Training Managers are consistently asked to do the impossible: Train more with the same limited budget. At face value a learning management system can help meet this demand. But if the LMS you choose can't meet, or be configured to meet, your specific training program needs you're stuck creating workarounds outside the system that drain valuable time that could be spent training more people.
Most extended enterprise, or partner organizations find themselves in this situation - creating workarounds because their LMS can't fully support their training program. The issue most face is failure to choose the right tool from the start. Most systems are built around a human resource organizational model. The trouble arises when trying to fit a complicated partner program into the bones of an HR LMS.
When training is critical to your mission you can't afford an LMS that comes up short. An LMS that can help you train more people with less effort is essential. An LMS that can be configured to meet your unique training workflows is a necessity to meet the goal: train more with the same limited budget. How can you ensure you are selecting the right learning management system from the start? The proof is in the underlying functionality of the system.
Training more with less is achieved through: automating LMS processes, customizing the LMS to meet your specific training program needs and embedding training into your workforce's daily operations. If an LMS is truly globally deployable it must have robust features to support automation, customization and embedded training. Start with these three main training enablers when checking out if a system is right for you. Ask the LMS vendor how their system accommodates automation, customization and embedded training. What features and functions does their system have to assist these training enablers? Let's take a closer look at the each training enabler:
Automate: Automation features are extremely important when finding the right learning management system. In a highly automated LMS, one person can manage thousands. Automation in an LMS can help:
- Lower training operation costs
- Decrease LMS Administator workload
- Guide learners with triggered notifications
- Deliver efficient, successful training
Automating allows you to achieve training more with less because you can easily set and forget many daily training tasks as an administrator. While most learning management systems will allow you to automate processes to some degree, LatitudeLearning is the only SaaS LMS that allows for a 100% automated training program. Some examples of automated features in LatitudeLearning include:
- Audience Tool - Automatically identify a group of users
- Goal Rules - Automatically assign training goal
- Report Scheduling - Automatically run custom reports
Customize: Training programs should not be treated equally. Your beliefs, the way you do business, and the manner in which you've structured your operation is what sets you apart from your competitors. Uniqueness is an extremely important attribute to organizations and it shouldn't be lost in translation to an Learning Management System. This is why the ability to customize your LMS is vital to your training success.
A more traditional software, where you buy your learning management system, will give you more flexibility for customization. Although this type of LMS can get very pricey, you will be able to completely automate your training program as it stands today, but as your training program evolves, and as the software company adds new features to its products, you won't be able to take advantage of any of the changes. A new version is a new purchase - so you're pretty much stuck with the version you buy.
Or you could go with a more affordable option of renting your LMS through a SaaS provider.You'll get automatic updates when new features are available, but 99.9% of SaaS vendors will not let you customize it. This means you usually end up with the software supporting 80% of your training program process. You can't just throw away the other 20%, so you're forced to create workarounds that cost time and money.
So what happens now? You're forced into a system that can't fully support your training program no matter which software you decide to go with. That's when you turn to LatitudeLearning. Latitude is far different from any other LMS company because we're the only SaaS vendor that will authorize customization of your learning management system. Granting you the advantages of SaaS by remaining on the latest version of the software. And the advantages of traditional software by allowing you to customize so the software fully supports your ever-evolving training program.
Latitude's myLMS™ program allows for custom automation and delegation tools that can be installed into Latitude's SaaS software (LatitudeLearning) at a budget-friendly, fixed cost. We guarantee your customizations will function with any future updates of the LMS, and if it doesn't it's on us to fix it - assuring you will never have to ask for more budget.
Embed: In order to maximize impact, it's essential to integrate crucial information at the point of need. Embedded learning allows for maximum engagement by empowering your team to stay put, instead of forcing them to leave their current applications to log into the LMS. Embedded learning benefits include:
- Right place, right time learning
- Credit for everyday work activity
- Delivery through existing applications
- Distributed Administration
Latitude's myPlatform™ program grants access to a set of more than 200 APIs that can be called for deep customization, to be placed on any application that you have programming rights to. Additional features of myPlatform™ include:
- Build in student, manager, instructor and administrator functionality
- Secured WebServices
- JSON Response Objects
- Read and Write actions
- 24 Object Interface Types
- Expandable if necessary
|