This article was contributed by Veronika Sinitsa who is the Head of International Marketing for CleverLMS.
The platform that connects everything happening in your company is highly beneficial. It’s the central hub to organize all your information and education. You can create it based on the learning management system (LMS), a tool for learning materials creation and organization. CleverLMS is an example of such an instrument, and there are many of them for different purposes.
Here we’ll focus on the corporate learning tools and explore several of them. Let’s go!
What is it?
Online learning platforms can be seen as hubs for knowledge exchange and organization. The modern world is full of information, innovations, and various optimization methods, and such instruments help management enhance the company’s performance and employees’ skills greatly. They optimize all information exchange processes: knowledge sharing, communication, feedback, and work planning, and also provide reports and analytics regarding all tasks, improving decision-making.
There are various types of online learning platforms depending on their destination. Here, we’ll divide all of them roughly into two types: those for classroom education and corporate learning. Both of them serve as platforms to teach, check tasks, and communicate, but the specifics are very different.
Here, we’ll focus on the corporate learning platforms, and the rest of the article will be dedicated to them. The digital learning platform for business training should combine the features of a document/media manager, course builder, project management tool, and communication platform. These four features enable such systems to intertwine learning and work processes, empowering each company’s employees, motivating them, and helping them adopt the best possible work approach. Here we’ll focus on the features of such platforms, so let’s overview them!
Software for corporate education
Some learning management systems are specifically designed for corporate education. The online learning platforms for business have distinct features connected with planning and workflow organization. Unlike them, LMSs for schools and students are organized as digital classrooms for task assigning and submitting and usually don’t have developed project management options.
So, let’s see which features are present in such platforms to realize all the necessary options.
🛠️ Course builder and knowledge base are the core of the learning management system, enabling one to create educational materials and share knowledge among team members.
📋 Task and event planning features are crucial for project management and are present in corporate LMSs, as all learning processes should be integrated with the company’s workflow.
🏆 The reward system and other motivational tools are also important for the online learning system dedicated to corporate education.
🎮 High interactivity is also crucial for motivation and proper course tracking: it includes dynamic learning journeys and gamification features to engage learners in the process.
📈 Statistics, reporting, and analytics are necessary for the company’s management to track learners’ success and analyze training and work performance.
💬 Communication is important for all companies, as they are based on teams working together. So, such tools should have messaging options, discussion forums, and a direct connection with the management and support team.
💡 The focus on knowledge sharing, mentorship, and innovations is distinct for such tools. They determine which additional features can be present in such tools. For example, some of them add generative AI to help in course creation or integrate with various content libraries.
Organizing an educational platform
So, what does it mean to build such a platform?
When you purchase software, you need to implement it into your company’s workflow. For that, the company provides you with a service, in the form of a mobile app, cloud software, or in-premise app which you install by yourself on your company’s services.
Therefore, to create an online learning platform, you need to choose and install the proper software and then customize it as you want. For example, we can review the case of Kärcher Academy, created with CleverLMS. The large cleaning equipment retail company, Kärcher, should provide training to hundreds of its vendors around the world. In cooperation with CleverLMS, an educational mobile app was created, based on the CleverLMS basic functionality and customized according to Kärcher’s needs and branding. This app was then distributed among the company’s vendors and employees, ensuring that all of them would access the standardized educational materials about the Kärcher’s production and its usage.
There are various software which you may implement for your company. All online learning management systems have similar features, so you may wonder which one is better. It’d be better to write to the service’s support center or contact it via the social network page to communicate all your needs and preferences, and then compare what each service can offer to you. In general, everything depends on your purpose, required features, and priorities.
Which one to choose?
So, the best online learning platform is the one that suits your purposes. Let’s overview some of them, with short comments on each.
- CleverLMS has robust organization features such as an event planner and task scheduler, integrated with its course creation interface.
🟡 It can be installed as a mobile app or deployed on corporate servers and can be customized according to the customer’s needs and brand, so it’s the most universal option. - Absorb has various advanced features, such as generative AI for course creation and big data analytics for work monitoring.
🟡 It’s good for companies working in knowledge-intensive industries, despite it’s almost twice as expensive compared to CleverLMS and lacks customization options. - Docebo Learning Suite has many advanced features that can be installed separately: for content creation, data analysis, customer relations, and others.
🟡 It is good for large corporations with many workflows and connections, but isn’t suitable for small businesses due to its high prices and complexity. - TalentLMS has many features to organize the company’s workflows and integrates with various content libraries.
🟡 It has several subscription models depending on the business size and is best suited for content creation studios and companies working with customers directly, such as sales teams. - Moodle is a free-to-use tool for general use as an educational platform. However, it lacks many required functionalities and proper support, while requiring add-ons for proper work, many of which are paid or hard-to-install.
🟡 It can be applied to test various LMS features, but it cannot replace the specifically designed corporate LMS.
Conclusion: Creating your hub for employee enhancement
As you scale your business activity, the necessity of the central organizational hub becomes obvious to connect all your team members and ensure their constant involvement and development without burnout. You need a place where you’ll store all your and your colleagues’ information, with tools to set tasks and plan workflows while learning new skills and information. Simple file managers, office suites, or even project management tools are usually insufficient here.
You need something that will combine all such features: learning management systems.
With their help, you can organize your company’s learning and work processes and integrate them together. Tools such as CleverLMS ensure that your employees will improve their skills constantly, maintain high work motivation, and adopt the latest technologies and work approaches. In that way, your company will remain competitive.
To select the best option for you, think about such aspects as price, subscription type, number of features, easiness of installation, customization, and various additional features. Do you need a generative AI for content creation, for example? Which project management features do you need? Are you ready to pay for large educational platforms and install them, or do you rather need something small and easily customizable? Answers to such questions will show you which tool to choose to empower your company.
About the author
Veronika Sinitsa is the Head of International Marketing for CleverLMS. She is a is a seasoned professional with a background in education and over 10 years of experience in B2B marketing.
Last Updated on September 23, 2023 2:55 pm CEST by Markus Kasanmascheff
