The complete guide to choosing the best learning management system for your business

LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report found that employees overwhelmingly crave learning opportunities to advance their careers and stay abreast of industry developments. However, only 35% of learners were encouraged by their manager to learn in the past six months. Employees’ desire to upskill isn’t just due to internal motivation but also because workplace skill requirements have changed by about 25% since 2015, and this figure is expected to double by 2027.

The need for a learning management system (LMS) is clear and evident, but choosing the best one for your business is not an easy decision. Changing learner expectations and rapid advancements in technologies — such as artificial intelligence (AI) — are forcing companies to rethink their approach to learning.

Increasingly, learning platforms are used for training not just employees but also channel sales, partners, gig workers, and customers. While LMS platforms have traditionally catered to the needs of corporate training buyers, a traditional LMS platform might fall short in delivering engaging learning for extended categories of learners.

This guide on choosing the best LMS systems for your business will help you understand the essential features to look for to maximize your learners’ potential and become a future-ready business.

What is a learning management system (LMS)?

A learning management system for your business is a digital platform to create, deliver, and manage learning experiences for your employees, partners, and customers. LMSs are used for administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational content to fulfill desired learning objectives.

A good LMS for business is equipped to make a learning and development (L&D) team’s job easier by automating administrative tasks and automatically updating course content for efficient version control. The reason you choose LMS systems for your business is so that your teams can focus on more valuable tasks — like creating engaging content, diving into analytics to determine the most effective training modules, and working with different subject matter experts.

How an LMS platform benefits your business

The best learning management system for your business can help you enhance existing skills and deliver new knowledge, including onboarding, compliance training, soft skills training, and customer and partner education. An LMS platform can assist in multiple areas of your business to enhance existing skills and deliver new knowledge:

Onboarding

An employee’s onboarding sets the tone for what they can expect while working for your company and equips them with the resources they will need to become productive. This is especially critical for remote employees who will not have the chance to meet people face to face to experience the company’s culture. An LMS platform can streamline the onboarding process and ensure a consistent experience for all new hires.

Compliance training

A corporate LMS helps you make sure your employees are up to date on the latest compliance requirements to mitigate liability and risk. This includes training on diversity, equity, and inclusion, workplace safety, harassment, and industry-specific compliance training. LMS systems for business can automate compliance training and track completion rates to ensure your organization remains compliant.

Soft skills training

Many of the most in-demand skills employers are searching for fall under this category. Getting trained in management, communication, leadership, and teamwork helps employees achieve their career goals and upskills them to fill managerial roles or mentor new hires. An LMS for business training can deliver engaging soft skills training content and track employee progress.

Customer and partner education

An LMS system for your business is an excellent tool for providing customers and partners with educational resources. This isn’t limited to self-help guides and tutorials — which are quickly becoming dated learning formats. Companies can use interactive and brand-embedded content to offer personalized onboarding and continuous learning opportunities to customers and partners. An LMS platform can help you create and deliver high-quality customer and partner education programs.

How to choose the best LMS software for your business

With a multitude of features, choosing the right LMS can be overwhelming. Let’s explore the must-have capabilities to keep top of mind when selecting the best learning management system for your business in this fast-evolving category of software.

Must-have features in LMS systems for business

1. Interactive learning

One-third of employees find it difficult to stay motivated when it comes to training. An LMS system for business that effectively engages your learners can have a significant impact on your company’s upskilling and compliance goals.

Interactive elements such as videos, microlearning, social learning, and quizzes are essential features for capturing a learner’s attention by letting them participate actively in their own learning. Adobe Learning Manager’s fluidic player makes several learning formats available to learners within the course.

Your learners can consume content with an uninterrupted and blended learning experience in formats such as Microsoft PowerPoint, video, PDF, Microsoft Word, Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee (AICC), and Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) packages. In this hybrid world of work, instructors can also conduct live classes inside the LMS thanks to Adobe Learning Manager integrations with Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Adobe Connect — and other API connections.

Gamification helps employees stay engaged in courses. Studies show that gamifying learning objectives improves motivation over the long term. Gamification can take the form of leaderboards, badges, and certifications for friendly competition among teams and individuals.

Social learning environments also foster an engaging learning atmosphere. Through sharing updates on who has perfected specific skills, an LMS can motivate learners to intensify their training efforts to keep up with their peers. Social sharing doesn’t have to be limited to your dashboard. LMSs like Learning Manager allow learners to share achievements on social media or via AI-curated feeds and discussion boards.

2. Custom learning paths

Every department in your business has unique learning needs and goals. Compared to all other options, 70% of employees prefer online, self-paced learning. An LMS for business training should allow you to create personalized learning paths to ensure individuals can progress at their own pace while fulfilling training requirements. A training path should include a variety of training formats, including virtual classrooms, instructor-led live videos, or even hybrid sessions that combine virtual learning programs with face-to-face classes.

With an LMS platform like Adobe Learning Manager you can create a detailed curriculum or a sequence of training courses that offer in-depth knowledge of a particular topic. A learning path is a journey that a learner must go through to master a subject over time. You can assign a skill and skill level to a learning path directly, so learners achieve the desired skill level once they complete a path.

