As employees seek to thrive in the new world of work, learning and development takes centre stage; we highlight five top L&D tools to use now
History has shown us that rapid adaptability is key to recovery. Managers and employees have had to quickly learn new ways of working as organisations shifted to remote and hybrid working in 2020, from new onboarding processes to remote career development, and effective L&D teams have provided the support and training required.
The importance of L&D cannot be underestimated – so are you an innovator or are you reactive? While most organisations have some training activity in place, face to face training may have to take a backseat for now as organisations turn to online learning tools that can support a remote workforce.
We highlight five top learning and development tools:
1. Ciphr LMS
Ciphr LMS is a cloud-based learning management system (LMS) with an award-winning user experience. It empowers L&D teams to choose content that’s right for their people, by loading their own content, selecting from a substantial library of off-the-shelf content, or curating content from a variety of sources. For maximum flexibility, Ciphr LMS supports a wide range of learning content formats, including SCORM 1.2 and 2004.
To increase engagement, Ciphr LMS features gamified learning, which promotes a friendly sense of competition and achievement. You can set up leaderboards, to see which of your teams or individuals are hitting their learning goals, or award badges to your learning stars.
As well as being available as a standalone product, Ciphr LMS is part of Ciphr Connect, Ciphr’s HCM platform. Integrated Ciphr LMS with our central HR platform, Ciphr HR, and you’ll have a single source of truth for all your people data, for a seamless transition between HR and L&D activities and full visibility of your people’s performance.
Features:
- An award-winning user experience
- Gamified learning functionality
- Flexible learning content support
- Seamless integration with other Ciphr Connect solutions
2. Digits LMS
Digits LMS by Digits, part of the Ciphr Group, caters to the more complex requirements of enterprise users. It is highly configurable with user and management flows, to meet your learning objectives. Digits LMS makes learning engaging with visual learning journeys, guiding users down a visual path of blended learning activities.
Digits LMS gives you access to comprehensive insights, including custom reports and dashboards, as well as the skills analysis module, helping you to assess current competencies and close the skills gap. These insights enable L&D teams to make data-driven decisions and discover opportunities to upskill their workforce. Dashboards also enable you to monitor your compliance learning.
Features:
- Bespoke learning management systems for enterprise organisations
- Visual learning journeys
- Insights and dashboards
- Skills analysis
3. Articulate 360
Articulate 360 gives you authoring tools to create your custom, interactive courses. It includes Storyline 360, to build custom, interactive courses for any device.
Its content library has over seven million course assets, including photos, templates, characters, videos, icons. This gives you immense choice and flexibility to create the course you want. It also has a review app that enables L&D professionals to view courses and provide feedback in a browser.
Features:
- A huge library of course assets
- Authoring tools to create interactive content
- A review app for easier sign-off
- Tools to build fully responsive courses
4. Camtasia
Camtasia gives you access to video recording tools, enabling L&D professionals to easily author training videos. Video editing software can sometimes be very complex, to the point of becoming off-putting to professionals who might not be technically proficient. Camtasia comes with pre-built video templates to reduce authoring time as well as pre-built assets, so you can embellish your videos as required.
Also available is a library of royalty-free music, to give your training videos suitable background music or sound effects. When it comes to video editing, the Camtasia software has a drag and drop editing for ease of use.
Features:
- Drag and drop video editor
- Library of royalty-free music
- Pre-built templates for a quick start
- A choice of video assets
5. iSpring
According to iSpring, no training is required to start using its software, enabling L&D teams to rapidly author learning content. It offers several products including the iSpring Suite, enabling you to rapidly create course content – simply take your existing Powerpoint presentations and transform them into more interactive content by adding quizzes or videos. iSpring also has a content library, which includes 450 slide templates, 65,000 character images, and 1,025 location images.
Its marketplace, iSpring Market, enables L&D professionals to sell their course content. You can even sell individual assets, such as your quizzes, video, or audio.
Features:
- Transform existing PowerPoint slides into training
- Extensive content library
- Mobile-friendly eLearning content
- A marketplace to buy and sell L&D content
Want to find out how Ciphr’s integrated HR and LMS solutions could transform your organisation? Request a demo now
This article was first published in January 2021. It was updated in July 2022 for freshness clarity and accuracy.