For Your Corporate Teams & Customers
Implementing LMS in companies
For department heads and leaders
Last updated on this page: 04/29/2024
For Your Corporate Teams & Customers
How to Prevent Your LMS Project from Failing
This guide helps you to implement a suitable Learning Management System (LMS) in your department as easily as possible and as efficiently as necessary. We show ...
✔️ ... how to find out which LMS learning platform fits your needs
✔️ ... how to get your employees and colleagues on board
✔️ ... how to avoid typical mistakes when starting with e-learning for businesses
✔️ ... which best practices companies use in their learning management systems
The key lies in simplicity! A Learning Management System must be liked by the people using it – otherwise they won't use it! And the hoped-for e-learning boost quickly proves to be a costly failure.
(Note from the editor: In German-speaking countries, the terms "Lernplattform" and "digitale Lernplattform" are often used synonymously instead of "Learning Management System" – they generally mean the same thing).
Typical Problems with LMS in Companies
In recent years, many department heads, managing directors, and HR professionals have introduced extensive LMS like Moodle, SAP SuccessFactors, ILIAS, Cornerstone, Workday, or LMS 365 and have sometimes had negative experiences. Why is that? No, we have absolutely no complaints about the LMS from Moodle, SAP SuccessFactors, and others – undoubtedly, they are highly integrated systems with enormous functionality, enabling even large teams to learn and work effectively. However, this advantage quickly becomes a disadvantage when a company – and both the company and the LMS provider often do not realize this beforehand – may only need a part of the functionality of the LMS or the e-learning software.
These LMS functions you need ↓
Moreover, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) neither have the time, nor the resources, nor the intention to fully utilize such learning management systems. E-learning, on the other hand, thrives on its efficiency, and this suddenly suffers due to software that should actually make it more efficient. Therefore, we have compiled some examples of typical pitfalls when working with LMS platforms that often have nothing to do with the LMS functions themselves, but rather with the current state of e-learning in the applying company.
How to assess your current state ↓
Also known as a learning barrier, it is that you cannot so easily digitize years of practiced analog processes. We continually experience, and understandably so, that the introduction of learning management systems in companies also requires a change in mindset among all participating teams. Is the PowerPoint presentation for the video onboarding of a millennial apprentice really still up-to-date? Probably not! But it exists and is completed in its design. So who will take the hard, rocky path of video creation, and even more importantly: does this effort still relate to the yield? This is just one of many examples that occur frequently in reality. That is why our Customer Success has created a free guide, which illustrates how you can successfully roll out e-learning in your company – using the example of blink.it.
If you think of more reasons that make working with your LMS difficult, feel free to write them to us at redaktion@blink.it – the following list does not claim to be exhaustive. 😊
Later customers reported:
The current state in many companies
❌ Our employees do not use the LMS
❌ Our LMS platform does not work properly
❌ Despite the LMS, we have no overview of our employees' actual learning success
❌ The operation and integration of content is time-consuming and complex
❌ The effort of introducing the LMS was or is immense
These pains make work harder
❌ We have no learning content
❌ We have no person who created the learning content
❌ We have no time to create learning content
❌ We have no desire to create learning content because the system is so complex
❌ Our IT specifications hinder work with the LMS
❌ We have immense support costs
This would help us!
✅ An LMS that is easy to use
✅ An LMS that is enjoyed
✅ An LMS that is fun
✅ An LMS that does not tie up IT resources
✅ An LMS that can connect to existing systems
✅ An LMS that contains only features that are actually needed
✅ An LMS with hosting in Germany
You have the best LMS when ...
✔️ ... you can make the digital use of learning content as simple as possible
✔️ ... your employees actively use your offerings and drive it forward with their own ideas
✔️ ... you can demonstrate measurable results in the further qualification of your employees
✔️ ... the costs for LMS and maintenance are in line with these results
How we have structured this page... QUESTIONS | In the interest of a clear and understandable structure, we have organized this text around questions. You should ask yourself these – before, during, and particularly after you have implemented or tested an LMS in practical application. BLOG | As further reading, we will link you to relevant editorial content from our blog at certain points – you can refer to this when a topic particularly interests you or if you want to dive deeper. Just add this page to your favorites, then you can quickly return at any time. Don’t worry, you can grasp the core points of this guideline even without reading our blog texts! DOWNLOAD | Additionally, you can find a link further down this page for a free download of an E-Learning Guide. In this, our Customer Success experts will show you how we address the topic of “Rolling Out E-Learning in Companies" as blink.it. So enough teasing, let’s get started! |
For Your Corporate Teams & Customers
Why implement an LMS?
