Importance of Replacing Outdated Employee Training with a Government LMS

by Mike Tannian on August 01, 2022

Find out how an outdated employee training process costs your public sector organization time, money, and employee engagement — and what to use instead.

Article Highlights

  • Problem: Your outdated employee training process is inefficient and ineffective, leading to high employee turnover and wasted time and money.
  • Solution: NEOGOV’s Learn, an LMS for government that meets today’s HR and employee learning development needs.
  • Benefits: Productive and empowered employees, cost and time savings, and higher retention rates.

There’s no denying the power of professional development. Not only does on-the-job training build a productive workforce, but 93% of employees choose to stay longer at organizations that invest in their career and professional development. 

But an outdated government learning management system may prevent your agency from reaping the rewards of a skilled workforce. That’s because organizations that don’t offer proper continuous learning opportunities have 15% lower employee engagement than those that do.  

In this post, find out why outdated employee training hurts your organization. Then learn how NEOGOV’s Learn, a learning management system for government, improves employee training and development programs and helps your organization capture the benefits of online employee training.

Problem: an Outdated Employee Training Process

While it may seem counterintuitive, relying on your existing government LMS training system isn’t necessarily the most cost-effective choice for your organization. If your employee training and development process doesn’t meet the needs of employees, they may resign to work for organizations that take their development more seriously, leaving your organization to bear the costs of hiring and retaining new employees. 

These costs are compounded if your organization relies on in-person classroom learning or instructor-led training. In addition to paying instructors, HR professionals must spend valuable time coordinating schedules for in-person training. Should employees need to come in for training after typical working hours, your organization may also have to pay overtime — another added cost. 

These costs impact employees, too. Outdated processes create unnecessary barriers to learning and development, especially given today’s modern technology. An outdated learning management system may not provide mobile training opportunities, meaning employees can’t complete training when it’s most convenient. This reduces the likelihood that employees meet training requirements, thereby negatively impacting employee performance and standing.  

HR professionals may also have difficulty manually tracking training across multiple systems, which impedes organizational accountability efforts. As such, your organization may find it difficult to maintain compliance with required trainings, let alone think strategically about employee training and development efforts as a whole. 

To sum it up, an outdated employee training process can leave your organization with: 

  1. Low job satisfaction and high turnover rates 
  2. Money and time wasted on constant recruitment and hiring cycles
  3. Unnecessary barriers to employee learning 
  4. Difficulty tracking training and fewer resources to dedicate to your employee training program

Solution: LMS for Government

It’s time to invest in a learning management system for government that benefits employees throughout your organization. NEOGOV’s Learn, a government LMS training solution, is a 3-in-1 system that combines tracking, content, and course creation and prioritizes the user experience with an intuitive and highly-configurable system. Let’s discuss these features next.

Useful for Human Resources, Managers, and Supervisors

Learn makes it easy for HR, managers, and supervisors to track the employee training and development process all in one place. Upon signing into Learn’s dashboard, HR professionals and managers can see: 

  • A list of direct reports 
  • Required training for direct reports 
  • Deadlines for required trainings
  • Any overdue training 
  • Approve/Deny course enrollment

If an employee is due for training, supervisors can enroll them in an upcoming session with one click in the dashboard. Managers and HR professionals can also see whether an employee’s required licensures and certifications are up-to-date. 

As an extra layer of accountability, Learn provides automated notifications and reminders. These reminders reduce the likelihood that federal- or state-mandated training will fall through the cracks and put your organization at risk for noncompliance. 

Finally, Learn provides a catalog of more than 1,400 pre-built courses with numerous types of employee training, including both soft skills and technical training. This makes it easy for HR professionals to quickly assign onboarding training to new hires. If your organization is trying to overcome any specific skill gap in the workforce, professionals can also use NEOGOV’s content builder to create an effective training program that will meet those needs.

Employees can also self-enroll in a class, depending on how the course is configured, and their request will be sent to the necessary manager or HR leader for approval.

Useful for Employees

Since the best LMS for government is one that prioritizes the employee training experience, employees also have access to Learn’s centralized dashboard. This dashboard provides a list of any training courses (and their due dates) for employees to complete. Employees can quickly launch these courses to complete training straight from the dashboard

Learn’s dashboard is accessible with one click from anywhere within the Learn module and also includes: 

  • An employee’s list of completed courses 
  • The ability for employees to search for new courses they may want to enroll in 
  • An internal message box that acts as a central repository for system notifications sent

NEOGOV’s government LMS allows employees to enroll in and complete training whenever it’s most convenient for them. The benefits of this online employee training are made possible in part due to Learn’s mobile-friendly interface and app. This new mobile app includes many of the same features as the desktop version, so employees don’t need to rely on being in the office (or at a desktop!) to complete training.

Benefits of Online Employee Training

NEOGOVs learning management system for government, Learn, enables your organization to reap the benefits of online employee training, including: 

  • Eliminating the need to coordinate and pay for in-person training 
  • Automating each employee training and development program
  • Scaling critical training for a wide variety of employees 
  • Reducing barriers to achieving individualized training goals, such as gaining leadership skills

Because Learn is user-friendly and intuitive, even individuals with no previous LMS experience can make use of this system. This promotes increased accountability and participation throughout the organization, making it a great tool for organizations trying to encourage knowledge transfer amidst high turnover. 

Ease of access is perhaps one of the best benefits of online employee training. Not only does an easily accessible training platform reduce barriers to learning, but it also empowers employees to meet individual training plan goals and take control of their job performance. Online training courses place self-paced training material right into the hands of employees so they can make progress on their personalized development plan at their convenience.

Employees can also review course material as needed to refresh their knowledge on specific topics, which improves learning retention. 

Each of these benefits helps you improve your career development program and contribute to greater employee satisfaction, saving your organization time and money in the long run. HR professionals can thus redirect resources to additional programs that benefit employees – perpetuating the cycle of continuous improvement and learning. 

Final Thoughts

You’re not saving your organization any money by using outdated employee training. Investing in NEOGOV’s Learn helps government agencies meet learning and development goals, empower employees, and save money and time. 

If you’re excited to learn more about the benefits of online employee training and whether our LMS for government is right for you, book a free demo today.

Mike Tannian

Mike Tannian is the Director of Content Marketing at NEOGOV. With a talented team of writers by his side, he aims to produce content that delivers real value to public sector HR professionals at every stage in the buying journey.

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