If you’re investing in a learning management system (LMS), you’ve made the wise (and forward-thinking) choice to prioritize employee training. That’s smart because:
- Retention rates rise 30-50% for companies with strong learning cultures
- 70% of employees would be somewhat likely to leave their current job to work for an organization known for investing in employee development and learning
- 59% of millennials claim development opportunities are extremely important when deciding whether to apply for a position (read these and more stats here)
Offering employee development opportunities is good for business. It fosters a learning culture that values an educated workforce and shows employees that you care about keeping them on board. Plus, it offers employees a clear path to promotion so they can envision themselves in your company long-term.
In this blog, we’ll explore how asking your staff to weigh in on employee training programs helps you develop considered online courses that genuinely interest them and address learning gaps. You’ll also learn how thoughtful employee training fits into your overall corporate strategy to help your company meet your growth goals.
Why should you ask employees for their input on training programs?
Happy, productive employees are the lifeblood of any company. You’re more likely to keep your crew working efficiently when you empower them to do their jobs well.
But to be effective, your training needs to:
- Address real learning gaps
- Interest your learners
- Measure learner progress
A learning management system can help you do all of this (and more). And talking to your employees before you choose an LMS platform will help you gauge which one will suit your company and your employees best.
How do their answers help you choose between learning management systems?
As you shop for an enterprise LMS that will a) address your business needs, b) offer convenient features like mobile learning, and c) make it easy to build online courses, you must keep your learners’ needs top-of-mind.
Even the best learning management system in the world will be a waste of time and money if your learners don’t log in and use it. Before selecting an LMS vendor, be sure it will work for your most important stakeholders: your employees.
What questions should you ask before designing employee training?
Surveying your learners (employees for employee training, customers for customer training, etc.) will give you insight into the type of LMS they need to learn successfully. You can use your learners’ feedback, interests, challenges, and ideas to build an effective online training strategy. We suggest you start by asking these questions:
Question 1: What are your learning preferences?
The first step in choosing a training management system is to find one that suits your employees’ learning styles.
People learn differently from one another. Some prefer visual aids like graphs and flowcharts to help them understand concepts. Others need auditory cues like learning from a live instructor or a webinar.
Some learners even require whole-body movement to process new information (this is called kinesthetic learning).
The learning management system you choose will need to adapt to diverse learning methods. Look for one with built-in tools that address every type of learning, like video conferencing for those who need auditory cues or customizable graphics for people who respond to visual aids.
Question 2: Which LMS features are most valuable to you?
With certain LMS features, like gamification and discussion forums, any kind of training (yes, even compliance training!) can be an immersive and interesting experience. Other features, like personalized learning paths, ensure a seamless learning process for each of your employees.
Ask your learners which features make it easier and more enjoyable for them to use a corporate LMS. You might allow users to rank each feature on a scale of 1 to 5, or you may ask them to select several features from a long list.
To frame this question correctly in your survey, you should offer a very brief (3- to 5-word) description of each feature.
Focus on the features that boost user engagement and contribute to higher learner satisfaction. When you get a consensus from your learners, include those items on your “feature requirements” list.
Question 3: How do you prefer to access training materials?
When learners find it easy to access their training, they’re more likely to log in and start learning. Survey your learners to discover whether they want their training courses online or offline, and whether they prefer to access courses via desktop or mobile device.
Mobile learning and online courses shouldn’t stop your training from being inclusive and team-based. Look for a corporate LMS provider that can facilitate social learning, even for remote teams working on different kinds of devices.
Question 4: What type of learning content do you find most effective?
Surveys are always enlightening, and you might be surprised by which types of content your learners prefer.
Ask your employees whether they like learning from videos, written content, live webinars, or interactive modules (like courses that allow them to choose their own learning paths). You may find that the answer includes a mix of content types to suit specific purposes, or that different learning groups prefer different types of content. For example, some learners may prefer different content for customer education, sales training, or the onboarding process.
You’ll have greater learning success if you focus on the content delivery approach your learners prefer and ensure your corporate LMS can deliver it.
Question 5: How important is personalization in your learning experience?
If there’s one thing we can take from stats on corporate training, it’s that employees WANT to learn. They’re curious about topics related to their job roles and want to sharpen their skills to reach peak performance.
Personalized learning experiences help give employees the training that will most benefit them, and most of your learners will find a tailored learning experience more engaging.
Ask them whether they find customized learning paths and recommendations valuable, and whether they’d learn better with access to adaptive learning technologies. If so, look for a customizable enterprise LMS that adapts to users’ needs as they learn.
Question 6: What are your learning goals and objectives?
The business benefits of investing in an enterprise LMS are clear, but what about your learners’ motivation for learning? Individual employees have unique reasons for honing their soft skills and technical proficiencies. Understanding what drives them to learn will give you an edge in choosing the right enterprise LMS for your company.
Ask your learners about their goals in your survey. You’ll likely see themes like skill development and career advancement across their responses. You can use this information to choose an enterprise LMS that allows you to offer the kind of content learners want and need to meet their goals.
Question 7: How do you prefer to receive feedback and assessments?
Your online courses will likely include assessments like tests and quizzes to ensure learners are actually learning.
Employees may have preferences on how they’d like to take tests, receive manager feedback, and hear peer reviews. Listen to those preferences and look for an enterprise LMS that can accommodate them with flexible assessment and feedback tools and features.
Question 8: What motivates you to engage with learning materials?
Motivation is key to encouraging learners to log in and interact with your training content. Find out what motivates your learners to keep training. Is it recognition from management, peer appreciation, or rewards like bonuses or vouchers?
Gamification features (like leaderboards and badges) can boost motivation, and most LMS platforms offer a way to score learning achievements to encourage healthy competition. That way, you can move each learner from “enrolled” to “active user”. Whatever keeps them engaged, you can find an enterprise LMS that helps you stoke motivation in your learners.
Question 9: How do you manage your learning schedule?
One advantage of an LMS is that it offers scheduling flexibility for busy learners. Your employees can choose between a self-paced learning process and a scheduled session. You can set deadlines for completing courses, and you can gate advanced courses by requiring learners to complete the more basic ones first.
Allow your learners to express the reality of their lives and where corporate training fits into their daily hustle. Balancing work, family, and personal time leaves little room for enterprise learning. If you can identify how learners fit learning into their lives, you can find LMS providers that accommodate those scheduling needs, allowing you to plan modules and create content accordingly.
Question 10: What challenges have you faced with other systems?
If your learners have used LMS systems before, you can learn a lot from their previous experiences.
You can structure this question as multiple choice, allowing learners to select previous LMS problems from a list. But it’s also wise to allow learners to write freely so they can give details on the issues they’ve encountered in the past and shed light on problems you might not have thought of.
When deciding what to look for in an LMS vendor, use this problem list to help narrow down your choices. Make sure your potential LMS provider addresses every issue your learners raise, and that the provider offers extensive support services and a friendly, accessible support team.
Bonus question: What software application(s) do you need to work with your LMS?
Your users (both learners and teachers) might need specific software integrations to work with the LMS you choose. Make sure you get a comprehensive list of every necessary software and ask potential LMS providers if their third-party integrations align with those tools.
Learners LOVE LearnRight!
Learners consistently tell us that LearnRight is an ideal LMS for user-friendly course delivery and engaging gamification features. Learning managers love that it offers personalized learning paths and customizable branding. Stakeholders of all kinds agree that LearnRight addresses their current enterprise learning objectives with room to scale to their future needs.
Book a demo of LearnRight. We’ll show you why this new LMS solution is quickly being recognized as the best LMS on the market.
