We’ve written before on the importance of HR technology for business success (check out our previous blog).
But it has to be the right technology, especially because the choices you make may shape or limit your options into the future (if you don’t want to make another often substantial investment of money and time).
Business leaders understand that technology is key to driving efficiency as well as capability and performance but only if it’s the right combinations of technologies. Almost all HR leaders plan to invest in multiple technologies over the next two years, in addition to upgrading their existing systems. Spending on technology now accounts for between 3.5% and 9.5% of the average HR budget.[1]
Yet this money is often badly spent. Recent research found almost no difference between the employee satisfaction rates of those companies that had invested in HR technology, and those that had not.[2]
The solution can’t be to stop investing when those that get it right reap such competitive advantages. Our belief is that a good first start is to move from a traditional Learning Management System (LMS) to an Employee Experience Platform.
Limitations of the LMS
For two decades the LMS has been the tool of choice for delivering compliance and other mandatory training. But most LMSs are designed for the administrator not the end user. Such training was often tolerated in the past because the amount of time it took was small and a job depended on it. But times move on.
Companies that don’t update systems will drive lower employee engagement and instil a sense of ‘us and them’ reducing any potential alignment between employee and the employer. And as roles change with increasing rapidity the best talent will increasingly expect to drive their own development.
Learning Experience Platforms evolved to deliver this learner-centric approach. Whilst the LMS is designed to deliver training required by the employer, a Learning Experience Platform delivers learning driven by the employee. Supporting what employees value, not just what they’re deemed to need, has been shown to increase employee performance by 20%.[3]
Learn Amp: an Employee Experience Platform
But an Employee Experience Platform goes further. If you want to drive continual improvement and if you want knowledge and expertise in the business to be not only retained but shared and developed over time, you need a platform that facilitates that too. One that has the tools to take the pulse of teams, connect learners with experts, coaches with courses. To build a sense of community. Community builds engagement and commitment and makes it easier to connect people across different locations, time zones and languages. That all leads to happy people and higher retention.
And finally, what good is learning and knowledge sharing if you can’t connect that to individual, team and company performance? How else can you effectively measure the return on investment?
There are many components to a great employee experience but for us the three standout elements are what we call the integrated elements of Learn, Engage and Perform. Together they can truly drive growth and provide a return on investment that the traditional LMS just can’t match.
[1] https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/improve-employee-experience-with-consumer-centric-hr/
[2] https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/improve-employee-experience-with-consumer-centric-hr/
[3] https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-3-priorities-for-hr-in-2019/