Why Do I Need an LMS?

Ever wondered what an LMS is and how you can tell if you need one? If so, you’ve come to the right place.

We’ve based a substantial part of our business on the task of helping our clients and customers with LMS builds, and sSo we’re more than qualified to talk about LMSs and their impact on the business environment.

And so, with that in mind, let’s go ahead and take a closer look at LMSs and what they mean to you.

What is a Learning Management System?

LMS stands for Learning Management System, and a lot of the clues are in the name. An LMS is basically a type of software designed to administer, document, and track learning through the provision of educational courses and training programs.

If you’ve ever taken any form of online training, the chances are that you’ve interacted with an LMS. They provide the latest generation of e-learning, allowing for much more efficient learning and training both in the workplace and at home.

For example, an LMS can be used to provide the infrastructure for a workplace onboarding program or, more specifically, for an SEO training module for digital marketers. It could also be used to help someone learn to play the guitar or become a better writer.

Learning works best when it’s structured, which is why schools and colleges have curricula. Used well, LMSs can provide this kind of structured learning while throwing in a whole heap of extra benefits, such as detailed tracking and analytics, gamification, scoring, and more. So there’s a lot to like about them.

What are the signs that I need LMS?

Now that you know what an LMS is, it becomes a question of how to tell whether setting up an LMS is the right decision for you and your business. There are a few different signs to look out for, with the main ones including the following.

Employees are training themselves.

If your employees are already looking for learning opportunities and have to develop their own initiatives, it’s a sign that you could benefit from setting up an LMS. It shows that the intent to learn is already there, so it falls to you to provide people with the tools they need to make it happen.

You can spot this self-training if employees are setting up informal learning workshops to share knowledge with each other or if they’re requesting a budget to take external courses and accreditations. Providing an LMS is a no-brainer here because you know that it’s going to experience adoption.

You’re struggling to remain competitive.

Another sign that you need an LMS is when your employees are struggling to keep pace with the rapid development of new technologies and best practices. Instead, it makes much more sense to provide them with the tools and resources they need to stay up-to-date, and an LMS can be a great way of doing this. It also means that you can easily update the content that the course covers, making it even easier for your educational materials to remain up-to-date and relevant.

You need more data on how people are learning.

Storing and analyzing data on how people are learning can help you better cater to them and tailor the education you present to your employees. Data is power, so the more of it you gather, the better your decisions will be.

This point might not be particularly applicable if you’re a small business with only one or two employees, because realistically, you’re not going to be able to gather a huge amount of data. But if you’re working at an enterprise business, you’ll easily be able to monitor long-term trends and adapt the learning opportunities you provide as a result of it.

Your existing workplace learning programs are inefficient.

Any company that has its own learning programs is automatically worthy of a certain amount of respect, but it’s certainly true that not all of them are efficient. For example, it’s not uncommon for companies to create huge folders of information and dumped them on employees’ desks on their first day on the job for them to read through in their own time.

The problem with doing that is that people rarely have the time or the inclination to go through it all, and so it doesn’t actually matter how good the information is because no one ever reads it. It’s inefficient, which is where an LMS comes in, allowing you to create much more immersive learning programs that people actually take the time to interact with.

You have internal knowledge that isn’t being shared.

Another great reason for starting an LMS program is if you have a vast amount of internal knowledge that no one is sharing. It’s often said that a company’s employees are its greatest assets, and empowering them to share their knowledge means that you can keep that knowledge even if they move to a different company. 

In this instance, setting up an LMS is a no-brainer, and indeed it can even pay for itself in terms of the increased expertise and productivity that you’ll enjoy, as well as the money that you can save by not having to purchase expensive training programs. 

What benefits (advantages) can an LMS bring?

LMS systems bring a whole heap of advantages with them, many of which we’ve already touched upon. More specifically, some of the major advantages of using an LMS include:

Easier administration: An LMS provides a single touchpoint where you can administer a learning program in its entirety. As soon as you make a change, it’s automatically rolled out across every user on the LMS platform. 

Better documentation: LMSs make it easy for you to upload, store and share documents that relate back to the course material. Learners can access this at any time and never run the risk of losing important information that relates back to the course.

Better tracking: With an LMS, you can track exactly who’s learning what, along with how often they’re interacting with the system and how their scores and knowledge levels are improving over time.

Greater efficiency: Learning with an LMS is much more efficient than trying to do the exact same thing without one because it provides more great structure and makes it easier for you to stay on track with your learning goals.

Versatility: LMSs are great because they’re so versatile that you can use them for pretty much any type of learning, whether it’s personal or professional. 

Structured learning: LMSs offer the best of both worlds because they allow people to guide their own learning and to manage their own time while simultaneously providing an opportunity for structured learning. Structured learning is much more efficient than unstructured learning, giving the best possible learning outcomes.

Gamification: Another benefit of using an LMS is that they can include gamification features like points systems, badges, and leaderboards. It’s basically the same kind of idea that Duolingo uses to encourage people to learn languages.

Proprietary knowledge base: If you build your LMS yourself and populate it with your own lessons, knowledge, and learning, it leaves you with your own proprietary knowledge base that no one else has access to. 

We Can Build the AI-powered LMS for you.

Zfort Group is a good choice when you’re looking for an LMS program because they have plenty of experience at creating these types of programs, whether we’re talking about the actual creation and deployment of the software or whether we’re talking about content creation.

Better still, Zfort Group also has experience of professional AI development and can bring this to bear on your LMS project. As a result, AI-powered LMSs are even better than regular ones because they can harness the massive potential of artificial intelligence to improve the learning process.

Netflix uses AI to power its personalized recommendations, while Google and other search engines use it to improve the accuracy of their results. By integrating AI into your LMS, you can achieve the same benefits and create a world-beating education system that rivals the best in the market.

When you’re implementing an LMS, you need to find a good partner. Even when you have all of the knowledge you need in-house, you still need a specialist to help you build the platform and establish best practices across your business.

The good news is that Zfort Group has been there, done that, and bought the shirt, so if you’re looking for some help getting your LMS up and running, you’ve come to the right place. Reach out to Zfort Group today to find out how we can help you to build and deploy the ultimate LMS for your company.