Improve staff retention with your LMS

Discover how learning technologies can improve staff retention for your organisation.

High staff turnover and the resulting recruitment costs can be hugely damaging for any organisation. Finding ways to improve staff retention rates can cut costs and increase continuity — and your learning management system can play a key role in achieving this.

There are several ways in which your LMS can be used to improve employee retention. Here are some ideas of how you can increase staff retention with your learning platform.

1. Create smooth onboarding processes

Your LMS can be used to create an engaging, comprehensive onboarding process to help new starters.

There are two key benefits to doing this. Firstly, it reduces the likelihood of a churn of employees who never really settle. An effective onboarding process will help new employees to feel at home.

Secondly, a well-considered onboarding process — delivered using your LMS — sets each employee in good stead for a long career with your organisation.  

2. Show you’re investing in your people

Investing in employees shows that you value them. The more valued they feel, the more likely they are to stay.

Using your LMS to upskill your team in ways that help them to do their job more effectively or develop alternative skills that support their planned career progression are both great ways to show you’re committed to your employees.

3. Build connections

Your LMS forums or the workspaces feature of Totara Engage can be used to help employees connect with other people in your organisation. This could be people that they wouldn’t ordinarily come into contact with.

Workspaces or discussion boards built around common interests help to replicate those invaluable water cooler moments that happen at every workplace. Bringing like-minded people together to communicate about professional interests, a particular piece of software or even activities outside of work can help employees to feel more ingrained within the organisation.

4. Build your employees

Using your LMS to create a clear framework for competencies within different roles in your organisation will help employees gauge how they are performing in their current roles. It will also identify which competencies they need to develop to progress or adjust their career pathway.

Competencies underpin learning platforms such as Moodle LMS, Moodle Workplace and Totara Learn. Focusing on competencies helps you to develop employees over time. By showing a clear pathway and supporting progression along that pathway you minimise the risk of employees job-hopping to secure promotions.

5. Drive internal recruitment

The same competencies framework that helps your employees to progress can also be used to find internal recruitment candidates. You can use your LMS to find people who have or are moving towards the right competencies for a particular role, skills gap or knowledge gap within your organisation.

You can then guide potential candidates towards competencies that would help them to achieve the progression you’re proposing. This level of interest, investment and encouragement is also likely to increase staff retention.

6. Give recognition to employees

Your LMS can be used to share badges and awards to recognise each employee’s achievements. This can also incorporate a gamification element in which individuals or teams are competing to reach certain achievements. Offering a prize or time off for the winners will encourage engagement.

Giving this sort of recognition and rewarding your employees will help to improve staff retention.

7. Positive performance reviews

The dreaded appraisal or check-in can be turned on its head to become a staff retention tool. Does it need to be called a check-in? You could make it a talent review or an achievement review.

Positive, goal-based reviews will make your employees feel more valued. Constructive criticism can be couched within a predominantly upbeat approach to performance. A flexible performance management system like Totara Perform.

Start using your LMS to improve staff retention

Talk to our team of learning technology experts to implement those ideas or discuss your plans to use your LMS to increase employee retention rates.

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