5 Reasons You Should Hire an LMS Administrator

LMS administration encompasses a long list of tasks. Some need to be done daily or weekly, while others crop up when annual compliance training deadlines approach or when a one-time training initiative is launched.

What does the LMS administrator do?

The LMS administrator’s role includes a range of responsibilities and tasks, ranging from the mundane to the philosophical. Depending on the size of your organization and your approach to training, the LMS admin might:

• Strongly influence learning culture and priorities for the entire organization
• Influence or manage onboarding, compliance and safety training, talent development, upskilling and reskilling initiatives, professional certification administration … and more
• Manage learner profiles and enrollments, including adding and removing learners, enrolling learners in training, sending them reminders, tracking their progress and completion, issuing certifications, and tracking professional credentials, including expiration and renewal dates and requirements
• Create, purchase, develop, and manage training modules, including ensuring that they work smoothly in the LMS and, where applicable, on learners’ mobile devices
• Gather and analyze data on learners, training impact, and, ideally, correlations between training and job performance, including creating reports for managers and executives
• Troubleshoot and problem-solve, whether it’s for managers who identify crucial knowledge or skills gaps or learners who need help navigating the LMS or training materials

When to call for reinforcements

Perhaps your L&D department or LMS administrators capably handle the routine work but drown in the annual training deluge of enrollments, tracking, reporting, and reminders. Or maybe your department is chronically short-staffed, and some tasks simply never get done.

Either way, outsourcing some — or all — of your LMS administration to qualified experts can ensure that your training program runs more smoothly and everyone, from the LMS administrator down to the individual learners, has a positive experience. Here are five reasons to outsource LMS administration tasks.

1. Annual onslaught

Your annual training pushes your team into overdrive. Or you conduct certification exams once or twice a year. These infrequent but intensive periods have everyone working overtime, tempers fraying — and you still fall behind. Reduce stress and improve performance with a little extra help. Bring in the pros, ensure smooth functioning through the busy period — and set your team up for improved operation at the end of the annual rush because they won’t face weeks of digging out from under a huge backlog.

2. New software or product

Implementing a new software system or launching a new product or procedure for internal use can lead to a massive training initiative. Call in the troops to help prepare that training and roll it out. Getting help through this critical period will get your entire organization up and running on the new system more quickly and efficiently. An expert LMS administrator can implement your training, enroll and track learners, set up progress reports and reminders, and help you target different training to managers or people in specific job roles.

3. Onboarding or certification demands

If you are onboarding a large cohort of new hires or have an entire division where learners need to recertify or update their credentials, the training demand could spike sharply for a short time. Call in some backup for assistance with the routine LMS admin tasks. Expert SmarterU administrators can automate some tasks, like generating reports and reminding learners of their training deadlines, that will come in handy year-round too. The extra LMS administrators can provide support with entering large amounts of data, syncing HR or other databases with your LMS, enter batch actions, or import a pool of new learners.

4. Company-wide training initiative

Whether your executives have embraced a diversity-training initiative, turned to proactive upskilling, or have decided to school the entire staff — or one large department — in updated health and safety protocols, a large-scale training initiative can tap out the L&D team’s resources. Consider hiring an LMS administrator to assist with developing and implementing the new training or keep the routine training program running while the staff cope with the new tasks. Either way, your organization’s L&D will run more smoothly and provide a great LX to all of your learners.

5. Internal changes

Change can be disruptive to your finely tuned LMS administration cycle. If an admin goes on leave or changes jobs, covering routine tasks can become impossible. If you’re onboarding new admins or covering for the temporary absence of a key member of your team, consider bringing in expert help until your team is fully staffed and up to speed.

SmarterU Managed Admin Services

Our SmarterU Customer Success team provides a full suite of LMS administration services, as a package or a la carte, to suit your short- or long-term needs. From helping you through transitions to providing long-term account administration services or support, we’ve got your back. We’ll train your team, provide backup, clear the backlog of enrollments, reports, or data entry — whatever your LMS administration need, our team will handle it. We’ll also provide guidance and assistance in optimizing your SmarterU LMS configuration and leveraging its features to provide the best experience possible for LMS administrators and learners alike.

Contact us today and learn why hiring an LMS administrator can be the best decision you make for the efficient operation of your online training program.