Why you can’t afford to go through the recession without an LMS

Still not got an LMS? You’re making the recession even harder for your organisation.

With recession fears mounting, businesses and other organisations are tightening their belts.

We’re already seeing examples of redundancies and capital projects being put on hold. For organisations that don’t currently have a learning management system, now might not look like the time to be investing in one.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that you can’t really afford to go through the recession without an LMS. Here’s why…

Manual resources will dry up

Hopefully, your organisation can navigate the recession without job losses. But even if it can, people are inevitably going to be stretched and their time even more precious than is currently the case. If your learning and development programme is currently reliant on manual processes, that’s a huge amount of time and money that could be saved by using an LMS. But even beyond the savings, you’re unlikely to have the staff resources to run your L&D programme manually in the middle of a recession.

If you are managing training or learning programmes via spreadsheets or similar manual processes, how much time do you spend on that each week? Multiply that by the average hourly wage of those doing the work, and then multiply by 52. Can your organisation really afford to carry that level of spend on tasks that could be easily automated or streamlined?

You’re probably spending too much on L&D

As that little calculation probably demonstrated, if you’re not using an LMS you are wasting money that could be better spent on other things. And that admin time is just the tip of the iceberg. Online learning saves up to 45% of the time spent on classroom learning, with its travel time, introductions and settling in, coffee breaks, and nattering. 

Then there are travel expenses to and from training venues, subsistence costs, venue and trainer fees, and a host of other costs. L&D without an LMS is a hotbed of inefficiencies. Accept this and drive the change before someone else reaches the same conclusion.   

People will need to upskill and reskill

Whether through redundancies or new priorities within the organisation due to the recession, it’s likely you’ll need members of your team to upskill or reskill quickly. An LMS is the most cost-effective way of doing that. It allows you to train large groups of people rapidly and use automated learning pathways to streamline their progress. Without an LMS you simply won’t be able to deliver a retraining programme at the same scale. You’ll be left with skills gaps and unfilled roles that exacerbate the challenges of a recession.

Times have changed

Many people are now doing the vast majority of their work remotely, so there’s really no justification for them to be doing anything other than supervised practical training in person. Employees are working from home, office space is being downsized and the vast majority of communication is electronic. So where is the business case for L&D being in person and large chunks of real estate being dedicated to training? In the vast majority of cases, there is no business case. On the other hand, there is a strong business case for an LMS that delivers a good return on investment by addressing these and other problems.

Your existing data isn’t powerful enough

Pick any mid-level manager at your organisation and imagine they take voluntary redundancy. Who will replace them or take on their duties? Can you instantly track down all internal candidates with the required competencies and experience to fill the role? An LMS can generate that report in seconds, potentially saving your organisation from missteps or expensive recruitment processes. If you don’t have that information instantly available it only compounds the problem.

You don’t want your organisation to be a sitting duck

Look through the history books at post-war rebuilding and successful responses to economic crises and you’ll see that capital investment in projects that will deliver a return are often successfully used by governments to fight back against recession. You can’t expect to sit tight with some of the inefficiencies and expenses we’ve mentioned above and expect to weather the storm. Invest in an LMS, increase efficiency and measure ROI.

Don’t risk the recession without an LMS

See if a Moodle LMS, Moodle Workplace or Totara Learn LMS would lessen the damaging effects of the economic downturn on your learning and development work, or see which LMS is right for your organisation.

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