AI is also changing the face of learning by adding personalized course recommendations to users’ feeds. Adobe Learning Manager uses AI to highlight courses based on a learner’s previous learning activity, team priorities, and skills, interests, and roles. This gives learners a chance to deep dive into topics that interest them or discover related courses they might not have found on their own.

3. User-friendly experience

Complicated interfaces can slow or block the learning process. A user-friendly learning management system for business should provide a clear way for learners to track their upcoming training requirements, scheduled course activities, and goal progression. Keeping learners on track with these updates helps learning and business goals stay on course. An LMS should also offer a way to integrate learning in the flow of work so that contextual and personalized training becomes available to learners right where they are. Adobe Learning Manager’s integration with Microsoft Teams helps learners access courses within Teams, receive reminders about trainings, and even share courses with peers on Team’s group chats.

In Adobe Learning Manager, administrators can automate tasks like scheduling announcements for specific dates, enrolling employees in learning activities, and assigning courses or certifications based on specific events.

4. Learning on the go

An LMS should be available wherever learners feel most comfortable, whether that’s on a mobile device or desktop. The best learning management systems for business work on iOS and Android as well as Windows and macOS. Learners shouldn’t lose progress or settings when swapping between platforms, and neither should admins. Offering learning on the go lets you train your employees who might be regularly in the field, or even your gig-workers who can only access training programs on their mobile devices.

Adobe Learning Manager allows QR codes that let users quickly enroll in a course, mark themselves as present for a training session, and complete courses.

5. Reporting and analytics

The impact of learning on business needs to be measurable. Today, businesses are keen to correlate learning with business outcomes such as employee productivity, business growth, and efficiency. Learning management systems for business should surface the right insights for each user — such as administrators, managers, and decision makers — in easy-to-understand reports and dashboards. Learner data can be correlated with business metrics to learn about the effectiveness of your training programs. For example, companies may like to track a sales rep’s quota attainment against their product training completion data to determine training effectiveness.

For compliance training, Adobe Learning Manager allows administrators to view organization-wide progress on mandatory compliance training, while managers can dig into more granular reports on their team’s progress. Moreover, Learning Manager provides more than 300 customized reports for administrators to choose from as well as an out-of-the-box integration with Microsoft Power BI to visualize the impact of learning on other business parameters.

6. Integrations and scalability

You should look for a future-ready LMS for business that integrates with other software solutions you currently use in your company. You should also consider scalability — a good learning management system evolves with business needs and size. Your LMS should also support common eLearning content types such as SCORM, computer-assisted personal interviews (CAPI), and AICC, as well as other document and media types like PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, PowerPoint slides, and videos.

HR software is an essential integration in any LMS system for business. This integration ensures not just consistency in learner data between your LMS and human resource management system (HRMS), but also automating workflows. Adobe Learning Manager integrates with HRMSs like Workday to seamlessly migrate users from your old LMS to Adobe Learning Manager without losing data or training content.

Other key LMS integrations and Experience API (xAPI) connections that Adobe Learning Manager provides include marketing, customer support, and ecommerce platforms:

• Single sign-on providers — including Okta, OneLogin, and Oracle Identity Federation (OIF)
• Microsoft Teams
• Microsoft Power BI
• Adobe Marketo Engage
• Salesforce
• Course providers — including LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda), getAbstract, and Harvard ManageMentor
• FTP transfers
• Ecommerce integrations such as Adobe Commerce

7. Security

Between integrations and user profiles, a learning management system hosts a mountain of sensitive data. Be sure to select a learning platform that encrypts and secures all data according to industry standards. Adobe Learning Manager features SOC2 Type 2, Brightcove, Akamai CDN, and FedRAMP certifications.

Your LMS should also take data privacy laws into account — such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the US. These laws set guidelines on how a business can collect, store, and use personal information. Considering that 60% of customers avoid a brand due to a lack of data transparency, a transparent and compliant data privacy policy is essential.

Harnessing the power of an LMS platform for customer education

Customer education plays a pivotal role in your customer experience strategy, which is key to your brand success. And 64% of customers are more likely to recommend your business if they have a great customer experience. An LMS platform is instrumental in educating your customers on how to use your product more effectively and discovering features and capabilities that help them derive greater value.

With its powerful personalization capabilities and brand-embedded user experience, Adobe Learning Manager is one of the best LMSs for business, making training your customers as smooth as training your employees. Its unique enterprise integrations with Adobe Marketo Engage and Oracle Eloqua allow admins to use LMS data to run personalized, automated marketing campaigns. You gain access to information about the learning modules a client has recently interacted with. Subsequently, you could send the client an email highlighting a new feature or product release. In this way, you have assisted your customers in discovering additional capabilities and benefits that your brand offers, making them more engaged — and potentially more loyal.

Request a free demo to find out how Adobe Learning Manager, a powerful LMS for business, creates personalized learning experiences for your business today.

Tannistho Ghosh is Adobe’s global product marketing manager for digital learning solutions. He works at the juncture of L&D and marketing. With more than 18 years of experience as an instructional designer, vertical head for learning and development, and product marketer, Tannistho has addressed learning solutions for Fortune 500 companies and leading consulting firms globally.

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