5 Criteria For Choosing The Right LMS For New Manager Training

5 Criteria For Choosing The Right LMS For New Manager Training
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Summary: With so many LMSs on the market, choosing one is no easy task, so we’ve put together this list of criteria to consider when choosing an LMS for your new manager training.

How To Select The Right LMS For New Manager Training

The Learning Management System (LMS) is a software system designed to organise, track and monitor learning activity.

Traditional LMSs focus more on courses and providing tons of content, however, the LMS has evolved, and many learning platforms now support on-demand learning, mobile and agile working.

eBook Release: Impactful New Manager Training Using A NextGen LMS: A Complete Guide For L&D Professionals
eBook Release
Impactful New Manager Training Using A NextGen LMS: A Complete Guide For L&D Professionals
Find out how to use digital resources to inform, equip and inspire new managers to really make an impact in your organisation.

1. Why Do You Need An LMS?

A great LMS shouldn’t just store your learning materials. It should enable L&D teams to equip new managers with the resources and guidance they need to perform better and easily acknowledge performance and knowledge gaps.

Before selecting an LMS, L&D teams need to determine what they are trying to achieve. What is the purpose of your new manager training? This isn’t something that can be easily answered just over a day. Instead, consider the priorities of the business, now and in the near future.

Looking at the goals of your new managers will help you determine the priorities. Speak to senior staff and managers, and find out what their common concerns and issues were when they started their roles. Gather feedback from employees about to start their new manager roles, and determine a strategy that is going to support them and provide more confidence and better understanding.

Once you’ve clarified the priorities, you can then start moving onto the next stage: looking for an LMS that will help you help your managers.

2. How Efficient Is The LMS?

After establishing your priorities and the goals of your new managers, you should pinpoint the features and functionalities you require for your new manager training.

At this stage, you need to look into the efficiency of the LMS, and how easily it can support your requirements.

We’ve written numerous articles about the modern workplace and the empowered learner, and this is something that all organisations should be considering when using digital technology if they want to ensure their LMS is engaging and also supporting employees at the point-of-need. A modern LMS should ensure your training materials are readily available, not limited to a specific device and supports learning in the workflow.

Often, many organisations find their LMS extremely time-consuming and difficult to keep up-to-date. An efficient LMS should minimise admin tasks and time spent updating training materials.

3. How User-Friendly Is The LMS?

Having a good User Experience is vital if you expect your employees to engage with your training materials. Your LMS should look good and be easy to use. Managers are busy, so your LMS needs to minimise the time spent on searching for the answers they need and instead work like Google would, with quick to-the-point answers.

Look for a platform that doesn’t require a training manual just to figure out how to use it. Remember, managers have a great deal of influence on their teams, so if they find the platform to be difficult to use, they’re almost certainly not going to tell their teams to use it.

4. What Data Can The LMS Track?

Reporting is an integral part of the training process as it helps L&D teams decipher what is or isn’t working, and how to shape your new manager training programme. Your LMS should make it easy for you to gather useful data and reports to determine the value and quality of your training materials.

Go back to your key priorities to determine what measures your organisation considers to be most important and check your LMS can easily gather this information for your reporting.

5. What’s Your Budget?

The final criteria to consider is your budget. Technology has already saved organisations money by eliminating the need for transportation costs, paperwork, instructor costs, and travel time. But you also need to consider the costs of a poor product or failure when implementing your new manager training in the best possible way.

Choosing the wrong platform can be extremely costly for a business. The wrong platform could lead to low engagement, poor productivity, and high turnover costs, so it’s important to have clear expectations of what you require from your software before making a decision.

Use the tips above to ensure you know exactly what you need from your LMS to best support your new managers and provide value for your business. By having a clear strategy in place, you’ll ensure you’re focusing on supporting the goals of your new managers rather than just picking an LMS that is feature-packed with things you probably won’t ever use.

Training new managers has always been important, but the workplace has transformed rapidly since the rise in digital and therefore it’s important to ensure your organisation can keep up. Download the eBook Impactful New Manager Training Using A NextGen LMS: A Complete Guide For L&D Professionals and find out how good leaders will guide their teams to achieve higher performance, better productivity, and improved morale, so training your managers in the right way is essential.