How to select the best LMS for Your Corporate Training?

The ultimate gains from the use of LMS for corporate training depend upon the existing IT infrastructure in the organization. LMS technology has proved its multidimensional benefits including reduced training cost, increased productivity, ease in content delivery for the individuals or groups, new dimension of e-learning etc. Highly satisfied trained employees are the power behind the success of any business, so you need the best ‘Learning Management System’. Cloud-based LMS offers flexibility, better employees’ engagement, mobility, cost predictability, and real-time data.
As most of growth poised organizations are embracing the importance of updating the IT infrastructure in the line of advent of new e-Learning technologies, numbers of LMSs are being made available with different features and functionalities. This makes the selection of the best LMS for corporate training a challenging but manageable task provided you have the right LMS selection approach.

Ask Yourself Five Questions Before Investing in a Corporate Training LMS:

1. Do I really need LMS? Analyze - what you need and why you need. Some justified needs to have a cost-efficient LMS might be – effective training administration, anytime-anywhere access, company-wide training solution, accommodating changes for new regulations, having all the employees onboard, ongoing training etc.

2. Which LMS features you need for effective training? Each LMS has its own pros and cons that affect the cost also. Understand the must-have features. Common LMS features include tracking, reporting, assessment tools, compatibility for mobile devices, SCORM compliance etc. Your list may include more.

3. For whom do you need training LMS? Think about company size, group sizes for training, business type, frequency of training needs, technology awareness among the probable users etc.

4. What is the expertise level of your training course administrator? Although all the LMS providers do provide a technical support but having adequate proficiency to understand and manage the involved technicalities is must for training course administrator to get the best.

5. What is the budget for LMS? LMS cost varies according to the features, functionalities, popularity, technology, and other factors. Without having a having an idea about budget, the comparisons become a futile exercise.
Seven Tips to select the best LMS for Corporate Training:

After knowing the reasons for choosing an LMS and clearly understanding ‘what you need, why you need, for whom you need and what you can buy’, now, focus on selecting the best suitable corporate training LMS. Following seven tips will help you decide right to have the best designed LMS for your organization:

Compare ML-Driven Performance Based Corporate Training Features:

The great LMS should deliver the training materials to employees as well it accounts the learner’s progress and performance to help the trainer identify existing knowledge gaps. Choosing a LMS with Machine Learning capability is a must for the development of objective oriented training system for individuals or groups.

Compatibility to Mobile Devices:

Steven Kellow, Digital Marketing Expert at TEFL Org says, “Any LMS for corporate training needs to be compatible with commonly used mobile devices without affecting the functionality or features. It must facilitate the learners to access the required content from anywhere.” LMS must be designed to facilitate the learners to find the required information at least navigation efforts.

Get The Feedback From Learners and Trainers:

Collecting opinions from the users is a time tested method for any strategy formulation. Get the feedback about the current training system and the desired improvements from learners and training staff both. It will help you know what additional features you need to have in new LMS to simplify the training task as well as for simplifying the learning.

Assess Technical Limitations:

LMS should be able needs to be to integrated with existing systems. You must have a set of rules for numbers of access points, access eligibility, content categories etc. What technology can your training staff and support staff manage to use for simplified e-Learning? Just focusing on having the most advanced LMS is not the right approach; you must respect the technical limitations imposed by the technical proficiency of users and infrastructure.

Review The LMS Vendors:
Compare the qualifications of shortlisted LMS vendors. Experience, existence, technical support policy, arrangements for maintenance, approach, clientele, reviews by the customers, presence over social media are the key parameters that need to be compared before squeezing the list of good seeming LMS vendors. The LMS vendor with experience of working for your business niche is definitely may be good performer.

Assess the Suitability for Growth-Oriented Demands:
Every business is growth oriented and the new requirements emerge with expansion. Before investing in integrating any LMS to your training strategy, evaluate its suitability for the future needs that would arise because of expansions or other changes. Is it practical and affordable to update according to changing needs? Will the vendor be available to support for long-term?
Compare the Usability Through Embedded Features and Functionalities:
You must have the required features and functionalities listed before comparing the available LMS options. Having a LMS with optimized features and functionalities is the best approach to keep the cost under control. Content creation/update, video learning features and data analytics etc are often neglected LMS features but these need to have most advanced users’ centric functionality.

Ask for a Demo trial:

Demos are the key to have a feel of chosen LMS for corporate training. Almost all the popular training LMSs offer free trials for few days. Use this period not only for browsing for assessing the features and utility but test the users’ capabilities, skills, objectives and gains from different perspectives like time taken, ease of use, access suitability, security, compatibility, understanding, incorporation, benefits etc. The demo period must involve the stakeholders from different segments with different L&D requirements. Once you finish the trial, ask about the experience of trainers and learners both; and decide right accordingly.

Concluding Note:

Strategic buying decisions lead the organizations for target growth goal with sustainable profitability but the decisions should account the feedbacks of end users; same is the case with LMS selection of corporate training. The feedbacks, requirements, affordability, technical limitations, users’ behavior/preferences, expansion plans etc are the vital aspects of corporate training LMS selection strategy.