a multi-prong approach.
- Professional Staff - Most likely your professional staff will be the ones that will be required to work remotely 100% of the time. Your professional staff will benefit from self-paced content from a broad spectrum of sources. Translating corporate-specific knowledge into easily understandable short multimedia content will allow them to consume from a variety of devices. Staff will also need some scheduled collaboration time facilitated by either a senior staff member or or a contracted facilitator.
- Front Line Workers - Workers required to be physically present still need to acquire new knowledge to work safely in times like these. “Bitesize” courses that can be taken during breaks via a mobile device are a great option.
- Channel Partners - Often businesses rely on a stable ecosystem of distributors, retailers, operators, etc to effectively provide their products and services to their customers. Every one of these partners will need to reorient themselves to a new way to use their products effectively.
- Customers - Many businesses rely on person-to-person orientation and ongoing continuing education in order for their customers to safely and effectively operate their products. An excellent way to stay connected with your customers is by providing easy-to-consume digital training options with completion incentives.
2. Content
There are just as many training content sources as there are training needs.
- Company Specific - With the prolific use of social media video content, there is a broader acceptance of “non-produced” video content. So companies should feel comfortable using its own staff to develop content around their proprietary needs.
- Legacy - Some companies have some prior content currently available in VHS, DVD, and even paper format. It can be relatively easy to convert these into web-based sources for distribution.
- Domain Specific - Whether it’s equipment in use or regulated procedures, there are often external sources that can easily provide content that can get a program up quickly.
- Public - When there is a national health crisis or a similar broad-based need for information sharing, a corporate LMS can be a great asset to validate that your valuable staff is receiving and understanding the new activities and procedures that their local authorities are requesting they follow.
3. Delivery
A company needs an effective method of delivering content to its staff for it to be useful.
- “Homegrown” systems - These are an appealing option to companies wanting to have finite control, but without taking on significant ongoing expenses, their programs can become outdated and ineffective.
- Custom-Built - Similar appeal to DIY systems, but will require a similar level of expense and not benefit from upgrades that can be funded by multiple LMS clients.
- Multi-tenant Solution - Is a great compromise providing a custom-branded solution along with the benefit of being on a platform that provides ongoing upgrades.
- Industry Platform - Usually the least expensive option is to buy “seats” on an industry-based or general public LMS platform. Most provide content in a fairly generic format and usually require employees to jump between platforms.
Deciding Which Learning Management System Options Work For Your Brand
All of these options have merits that should be analyzed with respect to your specific needs. Brandmovers has a broad range of options to assist any company when needing to navigate this new (and urgent) need.
Brandmovers has been operating LMS programs internationally and currently operates within the University system in the United Kingdom with a USP (Accreditation with Universities); we can bring this pedigree to your organization for a fraction of the cost of the legacy providers.
Our experienced staff can consult with your leadership team to review your needs with respect to audience, content, and delivery. We can help provide a budget and a phased approach to help you get up and running quickly to address your most pressing needs.
Contact the learning management system experts at Brandmovers today!