How can you Leverage an LMS to ease Work Process Design in the Corporate World?

Work process design is the process of creating a workflow for a business right from scratch. It involves a series of repeatable steps that direct toward achieving the desired common goal. These steps include- project planning, assigning tasks, dividing of tasks in sprints, quality check, monitoring stage, and user feedback stage.

With work process design, an organization can-

• Build up to-do lists
• Have performance records
• Manage and share files
• Setup discussions
• Schedule dates
• Report on project’s progress

But executing work process design isn’t easy. It comes with its challenges. These include-

Reduced learner engagement

One of the biggest challenges that L&D professionals still face while training corporate employee is, low learner engagement. The L&D experts may provide the most advanced training using the best methods and platforms, but the program may still just fail its purpose because of the low rates of engagement from the learners’ side.

The engagement might become low for a number of reasons starting from the kind of material that is used for the training to the format of the training material. For example, not many people are a big fan of reading long-form texts. So, if you are providing very complex material in a text-based format, then chances are the learners will start losing interest and feel demotivated to learn. Many employees might also be feeling overwhelmed with the idea of balancing work and training which might lead to reduced concentration.

Learning gaps

While executing a workflow design, it is obvious that your company will provide proper training to the employees that will work on a particular task or project. But the training might go to waste as some of the employees might have some learning gaps.

You may provide them with the best and the most advanced kind of training but if their basics are not clear enough, they will not be able to comprehend the training and make use of it. For example, you might train your employees to operate a new software system for a specific task. But if they have no idea about what the software is used for or how the basic functions of the software work, they will not be able to grasp what you are trying to train them for.

Information dissemination

Effective training only counts when the information is disseminated by the learners effectively. Each learner has their own style and pace of learning. Opting for traditional methods of training might not cater to each learner equally since the learners have no say in the style and the pace of the training. Some learners might even feel overwhelmed if bombarded with too much information in very little time. This may lead them to not disseminate the information properly and eventually leave out some of the most important parts. This problem in the long term can become the cause of learning gaps.

Monitoring learning of employees

Finally, corporate training means nothing if it doesn’t achieve the intended goals and objectives. To make sure that the training program is actually working, it is important to monitor the learning progress of the employees. With the data that can be collected through such a monitoring process, improving the courses to help individual employees becomes easier.

However, monitoring the progress of each employee separately to produce learning reports for them can be difficult. Especially, when done manually, proper individual monitoring becomes next to impossible.

To ensure that work process design is going with the flow, we need a learning management system (LMS). An LMS is a web-based platform for learning and training purposes. (Check out some of the best LMS for employee training.)  An LMS is designed to help businesses and teams implement and execute work process design by giving them proper online training. LMSs can help companies overcome the above-mentioned challenges in more efficient ways and increase the ROI of the training programs.

Here’s how a proper workflow design can be executed with the help of an LMS :

1. Preparing content-

An LMS platform provides access to an incredible amount of eLearning content, which otherwise would have been impossible to get hold of with a manual system. An LMS helps in creating a centralized repository where work process-related information can be stored. Online instructors can easily create eLearning courses, organize and manage them effortlessly. The eLearning courses may contain information in the form of documents, videos, and infographics. The format of online training resources is such that it keeps the employees engaged and attentive.

2. Sharing material-

A specific team needs specific eLearning material for completing the assigned tasks. With an LMS the online instructors and eLearning project managers can distribute eLearning materials that are related to their task.

This means there is no need to distribute hard copies and hence, is cost-effective too.

3. Automating work process-

An LMS can help automate the work design process and, thereby, eliminate time-consuming and repetitive tasks. For instance, once your online instructor creates a multi-tier eLearning course, your LMS can use automation tools for better delivery of outcomes. For example, to send reminders and follow-ups for pending and upcoming online training courses. This keeps the entire organization informed and up to date.

4. Gamification-

Gamification gets employees into a competitive mood and makes them more willing to complete their online training. It helps engage different teams better and makes them more interested in advancing through eLearning courses. Some of the gamification tools include- badges, virtual coins etc.

The eLearning storyboards highlight the achievements of the best performers that keep the game mode on.

5. Real-time tracking and monitoring-

An LMS enables the organization to track work progress. In the sense that the online instructor can see whether the online learner is making use of given online training resources, the number of times the eLearning course material has been accessed, and also whether the online learner is on track or not. Thus, an LMS acts as a treasure trove of data about every aspect of eLearning activities, from employee engagement to online training courses’ effectiveness.

6. Automated reports-

Reporting features are essential to measuring the effectiveness of work process design. Through access permissions, one can make online learner progress available to corresponding supervisors and senior management for feedback and evaluations.

This completely does away with the need to prepare and maintain manual reports.

Conclusion

We can conclude that an LMS makes work process design more responsive. It acts as an interface where online learners, online instructors, administrators, and eLearning project managers can seamlessly interact with each other. And most importantly, it streamlines all the processes and creates an agile work environment.