First, as is often the case in life, you should ask yourself the question of "Why." Why do you want or should you introduce E-Learning in the form of a Learning Management System in your department? Do you have intrinsic motivation? Take a look at the following bullet point list and pick your "Top 3 Whys" out. The points with a green checkmark ✅ are good examples to start with E-Learning. The ⁉️ emoji indicates that E-Learning and Learning Management Systems can help, but the root cause of the problem might need to be looked for elsewhere. Under 🎉 you will find points in case you are unsure whether you need an LMS or maybe an authoring tool or something entirely different. For example, in the direction of Gamification and LXP?
Note:
Of course, there are large Learning Management Systems or LMS that also include gamification and LXP elements as well as the topic of authoring tools! Nevertheless, many features are weighted differently depending on the system's characteristics. We would like to present the classic LMS use cases for the sake of clarity.
For Your Corporate Teams & Customers
Are you really looking for an LMS?
Here are reasons for an LMS
✅ You have a high training need in your department
✅ You know that knowledge is available, but often in the wrong place!
✅ Your personnel development measures do not deliver measurable success in knowledge transfer
✅ You are wasting a lot of time with regular training such as onboarding, safety at work, or data protection and would like to have these available as a permanent training template
✅ You want a member and course management, issue certificates, etc.
✅ You want to centralize personnel development measures in one place
✅ You want to leverage Corporate Learning to advance the qualification of your employees to combat skilled labor shortages
✅ You want to encourage your employees to learn in the company
✅ You want to establish digital learning methods such as microlearning in your department
✅ You want a consistent learning experience for an international team
You should consider an LMS
You receive negative feedback on your analog training offerings
You cannot measure the learning progress of your employees
You lack insights about the skill level of your employees
Other departments are already successfully using e-learning, and you believe your team could benefit as well
You believe that there is a high training need in your team
You are already using e-learning in a limited form, but the learning at the workplace is not being accepted
You are frustrated because you are burning money with poor onboarding
You hope for a reduction in administrative effort
You are looking for an LMS alternative
🎉 You care less about the architecture and management and more about the content and its creation (example: explanatory videos)
🎉 You want to create very individual content with a high focus on visuals
🎉 You are willing to engage strongly in course and content creation
🎉 You are considering whether to create learning content or rather purchase it
🎉 You want learning with playful elements, leaderboards, bonuses, and more
🎉 You want to create learning templates and digitize content
Maybe you even have your own reasons that we haven't captured here yet! Or do you have questions about one of the points mentioned and would like an explanation? Then don't hesitate and send us a message, we are also learning every day.
For Your Corporate Teams & Customers
What is your current status?
How is the training of employees currently being implemented in your company? Are there any problems? If so, what are they? Perhaps you already have a digital learning platform in use but are dissatisfied with it?
Before making far-reaching decisions, you should ensure that your next steps also align with your current status and the corporate culture of your company.
1. It does you no good to implement comprehensive e-learning measures if your employees cannot take advantage of them.
E-learning during working hours or in-person events tied to specific locations are often unpopular. The reason: When in doubt, learners prioritize those things that secure their quarterly closing!
Recommendation: Employees should be able to learn regardless of time and place, in the spirit of e-learning.
2. The learning offer must match the learning needs and also be enjoyable.
Sounds strange, but an Excel course only benefits employees who can apply the program in their daily work. After all, they acquire additional competencies that are relevant to their work routine.
Anyone invited to training who doesn't see any benefit in it from the start will neither enjoy it nor appreciate the offer. They will view it as a necessary evil to have to attend this event. Not exactly good conditions for successfully establishing and advancing e-learning or personnel development measures.
3. Make sure that one (or more) person(s) “wear the hat” during the LMS implementation and are accordingly motivated.
Beware, self-learning organization!
Okay, now you have thought about your motivation for introducing a Learning Management System. This is supposed to encourage employees to learn and simplify the learning process. Perhaps you have even heard something about the self-learning organization. We would like to warn you about it in the first step and in the current stage!
It is mentioned repeatedly when defining a vision or a “way to go” for the introduction of e-learning. And yes, such an organization recognizes the importance of learning for its success and accordingly invests in training and further education for its employees. According to current teaching, learning is correspondingly ported from the employee level to the corporate level and thus becomes an essential part of corporate culture. So far and “so far removed” in most companies of the present.
Contrary to popular belief, the self-learning organization is much more than a company that learns from the inside out and of its own accord.
Prof. Dr. Christian Jänig stated in his standard work on knowledge management back in 2004 that self-learning organizations have the capability to proactively respond to “environmental influences” and are able to “proactively and independently trigger and implement learning processes.” That might be a bit much for the start, don't you think? Therefore, the following section revolves around smart goals that help you achieve exactly these as “frustration-free” as possible and not at all about pipe dreams.
