What’s Your LMS Tracking?

• She has created an aggregator of multiple sales and industry-specific websites and Twitter feeds.

• Sara has three informal “go-to” coaches: all more senior sales associates who give her support and feedback on a regular basis.

If the organization wants a complete picture of how Sara and other employees are learning, the absence of data about these sources is problematic. The learning systems, whether formally or informally, must continue to expand their reach into emerging content areas. Here are some approaches used by our Learning Consortium members to do so:

Map the learning content: Build a map of the range of learning content that is being used formally and informally for each major category of learners. Color code the content that is in or out of the LMS.

Rank new tracking content: For each type of content, decide if the goal is to track total consumption by the workforce — which is easy to do from server data — or to attempt to track per-employee use — this requires cookies or IT engagement. Know that there are some elements that just cannot be tracked.

Receive data from employees: Most LMS profiles do not ask employees on a regular basis to list the additional resources they use in their learning and performance processes. Consider asking learners to build profiles or checklists about their own learning habits.

Query during the performance reviews: Add learning content conversations to the review process, including what external resources, programs and communities of engagement learners are using.

Not all of the data has to end up in the LMS, but it is critical that the organization recognize how much learning content is linked or not linked to learning systems.

As our learners become more connected, as our organizations offer more learning resources and as we fold more performance support and coaching into our workplaces, let’s expand our learning systems’ fields of view.

Elliott Masie is the chairman and CLO of The Masie Center’s Learning Consortium. He can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.