In the rapid pace of business, any professional—no matter how accomplished—can develop a skill gap. Skill gaps occur when there is a difference between what a professional knows and the skills they need to perform their job effectively. Skill gaps can occur when technology changes, when strategies evolve, and at any time experience does not perfectly align with the needs of the current project.
While skill gaps are a common challenge, they are also among the greatest threats to a business's workforce productivity and potential for growth. Fortunately, what your team doesn't know, they can often learn. This is why the use of an intuitive learning management system (LMS) for business can make the vital difference between success and failure, preventing missed opportunities.
The right LMS represents a scalable, digital-first solution to closing those skill gaps so that your workforce can achieve their potential. This is why LMSs have become essential for modern workforce development in our constantly evolving business landscape.
Common Causes of Skill Gaps in Modern Workplaces
Skill gaps are a challenge for professionals in every industry and sector. There are many possible causes, and the solution always lies in bridging that gap with experience and accessible training. When employers have a clear view of the causes of each skill gap, they will be able to design or select the right coursework to help teams close the gap efficiently.
Rapid Technological Change
Software and hardware tools are being developed at lightning speed. Every year, new and more innovative tools become available to the workforce, inspiring businesses to upgrade quickly. However, teams need time to learn the tools before they become proficient and help their business grasp the full potential of each technological upgrade.
New tools and platforms leave some employees struggling to learn how to use the new systems. The right introductory course and access to micro lessons can help professionals learn new technology faster and retain their training to adapt to new systems more quickly.
Inconsistent Onboarding and Training
No two people have identical experiences or professional skills. New hires often start with divergent knowledge bases due to their particular backgrounds and experience with tools and routines. At the same time, current staff may miss out on the cutting edge of evolving industry best practices.
This inconsistency in experience, training, and onboarding methods can create a skill gap within any team that could be solved by providing across-the-board learning opportunities with a scalable LMS.
Lack of Ongoing Professional Development
In many positions, training stops after onboarding is complete. The traditional perspective is that, after onboarding, a professional has all the background training they need to perform their role and they can learn the rest on the job. However, in a world where technology and techniques are constantly updating, professional development is a must.
Professionals who do not evolve with the needs of their role may develop a skill gap even while continuing to perform their original duties with expert skill and efficiency.
Remote and Distributed Teams
Teams are also becoming more distributed with the introduction of remote, hybrid, and far-flung work models. It can be much more challenging for employers to standardize learning, host training sessions, verify skill mastery, or identify performance issues at a distance. Modern businesses need a solution that can do as well or better than the traditional method of gathering everyone into one training room for learning together, and a scalable digital-first LMS is the natural result.
How Learning Management Systems Help Identify Skill Gaps
The first step to preventing and resolving skill gaps in your workforce is to identify where your team needs professional development. A well-constructed learning management system can provide not just training and coursework but can also help to identify skill gaps as they occur. Using an LMS to find skill gaps identifies the problem and provides a solution in a single stroke.
Data-Driven Assessments
Assessments are an inherent part of determining each employee's skills and how they measure up to the needs of the day. Employees don't always need to embark on an entire training course to identify which skills they excel at and which skills could use development.
Skill diagnostics are special assessments that determine an employee's current skill level and breadth of mastery regarding their role.
Pre-training quizzes can inform an adaptive LMS about an employee's starting proficiency. Post-training evaluations also indicate whether those who completed a training course have fully grasped the concepts and are ready to put them into action.
Together, diagnostics, pre-training quizzes, and post-training quizzes can assist in the most efficient path to identifying and resolving skill gaps.
Performance Tracking
A learning management system for business can also provide real-time tracking of professional mastery of specific skills. Built-in analytics will reveal where learners have been struggling to understand or reach a certain proficiency level as well as where they might be disengaging with hard-to-manage concepts.
Analytics can identify how long professionals spend on a problem, how often they make mistakes in a specific area, where they seem to lose focus, and where they could use assistance to reach their training goals.
And of course, these same analytics can identify employees who are talented, have sufficient mastery from past experience, or are good candidates to mentor those colleagues who are struggling.
Custom Learning Paths
Courses don't have to be rigid lesson plans. With the right LMS, it is possible to map courses to job roles so that specific training is available for employees based on the unique needs of each role. Course mapping also makes it easier to detect when employees are falling behind on the skills specifically needed for their position.
