We’re on a mission to deliver a seamless integration of learning and performance
Hear us out. We’re not suggesting that your learning management system (LMS), performance management system and HR information system (HRIS) should all be separate beings and never meet or interact. As you can see from our range of HRIS integrations, we very much understand the desire to combine these elements.
However, the focus needs to be on integration, not ‘adding on.’ All too often, an LMS is tacked onto an existing HRIS and then management wonders why it is not used to its fullest capacity. The problem is that, without extreme care, managers and employers are expected to use an LMS which isn’t fit for purpose. They need it to integrate with their daily working life and forcing it from within an HRIS makes this very difficult.
According to a Human Capital Institute study, “75% of respondents said that learning and performance are two separate functions in their organisations led by different executives who rarely interact”.
To understand this and figure out the solution, you need to grasp some basics about these different systems and their origins and purposes.
The role of an HRIS vs LMS
Bridge integrates with many fantastic HRIS options such as Workday, ADP, Oracle’s Peoplesoft and SyncHR. They are invaluable tools for HR functions. They enable HR to manage all employee data and use it for everything from tracking processes to undertaking payroll.
Sitting inside the organisation’s HRIS is much juicy information for managers when it comes to their talent. They can see everything from demographics to pay. It is often very tempting for organisations to think that simply adding an LMS within the platform is the way to go. And it happens a lot.
They need to deliver and monitor development opportunities and here sits a seemingly obvious solution.
And there can be lots of benefits as widely told by system designers. Data entry is simple and done once, meaning no wasted time and mistakes are less likely. Systems which are integrated can make it easier to spot patterns.
However, there’s an enormous problem: the benefits rarely reach fruition because no one outside of HR truly gets on board. The HRIS nature of the system limits usefulness and ease for managers and employees. Even if properly used, it is usually with limited capacity.
Doing things differently
The alternative is to look at things from the opposite side to bring about the benefits above and some extra ones. Instead of adding the LMS (maybe with some performance management options) to the HRIS, the trick is to integrate the HRIS into a top-notch learning and performance platform.
Instead of ‘making do,’ managers and employees suddenly have a system that they want to use because it simplifies management, performance, learning, progression, succession planning and more. You’ve now got everyone truly engaged with using the system’s full potential which helps the organisation meet its objectives.
A word about performance
Additionally, we need to make sure that performance management isn’t completely forgotten. Typically when an LMS is added to an HRIS, the result is performance management doesn’t even get a look in. Performance management works so much better when combined with the LMS, like with Bridge.
We talk more about the importance of combining learning and performance in this recent blog post.
You need things like feedback and employee engagement surveys to be intertwined with learning and development. That doesn’t happen with the typical LMS add-on for HR systems.
This results in both the learning and development approach and the performance management approach are forced to take a back seat to the wildly different user experience needed of the HRIS. The result? The user experience of the learning and performance platform… well, it sucks.
And when that happens, no one uses it. No one benefits from it.
Smooth intergrations
Instead, keep the day-to-day HR operations off to the side by making the learning and performance platform the primary and letting the HRIS neatly integrate. That way, you get the functionality needed for regular valuable use for HR and individual managers and employees.
We’re expecting too much to use one single approach to three very different tasks the way most currently do it. Let HR have the heavy admin solution it needs, while managers and employees have the efficient, insightful, useful system that they need. Everyone ends up engaged, everyone is happy.
Integrate your HRIS with an outstanding LMS and performance management system. You’ll benefit a whole heap more.
It’s why we’ve created Bridge
This concept – of marrying learning and performance as the delightfully co-dependent pair that they are – sits behind Bridge. Find out more about why learning and performance are better together and how we put that into action.
