Building a LMS for Your Employees (Part I)

This short article will address some of the implementation suggestions on corporate Learning Management System (LMS) for Employee Training.

The LMS should cooperate with corporate employee training program, where the training sessions are arranged for the entire workforce. The corporate LMS serves as a dedicated channel for all training related communication. The LMS administrator, in an enterprise environment, is responsible for interfacing with all functions within the organization that have training needs. It pretty much would manage the involvement on:

System Availability: The LMS should be available during the clock for employees to attend training. With latest technology, hosting your learning service in cloud computing solutions is recommended. Amazon AWS or IBM cloud, as referred to "Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)" are some examples on that. In regarding the Software as a Service (SaaS) deployment, it is a great idea to align the latest development of mature products and adapt learning process flow to over there. Talentlms.com & moodlecloud.com may be look into during your system evaluation activities. Of course, pricing of services should meet your corporate budget.

System Integration: The technical capability of Single Sign-On (SSO) could be your first concern. Is your LMS able to align the user account authentication corresponding with corporate IT infrastructure system, for example Microsoft Active Directory? In addition to that, any of the learning records can be feeding into your HR employee information database, as a way to link employee profile? How often do we expect database synchronization?

Regulatory Compliance: Some of the regulation requirements should fulfilled. For example, The Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), or Personal Information Protection Act (Taiwan). You should have dedicated member(s) to ensure the regulation, required in your region, is meet.

Course Curriculum: The definition of course curriculum heavily involves with the communication and collaboration among other training areas, including HR, Sales, Manufacturing, and Customer Service in order to (continuously) improve training compliance across the company. In other words, the course content is recommended to discuss with the functional manager, in identifying the process and workflow on how to activate (1) training material development, (2) training activity engagement, (3) learner's feedback collection. This should apply to all of the courses, not only limiting to some genetic / standard training, such as Fundamentals of Health and Safety in the Workplace.

Course Codes and Naming Conventions: The definition of naming convention should look into course development plan and make proper reservation for scalability for business growth. One of the algorithm the writer has been experience is using 6-digit definition, with the consideration of the following elements. Please be aware that the example listed below is taking the position as a systems integration business entity.

• Curriculum Category: Switching Technology (200000), WLAN Technology (300000), Data Storage (60000), Data Security (800000).
• Course Category: By different product. For example, content on Cisco switch, 210000; content on HP Pro-curve switch: 220000; content on Aruba Networks WLAN: 330000, content on D-Link DSR series: 860000, something like that.
• Level of knowledge being presented: The third/fourth digit of a course number define the knowledge level of each course. 1x: Simple Course for Beginners; 2/3x: Medium Level on Configurations; 4x: Challenging Level on System Management & Control; 5x: Extremely Difficult for Advanced Study. As such, Cisco switch System Management: 214000; Aruba WLAN Design Guidelines: 335000.
• World language: The last two-digit of a course number is reserved. 11: English; 12: Italiano; 13: Español; 14:Português. For example, Aruba WLAN Design Guidelines in Português: 335014.

Despite the fact that Corporate LMS should provide services to (a) the orientation of new employees, and (b) to the on-job training for work performance, where the stated above standards, in this sub-topic, are more for "On-Job training."

External Training Resources: It is of possible that employees may seek training services outside of the company. Some enterprise may request the employee(s) who attend the outside training should convert the materials into a way that corporate LMS is able to recognize, of course, first ensuring no Intellectual Property concerns. By doing so, other employees are able to obtain the knowledge, even approach content providers to clarify information they may or may not understand.
The writer of this blog senses this is a of common situation and believes giving the trainer responsibility on a occasional basis is another wonderful way to train your employees.

Quiz Review: Upon your availability, you might want to think about

• In your corporate LMS, how do you define Training Metrics? 
• What are the considerations in realizing those metrics, and 
• How often do you track those numbers and make proper judgment with employee work performance?