What is an LMS?
So, what is a learning management system? At its core, a learning management system is a software application that helps companies distribute and measure learning throughout a company. There are different types of learning management systems, but not all LMSs are created equal.
What does it do?
As the world becomes more digitised by the day, so does employee learning. Modern companies need a fast, efficient, and organised way to catalogue information and training materials for their employees. LMSs help companies capture internal knowledge, best practises, and team policies as searchable and assignable step-by-step lessons.
LMSs are great for teams—for both managers and employees. Modern LMSs give managers insights into their team’s learning and show who has completed assignments, who still needs to complete certain lessons, and where the team can improve, both collectively and individually.
Modern LMS systems give employees a fast way to onboard, learn essential company information, and receive training for their specific job. Ideally, the LMS gives employees unlimited access to lessons and information on any device, anywhere. A modern LMS also makes employee learning engaging and fun.
Who uses it?
One of the best things about a modern LMS is its flexibility in addressing the needs of different teams across an entire company. In that way, an LMS can be used differently by specific teams, based on their particular training needs and goals.
For example, if a sales team is working to drive more sales, an LMS can deliver training to reps directly in Salesforce, where they can also access key sales information and materials that will help them perform better. Customer support teams can also benefit greatly from an LMS. By providing a customer support team with fast-paced lessons, they get up to speed quickly and learn and retain support strategies and best practises.
Finally, an LMS is the best way growing teams can get new hires onboarded quickly. Managers on growing teams are often so strapped for time that hands-on training with new hires is difficult to squeeze in.
Types of LMSs
For businesses
An LMS is what you make of it. That said, some corporate LMS systems seem designed to protect companies from their employees. What does that mean, exactly? It means that some LMS systems for business were designed simply to replace all those dull meetings about compliance-related issues that end by signing some sort of disclaimer or contract.
An LMS for corporate training does have value in the learning management system market, but that’s not what we’re striving to build for our customers. We want to revolutionise the way companies share information and tactical knowledge with their employees. With our dynamic, easily-accessible LMS, we’re doing that.
LMS systems for business don’t have to be solely focused on compliance policies. Rethink employee training and adopt an LMS that goes beyond the outdated, boring approaches of traditional corporate learning.
For teams
A corporate LMS doesn’t have to be hierarchical, tyrannical, or designed to keep employees at arm’s length from the company. The best corporate LMS training, in fact, does the opposite. We’ve known this from the start and designed ours as a modern LMS. We built it to be accessible and easy-to-use, to help great teams work together to do great things.
Never stop growing.
How to select the best LMS for your team
Gone are the days of boring slideshow presentations, monotonous webinars, and clunky training manuals. In today’s companies, modern learning has quickly become the new norm. What exactly is modern learning? It’s training that’s focused on improving employee productivity and efficiency. And with a modern learning management system, employees ramp up faster, learn information more quickly, and ultimately start achieving results sooner. Sounds pretty great, right?
The best LMS systems are designed to help businesses achieve major returns in productivity and performance. Modern learning is dynamic, easily accessible, fast-paced, and engaging, and the best LMS software companies build their products accordingly, with the goal of taking team and employee learning to the next level.
We’ve designed our software to be the best LMS for companies looking to improve employee and team productivity. With dozens of features including creation, tracking, and measuring aimed at this goal, Seismic Learning (formerly Lessonly can take your team performance to new heights.
Finding a top LMS
In searching for the best LMS in the market, you’ve probably read the top 10 LMS lists and asked your network for their recommendations of popular LMSs. By seeking advice and doing this research, you’ll be able to narrow your learning management systems list down to a handful of top options. That said, we don’t think you need to look any further for a top LMS system. Seismic Learning is a leader in the industry; we’re excited to be working with so many companies who are using our software to learn and track employee achievement and growth.
This page explores a variety of LMS features while highlighting what’s different about us—and how we rise above the pack. You’ll learn how a modern LMS will benefit you, your team, and your business as a whole. As a software partner with a top-performing platform, we’ll be with your team every step of the way to maximise your investment in learning and training.
