A Learning Management System (LMS) is a big investment in your business. It’s one that you made because you know that investing in training is the right move for any business in today’s tight labour market. Staff need to be able to upskill quickly and competently, and that just isn’t possible with patchy training that is different at each store or franchise. An LMS unifies training efforts and promotes quality throughout the entire organization.
An LMS such as TalentLMS, Moodle, or Cornerstone has many advantages. Changes can be pushed out in a matter of minutes, allowing for always-fresh and up to date information that doesn’t need to be changed in multiple locations or different stores.
Quizzes, videos, and other interactive features can also be used, which improves training uptake considerably over poring over lines of text. Interactive features are also much better if your staff is not proficient in the primary training language - but if they aren’t, most LMS solutions have multilingual capabilities.
While it is a manager’s job to train, often they may not have time to really dig into the finer details. That’s where your LMS comes in, with timed learning that managers can check in on to see if it has been completed. Organization-wide reporting is also available, making a corporate training manager’s job much easier.
As with any software solution, there will always be one or two people who don’t like change and will be resistant to its use. Without full user adoption, you don’t get the full LMS benefits of reduced staff turnover and company-wide reporting. So what can you do to make the holdouts love it?
Since you already have it, you’ve probably already done an organization-wide launch complete with training. If the training has only consisted of some emails with links, you may want to rethink that strategy. Busy people will not take the time to do something that they can’t see directly benefiting them. Encourage a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach by having one-on-one meetings with store managers to ensure their comfort and offer training at the store level. After managers and staff have this training and understand the benefits of using it, your user adoption rates will soar.
Even after that, you will have a few holdouts. To rope in your stragglers, offer any that are at the management level one-on-one training. While this can be expensive, it is absolutely worth the time and money. Generally, it is just a case of being resistant to change. If they can see the benefits, they will use it. They may just have an inner narrative that there are not enough benefits to put the time into learning the new system. Once you have the buy-in of management, user adoption can be mandated at the staff level.
Now that you have an LMS and your people have started using it, how can you expand on its capabilities? You can take it to the next level by adding food handling and general work skills training courses. FoodSafetyMarket has a large library of courses we can load seasmlessly onto your LMS. Better yet, we manage the whole process with your IT department so all you need to do is order the course.
Once we’ve done that, all of your company food safety certifications and courses will be at your fingertips, as well as reporting that your Quality Assurance Managers have been aching to get their hands on. You’ll be notified when staff need to re-certify, and all the training is compliant at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels in any Canadian jurisdiction. Our courses are also available in both English and French.
We also offer WHMIS and general work skills training courses in areas such as customer service, diversity & inclusion, and much more which can fill out your onboarding process and offer employees certificates in specific subject areas. Want to run an anti-bullying initiative for Pink Shirt Day? We have courses on discouraging workplace harassment that can pair with that.
Contact us today to find out how we can expand the range of your LMS and make your company an even more attractive place to work.