Best Practices from blink.it Customers
DVAG: Blended Learning for 17,000 Advisors
NOSA: How to Make Blended Learning Fun!
From SMEs to Corporations: Achieve Successful E-Learning in 4 Weeks
Gamification in the Online Course: The Success Story of “Reach the Top”
For Your Corporate Teams & Customers
Set Smart Goals!
In the recently mentioned example of the self-learning organization, we wanted to illustrate the following: It is very easy to jump on a bandwagon, especially since everyone is currently talking about this bandwagon. However, the ticket may be a bit more expensive, and the train may never arrive at the destination you actually wanted to go to...
That's why we recommend you to set smart goals and work closely with your own company. These should, according to the definition, be
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Reasonable
Time-bound
and should be communicated as clearly as possible throughout the company (see Part VI). This way, it will be easier for you to measure the success of your project based on concrete numbers. It will also be easier for you to create an overarching understanding, provided your employees are correctly aligned from the beginning. This also applies to non-expert decision-makers.
An example of a smart goal for the last quarter of the year would be: At least 300 employees have successfully completed an average of five training sessions on our new LMS.
This goal or Objective, when stated using the Objectives and Key Results Framework, is consciously formulated in the past tense in this case. This makes it easier to derive a stronger alignment (you act as if it has already happened). Explaining the OKR framework at this point is unnecessary and would also exceed the scope – however, we recommend it as one of many ways to set measurable goals as a company.
Therefore, try to define a smart goal for yourself in the following. Be careful, it's not that easy, and you might want to read on a bit more before tackling this task. Clearly defined goals also serve to evaluate the introduction of an LMS in your company regardless of all external factors. These are often quite cross-departmental in many companies. That’s why we will show you some current states that may actually occur in reality.
Typical Current States
Here are a few examples of problems that are common in many companies. These pose very high internal hurdles to the further development of existing staff and the onboarding of new staff.
We recommend that you also take the following points into account when planning the timeline for the implementation. Internal hurdles are often the highest hurdles.
The knowledge exchange among employees is obstructed by restrictive IT systems and firewalls.
Efficient cloud solutions for content exchange are prohibited for security and/or data protection reasons.
Management does not want to provide additional resources for e-learning and the associated tools (see also this study).
Not all employees have access to training.
Training measures are not a practiced process and are usually offered hastily only when a certification is coming up.
Training measures are standardized and are rarely proactively presented to employees.
Additional learning is perceived as a burden.
Training measures are statically offered only during working hours.
There are no tests and no follow-up to see if the knowledge has actually
For Your Corporate Teams & Customers
LMS - Functions & Features
Now that you have defined your Why, your Current State, and your Goal, you can begin your journey. The following questions may help you along the way:
Who do I need to speak to (beforehand)?
What (IT) resources do I need?
What data protection and security issues do I need to consider?
Who might be affected by the introduction of an LMS platform indirectly?
Who will primarily use the platform?
Who will provide possible content?
Are there existing contents and how are they formatted?
What functions do I need and what budget do I have available?
How often should meetings take place, where, and with whom?
Once you have entered the testing phase of your new LMS, the following approach is recommended. Some of these steps can be skipped if you are using an LMS that exists, like blink.it, as a cloud solution. ;-)
Step 1
Have the LMS or the e-learning software of your choice explained to you through a demo. Involve relevant people from your team who are stakeholders in the LMS implementation and/or will be working directly with the LMS. Often, phone calls or video calls are sufficient; elaborate on-site appointments are usually not necessary.
Step 2 – skipped for cloud solutions –
Next comes the installation and configuration of the software on the respective computers. It must be ensured that all system components are correctly installed and the appropriate configuration is adjusted. It is also necessary that all user profiles are set up with the correct access rights and that the company's security policies are adhered to. Ideally, these should be checked in advance with the Legal and IT departments!
Step 3 – skipped for cloud solutions –
Depending on the complexity of the LMS, its design, and the IT infrastructure on-site, several on-site appointments with external consultants or IT experts may be necessary. Some LMS, such as Moodle, are open-source and can therefore be configured in-house and tailored to your team's needs. Make sure to allocate sufficient time for this step!
Step 4
Test the LMS in the most realistic environment possible and first confront it with everyday tasks, like creating a course. Then think of more demanding tasks and time yourself on how long you need for each step. Where do you encounter hurdles? And where do you have questions?
Step 5
Write everything down and collect the content together with the other team members, ideally in a shared document. You may notice overlaps or completely contradictory trends. This information is extremely important for making the right decision later on.