LMS features and benefits
Seismic Learning is built for modern, digital learning, with features designed to make creating, distributing, and tracking learning content as easy as possible. Some businesses debate the benefits of adopting an LMS vs. LCMS, or learning content management system. Traditionally, an LCMS was required to create learning content that was then distributed to employees via an LMS. Today, that two-tool approach is no longer necessary.
Truly modern LMSs bring together the best creation and distribution workflows to create an easy, accessible, all-in-one experience. Our software eliminates the need for an LCMS, because it’s essentially a combined LMS LCMS.
Below is a learning management features list that walks through the features and benefits we believe are essential to getting the most out of a web-based learning management system. Prioritising these features will help transform your team into a more productive, effective, and energetic group of active learners.
Speed vs Fidelity
When it comes to LMSs, are you Team Speed? Or Team Fidelity? Let us explain…
We talk with customers every day who are exploring what a learning management system can do for them. We generally categorise customers into two different groups—those who value speed in learning, and those who value fidelity.
Both speed and fidelity are positive qualities in regard to learning and training. Traditionally, fidelity has been prioritised and is suited for content that’s fairly permanent, static, and highly-produced. That said, speed is the essence of modern learning in today’s fast-paced, ever-changing workplace.
While fidelity is well-suited for training on compliance-related topics like sexual harassment and company legal matters, it doesn’t make much sense to invest the time and resources necessary to create high-fidelity content for job-specific training. In order to ramp up team members effectively, it’s essential to create training content quickly, without sacrificing the quality of learning. This is why modern companies prioritise speed in their LMS software.
Seismic Learning is designed for the speed of modern business. Our easy-to-use lesson builder supports a wide variety of content and media to enable easy creation of lessons—that also look good. Productivity learning is the future, and we’re thrilled to be helping winning teams enjoy a greater ROI on learning.
Access vs Mastery
How do your employees currently access training materials? Online handbooks? Server files? A binder that’s been passed around for years?
None of these delivery mechanisms are convenient or easily accessible. We believe that providing employees universal, unlimited access to training materials and resources is critical to employee, team, and company success. Because of that, we’ve worked hard to make sure training is accessible on mobile devices, across various platforms, and integrated into the applications your team already uses every day.
When you choose access over mastery, you’ve levelled up your methodology to fit a modern, learner-first approach to training. It’s unrealistic to expect your employees to truly master specific job information prior to jumping in and getting their hands dirty. Instead, by providing them with open access to that same information, you’ve set them up for success by empowering them to learn by doing, contribute faster, and continuously improve.
Analytics vs Dogma
If your team is in the market for an LMS training system, you’re probably no stranger to robust analytics and tracking technology. You are likely already taking advantage of data-driven tools in other areas of your business, and using them to propel your company forward. So, why have employee learning programmes historically been immune to tracking, data, and analytics?
Modern companies don’t rest their laurels on outdated or close-minded dogma. Instead, they analyse and optimise everything, using sophisticated data tracking to inform their strategies, plans, and decisions. Our analytic tools are designed to track learning engagement, measure employee growth, reveal key insights, and more—all with the aim of uncovering, and improving ROI on learning. When you empower employees with the right training tools and back it up with the ability to track and measure that growth, amazing things happen.
SCORM
You already know that our software is built for speed. Fast-paced, quickly changing lessons are the name of our game. At the same time, we know that some companies rely on SCORM to distribute and share learning content. For that reason, Seismic Learning is a SCORM compliant LMS that can import existing SCORM content.
What people have to say about our LMS
Investing in an online learning management system is a big decision. When you begin seeking out the best learning management system company for your team to work with, it’s important to consider what real customers are saying about their experiences. Too often, LMS vendors don’t go above and beyond when building relationships with their customers. They view the software purchasing process as nothing more than a transactional exchange. As a result, their customers walk away with negative experiences and lacklustre reviews.
At Seismic Learning, we do things differently than most SaaS LMS companies. We strive to be not just a software vendor, but a partner. We work to know our customers well and do everything we can to help them succeed. We want each one to have a positive experience in implementing and using LMS training software because we know just how impactful and transformative the right learning programme can be. But don’t just take our word for it—take a look at some of the reviews below.
