Choosing the Right LMS: A Buyer’s Guide to selecting a Learning Management System
Choosing the right LMS is an important decision for your entire organization. It lays the foundations for your future employee training, development, and business growth.
It can also transform the way you work. According to Isabelle Muthsam, L&D Specialist at eloomi, an LMS “helps our whole team save time, make fewer mistakes, and grow efficiency. We’re able to be more data driven, follow up on reporting, and I can offer my employees people development – actionable people development, rather than just talking about it.”
A robust Learning Management System (LMS) empowers HR and L&D professionals to streamline training, improve employee engagement, and empower development. But with a huge range of LMS options available, selecting the right one can be daunting. This buyer’s guide provides a framework to navigate the selection process with 10 key questions to ask before investing in an LMS.
1. What do you want to achieve with an LMS?
Before diving into features, take a step back and identify your organization’s specific needs and goals. Are you aiming to onboard new hires efficiently, bridge skill gaps, or deliver compliance training?
Today, Learning Management Systems support far more than just basic training, allowing you to build tailored upskilling paths for employees, or even connecting learning with your performance management process.
Defining your organizational needs and goals will help you be far more specific in your search for the right LMS.
2. What is your LMS budget?
LMS solutions come with a range of pricing options. Consider your budget constraints and determine the most cost-effective model (per user, per feature, etc.) that aligns with your long-term goals.
Remember, the cheapest option may not always be the most sustainable, so it’s important to account for how your organization might grow over the years.
3. What are your essential LMS features?
While feature-rich platforms are tempting, prioritizing the functionalities that are most critical for your needs can help cut out the noise and give you focus when it comes to choosing your LMS.
Common essentials include course management, learner progress tracking, reporting tools, and assessment capabilities. But you might want to consider other areas, such as performance management, skills training, or event content availability.
4. Do you want learning to be a part of your performance management process?
Some LMS platforms integrate seamlessly with performance management systems. In these cases, L&D teams, or even managers, are able to assign training based on development goals, whilst also accessing a range of useful features for tracking employee performance. So be sure to consider if this integrated approach aligns with your organization’s goals for learning and development
5. Will you create learning content for your LMS, or buy from a vendor?
Will you be developing your own training content or leveraging pre-built courses? There are a few options when it comes to choosing content for your LMS:
- Content creation tools: Many LMSs offer user-friendly content creation tools or integrate with authoring platforms, allowing you to create your own learning content. Be sure to check what types of media are supported, for example text, video, PDFs, and iFrames. As well as advanced features like custom quizzes.
- Uploading existing training: With an LMS you can upload existing training content into a digital platform to improve accessibility and ensure user-completion. Some platforms support SCORM file uploads to make it even easier for you to upload formal training.
- Content libraries: If you don’t have time to create custom training, or need support from industry experts, you should consider an LMS with an integrated content library. There’s a lot of training out there, so it’s important to know that your course providers are accredited suppliers of learning content.
6. Is the LMS scalable? Where will my organization be in 5 years?
Think beyond today’s needs. Choose an LMS that can scale alongside your organization’s growth. Consider factors like user capacity, future training requirements, and potential expansion.
If you’ll be starting out with training for just one team, you might want to consider how needs will change as departments grow, spread across locations, or even expand operations to external partners and third parties.
7. Is the LMS accessible and user-friendly?
Training that’s hard to access is training you’ll have to chase people to complete. Equally, an LMS with features that you never use might as well not have them.
A user-friendly interface is paramount for administrators and learners’ time (and sanity) so make sure your LMS feels intuitive, is easy to navigate, and accessible to maximize adoption and engagement.
A few basics to consider are whether the LMS is available across devices, as well as whether it has access features like bulk user imports and single sign-on.
8. Can the LMS integrate with your current software?
Seamless integration with existing software like HRIS or payroll systems streamlines administrative tasks and data exchange. Evaluate the LMS’s integration capabilities to ensure it complements your existing technological ecosystem.
It’s worth knowing whether you’ll have your IT department on board to assist with integrations and user management, or whether you’ll need easy tools to add new users and manage access rights.
9. Does the LMS have customer support?
Even the most intuitive LMS may require occasional support. Investigate the vendor’s customer support offerings, including response times, availability channels (phone, email, live chat), NPS scores and customer reviews.
Customer support should be able to assist you during the set-up of your LMS platform, and you should expect a detailed launch plan and onboarding together with your customer success representative.
Of course, you should also get a clear idea of customer service availability after your platform’s launch. Where are help articles stored? Are things well-documented? Make sure you’ll have all the support you need to keep learning and development on track.
10. Who will drive the LMS internally?
The success of your LMS hinges on internal champions. Identify individuals who will drive user adoption and content creation. Usually, this will be driven by your HR team or L&D department. But it’s important to have a clear idea of the people who can champion your LMS internally, such as heads of departments and team leads. It’s great that HR has a new tool, but if employees don’t notice their new training you’ll have wasted an opportunity.
Consider whether the LMS has social features and collaboration tools to support employee engagement and make it easy to share learning updates. This is also an area where integrations are your secret weapon. LMS platforms that integrate with Microsoft Teams, for example, or allow you to share learning certificates on LinkedIn, can massively help you with user adoption – bringing every employee on board with your new LMS solution.
Choose the right LMS for people development
With these 10 key questions for choosing an LMS in mind, HR and L&D professionals can make informed decisions during the planning, buying, and project launch process.
Remember, the ideal LMS is an investment that empowers your workforce, streamlines learning and development, and equips your organization with the tools to save significant admin time, drive employee retention and engagement, and support your organization through long-term growth.
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