You can map courses to detect where employees fall behind, to spot exactly where skill gaps are developing in your workforce. Then, you can build a strategy to resolve and prevent these gaps in the future.
How LMS Platforms Help Close Skill Gaps
Once skill gaps are identified, it's time to put your LMS to its most effective use: providing accessible training to your workforce to close skill gaps and build proficiency. The central purpose of any learning management system for business is to provide employees with access to a digital-first training platform that facilitates training, resources, and guides for essential professional skills. Job training and professional development, including closing skill gaps, lie at the heart of LMS design.
Personalized Learning Experiences
An LMS helps employees make time for learning and learn at their own pace. Rather than a formal training session that may leave behind someone who is struggling or hold back someone who excels, employees are free to complete digital lessons at their ideal pace and timing.
With access to an LMS, employees can use their time as they wish to hone their skills through professional development. They can slow down and revisit content to master challenging courses or speed through courses that they find easy to master, finding empowerment to learn at their best pace and revisit key concepts.
Targeted Upskilling and Reskilling Programs
Employees who already have a wealth of experience can increase their professional skills through LMS-hosted upskilling and reskilling programs. Your business can assign advanced content or introduce new skills based on employee performance, developing changes in job requirements (like new technology or regulations), and individual performance.
In this way, an LMS can ensure your teams are ready for upcoming challenges, future promotions, and any other evolving needs of the industry.
Microlearning for Just-In-Time Training
An LMS can even contribute to the traditional methods of learning on the job. Microlearning and just-in-time training modules are designed to provide bite-sized content and reinforce skills that are needed in the moment. Microlearning can provide a quick refresher or an instant training experience for procedures where professional knowledge or experience is essential, and can be accessed in the natural course of job performance.
Mobile & On-Demand Access
An LMS that provides mobile content is also more useful for a workforce that often works outside the office with phones in hand. Whether your team works remotely, on-site with clients, or in shifting locations for professional events, mobile and on-demand access can ensure that training materials are available whenever and wherever learners need it.
Together, these features ensure that your workforce can close skill gaps, train early to prevent skill gaps, and pursue just-in-time learning to address skill gaps on the go.
What to Look for in an LMS to Address Skill Gaps
How do you identify the right learning management system for your business needs? A contemporary business requires an LMS that is flexible and adaptive to the needs of their workforce, able to identify skill gaps and provide the means to close those skill gaps with accessible lessons and smooth efficiency. Certain features can help you identify a well-designed system that will empower your workforce to achieve their potential and resolve any skill gaps that might occur.
- Robust analytics and progress tracking
- The ability to analyze individual and trending skill mastery in your workforce
- Easy-to-use course builder
- A system that is naturally adaptive to the learning needs of your business
- Accessibility and mobile compatibility
- Learning that can be accessed any time, anywhere, and by any professional
- User-based pricing that scales with your team
- Transparent pricing that scales smoothly with the size of your workforce
Why Businesses Choose YesLMS
YesLMS was built to efficiently fulfill the needs of a contemporary business learning management system. Not just a platform for coursework, YesLMS ensures that every lesson is accessible, building courses is adaptive to the unique needs of each professional role, pricing is never a surprise, and businesses get the support they need to gain the full potential of their learning solution.
- Accessibility-first
- Accessibility is a core feature, never an add-on, so every member of your team can access the coursework and no learner is left behind.
- Transparent pricing
- We offer per-user pricing with no hidden fees or surprise paywall features. You can calculate your LMS costs reliably every quarter.
- Intuitive interface for both admins and learners
- We make it easy for admins to build courses, for learners to explore courses, and to see the results through useful analytics.
- Live human support and onboarding included
- Our team is here to make sure your team gets the most from your LMS implementation, from installation to ongoing support.
Yes LMS, Your Business Learning Solution
A strong LMS empowers businesses to identify, address, and close skill gaps before they impact productivity. Your business deserves a flexible learning management system designed to make training and learning easy. Closing skill gaps can become an opportunity for everyone involved, to develop the skills of your workforce and introduce ongoing professional development.
Explore how YesLMS helps growing businesses build smarter, more skilled teams. Book a demo today.
