Essential LMS Features for Online Corporate Training

• 5 min read

You need an LMS to deliver online corporate training – but not just any LMS will do

It’s nearly impossible for online corporate training to be executed without some sort of learning technology. Most commonly, enterprise organizations will manage, deliver, and measure their corporate training programs using a learning management system (LMS).

You probably already understand that the LMS you choose to deploy your online corporate training programs has a massive impact effectiveness of your learning programs. In theory, your LMS should engage your learners, provide a continuous learner experience, and support learning as it actually happens… but what are the LMS features that will actually facilitate these functions?

Read on to better understand the LMS features that will help to simplify and expedite your online corporate training programs.

Intuitive UX/UI

Research by Brandon Hall Group found that 88% of organizations looking to switch their LMS were determined to do so to improve the user experience (UX).

If you’re stuck using a legacy LMS, or outdated and clunky learning technology of any kind, you’ve probably simply (but begrudgingly) accepted that you’ll have to be trained on how to use the system that’s delivering your training.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Learning technology with a modern and intuitive user interface (UI) provides a more powerful system for both learners and administrators. If your learner experience is inviting and easy-to-use, learner adoption and engagement will increase. Don’t waste productive learning time by throwing your users into an unnavigable labyrinth of a system.

Out-of-the-Box Integrations

Regardless of the solution you use to execute your online corporate training programs, your system shouldn’t exist in a silo. In fact, learning technology like an LMS should be the core of your learning technology ecosystem. As Sandy Lin writes on eLearning Industry: “The long-term success of an LMS implementation is often as much about technology integration as it is about delivering learning content.”

There are many different types of integrations and each are meant to serve a different business function based on your particular online corporate training use case. For instance, an enterprise LMS should be able to support ecommerce integrations for selling training, as well as integrations with your CRM, HRIS system, Google Analytics, and more.

Selecting a system that allows for multiple out-of-the-box integrations will derive more value from your online corporate training by eliminating manual administrative work, enable easy and effective scalability, and ultimately provide better insights from data shared between systems.

Mobile Accessibility

According to Pew Research, 95% of Americans own cell phones, and 77% of these are smartphones. If you haven’t yet introduced a mobile learning strategy to your online corporate training programs, you’re more or less flushing learning content accessibility down the toilet.

Your learning content must be available for learners on-the-go, at the point of need. Mobile devices play a large role in increasing the accessibility of content. Your LMS should allow for a user-friendly mobile experience – i.e., a white-labeled app that offers a continuous learning experience by supporting offline tracking capabilities.

Mobility doesn’t end at accessibility, however. Learners should also be able to leverage mobile devices to capture and share content for social learning purposes.

Social Learning

Those familiar with the 70:20:10 learning framework understand that the majority of learning actually happens informally. Your learning technology should be able to support social and informal learning as it is an essential ingredient to effective online corporate training.

An important part of facilitating social learning is allowing learners to ask questions and provide answers, as well as share user-generated content. In the Docebo LMS, our Coach and Share features allow learners to capture user-generated knowledge from an organization’s subject matter experts, validate it through peer-review, and share it across teams. Encouraging this type of activity online also helps to build a culture of knowledge sharing both online and offline.

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of enabling social learning with learning technology is that it allows for the measurement of these types of activities. These metrics can provide valuable insights into the impact of learning on organizational performance.

Gamification

It has been proven time and time again that gamification works when it comes to improving learning effectiveness and engagement. A study by Traci Sitzmann at the University of Colorado found that those who participated in gamified online learning experiences scored 14% higher in skill-based knowledge assessments and had a 9% increase in retention rate.

Gamification elements such as points, awards, badges, leaderboards, and more will help increase learner motivation and engagement in your corporate training programs. Ensure these features are included in your LMS.

ILT Classroom Management

There are plenty of arguments in favor of moving the classroom online. For instance, online training can help organizations “go green” as it helps to eliminate the estimated 10,000 sheets of paper used by office employees annually. It is also believed that online training can cut down instructional time by up to 60%.

Although leaps and bounds have been made where learning technology is concerned, the classroom will almost always have a place in learning. As such, your online corporate training solution must enable the management of ILT classroom schedules, attendance, facilities, and so on.

Advanced Reporting

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” There might be some debate as to the origin of this quote, but there’s no question that its relevance has grown as technology continues to evolve and improve measurement capabilities in all areas of business.

Tracking and measuring the impact that your online corporate training programs are having on your business are key to their success. As such, your LMS must allow administrators to monitor learning activity (such as course progress, completion, etc.) via dashboards and easily configurable reports.

Having the ability to dig deeper into training data and gather learning insights will vastly improve the effectiveness of your online corporate training programs.

Improving Online Corporate Training

An LMS is valuable and essential online corporate training software. If you’re looking to introduce a new system, ensure it can scale with your organization. Or, if you’re looking to switch to a new system to better accommodate your learner needs, make sure it is also equipped to accommodate your learner needs as they evolve.

Improve your online corporate training programs with Docebo! Start your free trial today – no credit card, no commitment.