Here’s an all-too common scenario: After implementing a brand new LMS, a company appoints an internal staff member to administer the system part-time. It’s all they can do to keep the software up and running, never mind optimizing it for performance.
Here’s a scenario that should be more common: The LMS administrator proactively educates the company on the latest features, is 100-percent focused on running the LMS daily, markets the career development benefits to employees monthly, analyzes key metrics for the management team and loves doing the job.
It’s not as unlikely as it seems. But how do you know if it’s the right approach for you?
If you answer “yes” to any of the following questions, you may be a candidate for outsourcing LMS administration:
- Do you have only one LMS administrator?
- Was your LMS administrator trained only once, at implementation?
- Does your administrator have other, non-LMS responsibilities?
- Would you like to use your LMS for more than just compliance training and tracking?
- Is use of the LMS extremely low?
If you answer “no” to any of the following questions, you may also be a candidate:
- Were your employees trained on how to use the LMS?
- Do you market the benefits of the LMS’ capabilities internally?
- Are you sending out regular use and completion reports to management?
- Do you use any type of competency-based employee development?
You can probably see already how outsourcing LMS administration might help your business. If you’ve identified your organization as a candidate for outsourced LMS administration, let’s take the first step!
To get the most from your time and effort, break down the process into three easy steps:
1. Assess the current state.
Using the nine questions above, you’ve already started to determine where you are now. It’s important to work with your team and prioritize your initial effort. Maybe your first realization is that you’re understaffed. Or maybe you realize your team isn’t sufficiently trained on the LMS to accomplish the required tasks. It’s much easier to address an issue after it’s been identified, so this is an important starting point.
Write a list that describes the day-to-day tasks of an LMS administrator at your company. These tasks could include adding users, uploading courses, resetting passwords, creating curriculums, generating reports, creating ILT events, updating the homepage, etc. Once you have these tasks listed, determine your readiness to meet your upcoming goals. Are you prepared?
2. Define the future state.
What important initiatives has your group been tasked with supporting this year? Common initiatives can include any array of significant objectives, such as the following:
- Software rollouts or migrations
- Courseware competency mapping using job descriptions provided by HR
- Training for proprietary product development or a new service rollout
- Government compliance requirements
- Increasing software use to maximize return on investment (ROI)
Whatever your specific goals are, by now, you’ve hopefully received your marching orders for the new year. From there, it’s incumbent upon you and your team to determine the path forward. By taking advantage of the full capabilities of today’s LMS, you can create a powerful knowledge base that spans all employees and evolves as more employees contribute.
Many people still view the LMS as little more than a course delivery mechanism or compliance tracker. With an experienced LMS administrator, your ability to collaborate internally will be exponentially greater.
3. Gain traction for change.
Most LMS companies lock you into a multiple-year agreement, so it’s a good bet that you either have data that points to low use or an administrator who doesn’t have enough hours in the day to accomplish what is asked of them. No matter how you look at it, something needs to change. When you compare this data to the initial investment numbers for the LMS itself, you can quickly see where the ROI may be lacking.
Take the numbers that you compiled, combine them with the projects you are tasked with completing for the upcoming year and present this information to your senior team. Don’t forget the end user in this equation, either; conduct an employee survey and gauge customer satisfaction by asking them for suggestions for making the experience better.
Your LMS likely has a rich feature set that you might not be using fully. It’s OK to ask for help if it will maximize a sizable investment you’ve already made.
Are you ready to make that change?