Step 6
It is also advisable to define test scenarios. For example, what happens if 80 people work in the system simultaneously? Such stress tests can, if the software runs on private servers, lead to processes slowing down during operation. You must take this into account beforehand, as resource-intensive systems always have the disadvantage of tying up resources that may be needed elsewhere. Therefore, coordinate closely with your IT department and ask for advice! Again, using externally hosted cloud solutions is recommended. In this case, others need to ensure that your LMS runs smoothly.
Step 7
During the aforementioned steps, it will often be necessary to retrain employees, offer further training, and answer questions. A testing phase is ultimately meant for testing and not for already knowing everything. It is necessary that all employees contribute their part and are ready to implement new workflows or adjust processes. Regular communication should also take place, and any questions should be answered to avoid delays.
Planning Phase
After the foundations for the introduction of the new LMS in your company have been laid, the implementation process must be initiated. The first phase of introducing a new software in a company is the planning phase. In this phase, it is determined what functions the software should have, which devices it should support, and what timeline is planned for the implementation. The costs for the LMS implementation and the resources needed must also be defined in this phase.
Implementation Phase
In this phase, the new software is installed and tested. Various aspects must be considered, such as the interfaces to other systems in the company and the user tests conducted beforehand (you remember the shared document with questions and notable points). It must also be ensured that all necessary data can be imported into the new software and are importable!
Operational Phase
In this phase, the new software is finally put into operation and checked for its functionality. Here, it may also happen that problems arise in live operation that were hidden beneath the surface and went unnoticed before. This is nothing unusual and happens constantly. The planning person, in this case, you, should definitely know that support and alignment meetings as well as clarifying discussions may be necessary again. The commissioning of software is always associated with optimizations and permanent reviews, especially if your company wants to pursue a very custom solution.
For Your Corporate Teams & Customers
Planning & Stakeholders
As you can see from the planning questions, they are intentionally designed to communicate as much as possible and to engage people. This is related to the fact that learning and thus the introduction of a Learning Management System is a very individual matter. Learning in the form of a learning culture is lived differently by various departments and stakeholders. This leads to friction, especially when it comes to features and functions, meaning what your LMS should actually be able to do.
What is relevant and important for the research department can be a total burden for logistics and vice versa. Experience shows that it is better to have as concrete ideas as possible in advance about what is desired and what is not. Here too, it should be noted that companies tend to have elaborate feature sets, especially when many trades are involved and no platform experience exists yet. This can become expensive and “unnecessary.” Because in the end, you implement a Learning Management System that can do an incredible amount but is incredibly complicated to manage, operate, and maintain.
Are you doing yourself a favor by doing this?
Our Advice
Firstly, keep it simple and start slowly. While testing the digital learning platform, you can find out what is still needed based on user tests!
Of course, LMS providers have an interest in selling as large packages and feature sets as possible – whether you really need them should be decided by the people who work with them and, of course, those who set the goals.
Here is a small overview of some LMS features that are interesting for companies:
Authoring features that allow course creators to flexibly create and edit their own learning content using common media.
Commenting function that enables learners to exchange ideas with each other and with course leaders directly, and to actively participate in the course.
Quiz function for interactive content that supports the learning process, such as knowledge tests, feedback forms, and final exams.
Reporting function, which makes the activity of learners in the course and their current learning status visible to course leaders at any time.
Mobile function to make learning content flexibly available, independent of time and device.
Reading tip: 5 features that every LMS must have for businesses
Note
All of these features are offered by, for example, blink.it. Whether blink.it is suitable for your business can be quickly determined here: Quick test for businesses: Is blink.it the right learning platform?
For Your Corporate Teams & Customers
Our Approach at blink.it
As you could already read from this text, we believe that creating learning content should be as simple as possible and should provide enjoyment to the user. This sounds a bit clichéd, because everyone always says that everything should be fun.
When examined more closely, learning and LMS platforms are usually perceived somewhat differently: Learning is seen as exhausting and tedious. Not because learning itself is bad, but because the preparation and delivery of it usually are.
Moreover, corporate cultures have suddenly placed very different demands on learning since 2020 and agile learning is becoming more and more in focus.
And that is exactly why blink.it exists. We want ...
to simplify learning experiences with our software
to enable the creation of learning content within minutes
to make creating and sharing learning content possible anytime and anywhere, whether on a PC or a smartphone
to allow learning independent of time and place
With blink.it, you can easily create, edit, and enrich content with presentations, PDFs, and videos. In your browser, in compliance with data protection and with all content on servers hosted in Germany. With one login, no updates, no excessive IT support, within a few days.
