Why You Need a Learning Management System

What is an LMS?

A learning management system (LMS) is a tech platform that companies use to train their employees (online, in-person, or in hybrid situations). These generally include online courses, employee engagement opportunities, progress tracking, and report metrics.

Cost of an LMS

The initial investment in an LMS can be significant, so it’s important to choose the right partner for your platform. However, the decision to NOT have an LMS is also costly:

4x the salary: An LMS can increase employee retention rates by providing a better onboarding experience and career pathing. Replacing an employee can cost 3-4 times the person’s salary.

2-6x more recall: E-learning boosts learning retention rates by 25-60%, compared to retention rates of 8-10% with traditional training.

$4.5 million: Before senior employees retire, an LMS can distribute institutional memory. The average U.S. enterprise-size company may waste $4.5 million in productivity/year due to knowledge loss.

What You Could Gain From an LMS?

Engaged learning can create a culture that reduces employee turnover and onboards new associates without taxing team resources–but that’s not all. If you have clear metrics for your LMS (paired with the right LMS solution) you can accomplish a ton:

• Build new leaders and establish succession planning

• Deliver quicker onboarding of new associates

• Increase remote associate engagement and development

• Enhance the skillset of associates

• Provide associate roadmaps for retention

• Develop a culture of learning and innovation

• Pass on institutional knowledge from retirees to the next generation

Important LMS Factors to Evaluate

Your organization might have clear metrics that they want to measure with an LMS. Other factors to consider when evaluating platforms may include:

• Ease of use

• Content library for assets

• Gamification (custom badges/point systems)

• Certification creation

• Social collaboration

• Course authoring tools

• e-commerce (sell content, courses, subscriptions)

• Extended enterprise (client, partner, franchise training)

• Workflows (automatic course assignment based on roles, seniority, and completed courses)

• Ability to add/exchange features as the company needs to change

• Prebuilt course library

• AI assistant

• Metrics/reporting

• Customer support

• API integrations

The Value of E-Learning Authoring Tools

We’ve all sat through training that has been painful, boring, or irrelevant. It’s not enough to have an LMS to be successful. You need courses that are engaging, too. Having an LMS with e-learning authoring tools is essential.

(If you have content, but need an instructional design expert to bring your course to life, FACTS has a creative team that does that for you.)

How to Choose the Right LMS

While the technical capabilities of an LMS are important, the ease of use and customer support is also crucial.

• Can the LMS technology scale with what your company needs? Can you pay for a few features today that you need, and add more features as you need them?

• Evaluate not just the tech—check out the team providing support. Do you have someone tech-savvy on your team or will you need more hand-holding support from your vendor?

• Evaluate award-winning technology. Choose a platform that has good recommendations by third parties.