The financial services industry is in the midst of a metamorphosis. From widening skills gaps to the rapid expansion of AI technologies, organizations must adapt quicker than ever before—or risk falling behind.
Investment in learning and development (L&D) is paramount to this adaptability. By upskilling talent and increasing service quality, organizations stand a better chance of surpassing their competitors and driving better customer experiences.
This sounds great in practice. But the question is: how can you develop your L&D initiatives without burning out your teams? After all, proper training takes time—and your teams already have enough on their plates.
The answer lies in the e-learning technology you adopt.
In this blog post, we’ll explain what a learning management system (LMS) is and how you can harness the technology to futureproof your firm.
What is a learning management system?
A learning management system is a software that allows you to create, distribute and track e-learning across your organization. Many businesses harness LMS platforms for mandatory IT and HR training as well as more tailored career pathways.
Though vendors will differ, standard features of an LMS include:
- Course and module building
- Learning pathways
- Quizzes
- Course tutors
- Learning analytics
- Certificates and training records
- User roles and permissions
Some solutions, like Claromentis, even offer features typical of a learning experience platform (LXP), such as social and collaboration capabilities, self-guided learning, and user-built courses.
Benefits of an LMS for FSIs
Technology should never be seen as a quick fix. Like most things in life, you get out what you put in.
That said, if you support your LMS with high-quality training and a strategic approach to L&D, your financial firm can:
- Accelerate digital transformation efforts and AI adoption
- Reduce the time spent on 1:1 trainings and coaching
- Fill persisting skills gaps
- Adapt quickly to changing regulations
- Attract top talent and boost employee retention
- Increase service quality and delivery
- Mitigate the chances of insider breaches
- Streamline employee onboarding with standardized learning
- Drive better, more competitive customer experiences
All of which can futureproof your organization and lay the foundations for sustainable growth.
Online learning in practice: 8 use cases of an LMS in the financial sector
To highlight how an LMS can make a tangible difference to your talent, services and experiences, take a look at these 8 use cases:
1. Product and services training
You must inform your employees of every change you make, whether you’re launching a brand new service or tweaking your mortgage products in line with inflation rates.
Mandatory online training can help you instil the right messages and factual information without the need for copious 1-1 sessions. Moreover, with helpful knowledge base articles and FAQs, you can give your employees continuous access to the most up-to-date information, both during and after their financial services training is complete.
This will ensure more consistent, higher quality experiences—and mitigate any chances of customers receiving the wrong information.
2. Digital skills training
Considering the sharp rise in FinTech ventures and AI-driven services, it’ll come as no surprise that digital skills are in high demand.
However, filling these skill gaps is easier said than done. As it stands, 40% of firms are struggling to fill data-related job vacancies, and 68% of FSI CEOs say a lack of technical capabilities are hindering their ability to transform.
If you’re facing a similar challenge, building skills in-house may be the best option in the short and long term. With an LMS, you can curate learning pathways geared towards a specific data skill or role. Using a blend of in-house and external content, you can ensure your employees receive the most effective training to help them succeed.
4. Behavioral skills
As firms strive to differentiate themselves and gain a greater segment of the market, improving customer experience will be key. This requires a blend of hard and soft skills.
Surprisingly enough, the financial services industry is lacking in both areas, with over 60% of FSIs facing a demand increase for empathy and coaching skills.
To overcome this, empower your skilled leaders to create learning pathways centered around behavioral skills. You can then assign these experts as course tutors. This paves the way for mentorship opportunities and regular checks-ins, which in turn can accelerate learner progress.
5. Cybersecurity training
Cybercriminals aren’t the only threats you need to be wary of. More often than not, the real danger lies within.
Indeed, 40% of firms reported an increase in insider attacks within the last year. While some of these employees act maliciously, many simply lack cybersecurity awareness.
This isn’t to insinuate that firms don’t provide cybersecurity training—many do. However, it does highlight a clear gap in information retention. This may be down to the type of training offered and its delivery method. Long, in person sessions, geared towards an audience with higher levels of technical understanding, simply may not resonate.
This is where an LMS can really improve your efforts. The ability to compile multimedia courses, made up of bitesize ‘modular’ content, allows you to deliver engaging and understandable training to everyone in your firm, no matter their role or learning style.
6. Compliance and regulatory training
Complying with financial regulations such as KYC and AML is critical for maintaining trust, protecting your customers, and securing better merger and partnership deals.
Naturally, this compliance hinges on employee behavior and continuous learning (particularly considering how often regulations change). Without fully understanding your regulatory obligations, you open yourself up to the possibility of non-compliance.
An LMS with policy management capabilities is a brilliant way of mitigating this. You can share the necessary reading, improve understanding with engaging content, and measure training effectiveness via built-in analytics.
Moreover, all training records can be used as evidence during your auditing procedures to demonstrate compliance.
7. Employee onboarding
According to a recent CIPD report, over 40% of businesses that hired within the last year say their new employees often resign within the first 12 weeks.
As the battle for skilled hires continues across the financial services industry, you can’t afford to let your top talent slip away. This is where effective onboarding training becomes essential.
Courses centered around your culture, company structure, services, mission, and more can all help to build loyalty, reduce turnover, and speed-up the onboarding process.
Conducting this training on a comprehensive learning management system can also support your data security efforts, too. With a platform like Claromentis, you can implement automated ‘triggers’ based on an employee’s learning progress and user permissions. This allows you to hide or reveal your more sensitive content, depending on whether a learner has passed the relevant training or not.
8. Educating customers
Training doesn’t have to be for internal purposes only.
The right LMS platform will give you the ability to build a secure, external e-learning portal for your customers. You can harness this portal to provide self-service courses that help your customers make the most out of your services.
For example, you may opt to create a learning pathway for first time home buyers. Using bitesize, multimedia content, you can educate them around term lengths, deposits, additional legal costs and more. That way, you’re not just providing a product—you’re also delivering an impactful service and an unforgettable customer experience.
Finding an LMS for finance: Why you can bank on Claromentis
When it comes to finding an LMS, ensure your vendor of choice aligns with your specific needs. As a financial services organization, that means prioritizing security, effectiveness, adaptability and scalability.
This is what makes Claromentis a compelling choice. Available in the cloud and on-premise, our LMS provides a highly secure and flexible foundation for all of your e-learning needs.
- Create engaging multimedia courses that suit every learning style.
- Track learner progress and areas for improvement via analytics.
- Secure your sensitive data with granular permissions, two-factor authentication, and IP-based access controls.
- Boost morale with learner badges and certificates.
- Improve coaching and mentorship with course tutors and in-system messaging.
- Ensure training completion with notifications and course validity settings.
In addition to this, our learning management system also contains built-in intranet and internal communications capabilities. This means you can access knowledge base documents, policies, discussion rooms and more within one centralized portal.
With these powerful features at your fingertips, you’ll get one step closer to filling your skills gaps, retaining your talent, and providing world-beating customer services.
Eager to learn more about the Claromentis LMS or our full digital workplace solution?
Book a customized demo with one of our friendly experts today.