What LMS Mistakes You Need To Avoid When Using Your Learning Management System
When used properly, your Learning Management System can reduce the time needed to onboard new employees, increase customer retention, and educate partners in a more engaging manner. That being the case, here are some common LMS mistakes we’ve noticed when using your Learning Management System:
1. Trying To Replicate Your HR System
A lot of administrators decide they want every piece of data stored in their HR system replicated and kept in sync with their Learning Management System. The result is that they end up with forty or fifty pieces of custom user data like date of birth, start date in the organisation, address, phone number, and so forth. This isn’t usually meaningful data to have in a Learning Management System, and so just clutters up your interface and records for no good reason. Don't create custom user data unless you are actually going to use it to drive course enrollments, or will need to report on it.
2. You Aren’t Providing The Right Kind Of Content
Whether your goal is onboarding, continued training, or corporate compliance, the courses you create for your company’s Learning Management System can support those effectively - but only if you’re providing the right content to get the job done. People have a variety of learning styles, so be sure to take that into account, along with keeping the content highly-engaging. Employees will interact with content better and retain information longer if they enjoy what they are doing. Your content should be broken into smaller chunks and should be as interactive as possible. It should also contain mixed formats: video, interactive SCORM, assignments, exams, surveys. See our guidance on Instructional Design principles for more ideas.
3. Having Too Many Administrators Can Lead To Problems
While LearnUpon doesn’t limit the number of administrators you can have (some vendors do!) our experience is that keeping the number small and manageable is good practice. By doing this, you can know who changed a course, deleted a group, or took other actions.
4. You Aren’t Utilizing The Integrations You Need
There are easy ways to link the tools you’re already using with your Learning Management System, and if you’re not taking full advantage of these integrations, you might be missing out on in-depth reporting. A Salesforce integration can add depth to a customer’s account history, a Twitter integration allows employees to share the courses they’ve completed, and a LinkedIn integration gives employees the ability to include recent certifications on their profile. Check out LearnUpon’s approach to integrations.
5. You Don’t Fully Understand All The Features Of Your Learning Management System
As an administrator, you should be the go-to person for all questions regarding your Learning Management System. If you aren’t sure of the capabilities, or haven’t explored all the feature possibilities, you’re going to have a hard time acting as the expert. It’s going to be that much more difficult to get employees invested in the Learning Management System, not to mention achieving your goals, if you aren’t using your Learning Management System to its fullest potential. That’s why at LearnUpon we assign our customers a personal Customer Success Specialist to help them achieve eLearning success by maximizing their use of our platform. Make sure you know as many of the details as you can, and success will follow.
6. You’re Making Things Too Complicated
The goal of a Learning Management System is to make the company’s learning process easier, but if you set up too many technical hurdles, you’re going to lose learners. Your Learning Management System should be easily-navigated, optimized for clarity and intuitive enough for all types of users to access. The best of rule of thumb is to keep things as simple as possible. Making the learning process overly complex is a sure way to turn people off the experience.
7. You Aren’t Following Up With Employees After Training
To effectively gauge how your Learning Management System is performing, it’s best to close the feedback loop by checking in with learners about their experience. You can do this by sending out an anonymous survey. By asking users for their thoughts about the Learning Management System, you’re showing them that they’re an active participant in the process. Read more about the pros and cons of using eLearning surveys here.
These are a few of the LMS mistakes we’ve seen people make when using their Learning Management System. What others are we missing from the list?
