The tools

Let’s start with what you have right now. Assessing what you already have in place means that you won’t double up on functionality in the future and end up paying more than you need. Assess your learning landscape as it is and ask yourself: 

• What tools do we have? 
• What are we paying for (and even if there is no upfront software cost, with patching cycles and maintenance, remember that “it’s only free if your time is worth nothing”)? 
• What are our goals for the future?

Think about the pain points you have with your current setup and what processes you’d like to automate. Do you need many administrators to do constant manual tasks that could be automated? Perform a gap analysis and think big for the future. 

The integrations

When you look at all the systems you have in place, you’re inevitably going to find out that you have the same data in multiple systems, particularly employee and student data. But, which one is your source of truth? How will you share that data with other systems like a Learning Management System? 

Your HR system is probably going to be that source of truth for your organisation, so you’ll need to consider how you integrate that system into your LMS and/or Learning Record Store. 

Androgogic’s integration tool Androsync comes with the Androgogic Edition of the Totara Talent Experience Platform. It seamlessly integrates with your HR systems to create and update user accounts, enrol users in learning, and much more. The best part? Learning Administrators in your organisation can use it themselves, so you have the autonomy to integrate the information you need.

The learning

It’s time to bridge the gap. Let’s go back to the gap analysis you did at the start. What’s missing from your learning ecosystem? What requirements are important, but missing from what you started with?

At this point, you might want to take stock of your learning content, which we’ve left out so far. How are you keeping learners engaged? The easiest way to keep learners invested in your content is to take advantage of neuroscience. Here are some tips:

• Make sure your learners are in an optimal learning environment. That means no interruptions or distractions.
• The brain seeks variety: give users a range of ways to digest information
• Repeat the learning, space it out, and make sure learners will actually use the content you’re giving them

Interested in giving your learners the variety they need? Check out our posts on implementing gamification and developing your gamification strategy

Once you’ve bridged your gap and analysed your learning content, you might be content to sit back and relax. But the show isn’t over! Iteration is the key to improvement, so we recommend a 3-step cycle to constantly improve your learning ecosystem: Implement, Communicate and Reflect, Adjust.

1. Implement: Design and deploy your learning, integrate your systems, and release them into the wild.
2. Communicate and Reflect: Talk to all of the different types of people that access learning. Send out a survey. Try to establish what they like best? What isn’t working?
3. Adjust: Based on your findings, assess the problems you’ve come across and see if you can fix them. What changes can you make? Are there opportunities to expand something that is working well? Discuss this with your learning technologies vendor for their unique insight into your systems.