Fix Your Training Gaps with SkillBuilder® LMS
Sarah Flesher
Training gaps are pervasive. Whether the result of unexpected learner responses, development oversights, or a once-effective training program remaining static while reality moves on, they're hiding under the surface, robbing you of productivity and holding you back from achieving your business goals.
SkillBuilder® LMS can help. It not only delivers the training that fills training gaps; it helps find those gaps and targets learning interventions to the employees who need them.
Finding Training Gaps
Evaluations
The first place to look when you're hunting training gaps is your current offerings. Start by assessing the training you already have in place. You know what you're offering, but are employees completing it successfully? If not, you've found a training gap.
SkillBuilder® LMS offers a range of evaluation items so you can assess learner performance in the most appropriate manner, including:
- Assignments: Assignments are learner-created items that can be uploaded for grading by an evaluator. They can include videos, essays, written responses, spreadsheets and other items.
- External Qualifications: Qualifications from professional associations, government organizations or external vendors may be required or may, at times, meet your needs better than internal training. These qualifications can be uploaded into SkillBuilder® LMS so you can confirm that your employees are completing the training they need for their positions.
- Online Exams: SkillBuilder® LMS's robust, enterprise-level online exam environment allows the structuring of online exams using a full blueprint with multiple categories so it's easy to pinpoint gaps in instruction or performance. Question types include multiple choice, short answer and uploadable file.
- Practical Evaluations: For times when the best assessment is skill demonstration, practical evaluations allow on-the-job evaluations.
Reports
Comprehensive LMS reporting capabilities are invaluable in the search for training gaps. SkillBuilder® LMS's reports answer questions like:
- How long are learners spending on each screen of an online module? Are they engaging with the material or just clicking though to get to the end?
- What proportion of learners are downloading resources and job aids?
- If many learners are having trouble with an assessment, where's the problem? Are they having problems with the whole assessment, with a specific topic or topics, or only with certain questions?
- Are there any weak points in your courses where you're losing learners?
- How are individual learners faring? According to eLearning Industry's Christopher Pappas, "using LMS reports to figure out where employees are struggling gives you the ability to customize your training to address their individual needs."
See what else reporting can do for your training in 5 Secrets of Effective LMS Reporting.
Learner Surveys
Who's better placed to help you identify training gaps than the people taking the training? They'll be able to tell you:
- What was boring.
- What was missing.
- Whether they were prepared for the evaluation.
- Whether what they've gained from training will help them on the job.
SkillBuilder® LMS gives you the option of incorporating best-in-class survey applications like Survey Monkey into your courses or learning paths. Surveys can be optional or required - whatever works best for you.
Eliminating Training Gaps
Learning Delivery
SkillBuilder® LMS's wide selection of learning items allows you to deliver and track the learning that fills your training gaps in the way that works best for you. Options include:
- Downloads: Employees can download job-aids and other references.
- Learning Journal: Learners can record their thoughts and reflections as they work through the material.
- Online Lesson: An online lesson is a course or module of eLearning. SkillBuilder® LMS supports SCORM and Tin Can (xApi), the latest international learning standards for building online courses.
- Practice Exam: Let your learners learn from their mistakes in a safe environment by checking their progress with a practice exam. The practice exam can also be used as a pre-test, helping you distinguish what learners knew already from what they gained from training.
- Seminar: Not all training can or should take place online. This item lets you manage registration and attendance for classroom or worksite training through the LMS.
- URL: Video and other online resources hosted elsewhere can be viewed from within the LMS or opened in an external window.
- Webinar: Webinars are seminars conducted over the internet. Schedule a live event, record and host the event for future reference, or upload a pre-recorded webinar.
Targeted Training
Training gaps occur at individual, group and organizational levels. SkillBuilder® LMS lets you deliver training just where it's needed.
Assign Learners to Customized Groups
Would you like your LMS to group your employees according to your org. chart? Go ahead. SkillBuilder® LMS will let you assign learning to your marketing group, production group, or quality assurance group. If another setup suits you better, or if you want other options alongside the org. chart groupings, you can customize the group setup to meet your needs. A 'New Employees' group with members from marketing, production and quality assurance is a great way to facilitate onboarding.
Create Individualized Learning Paths
Employees in the same groups don't always need the same training. Each will have their own pre-existing skills, training histories and strengths and weaknesses. SkillBuilder® LMS gives you the ability to create individualized learning pathways. You can add a prerequisite for someone whose skillset needs more work or assign learning items to help an employee achieve their personal career development goals.
Training Tracking
If it going to fill your training gaps, training can't just be assigned; it needs to be completed successfully. This brings us back to SkillBuilder® LMS's comprehensive reporting features. Use reports to:
- Confirm that training has been finished and evaluations passed.
- Identify any learners who are struggling with (or aren't motivated to complete) the material.
- Record that compliance training has been conducted as needed.
- Identify new training gaps for your training development cycle.
Conclusion
This article has discussed how you can identify the training gaps that are holding you back with the help of SkillBuilder® LMS's learner evaluations, reporting functionality and survey capability. Once you've found your gaps, SkillBuilder® LMS's range of learning items, intuitive and customizable organizational features and tracking and reporting options are what you need to convert your training gaps to training triumphs.
Wondering where your gaps are hiding? The comprehensive review strategy outlined in Finding Skill Gaps is a good place to start looking.
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Sarah Flesher
Sarah is an Instructional Designer at BaseCorp Learning Systems and is currently completing a PhD in Educational Technology. Her research focuses on implementing competency-based learning systems in all types of organizations. When she doesn't have her nose in a book you can find her at the gym, on the ice, on the ski hill, drinking wine or in a coffee shop … with her nose in a book.