Learning and performance must not be add-ons to your HRIS - here's why | November 2020

Learning and performance must not be add-ons to your HRIS – here’s why

Mark Probert

Director

I’m not suggesting that your learning management system (LMS), performance management system and HR information system (HRIS) should all be separate beings and never meet or interact. In fact, as you can see from Bridge’s range of HRIS integrations, we very much understand the desire to combine these elements.

However, the focus needs to be on integration, not ‘adding on’. All too often, an LMS is tacked onto an existing HRIS and then management wonders why it’s not used to its fullest capacity. The problem is that, without extreme care, managers and employers are being expected to use an LMS which simply isn’t fit for purpose. They need it to integrate with their daily working life, and forcing it from within an HRIS makes this very difficult.

To understand this, and to figure out the solution, you need to grasp some basics about these different systems as well as their origins and purposes.

The role of an HRIS vs LMS

Bridge integrates with many fantastic HRIS options such as Workday, ADP, Oracle’s Peoplesoft and SyncHR. They are invaluable tools for HR functions. They enable HR to manage all employee data and use it for everything from tracking processes to undertaking payroll.

Sitting inside the organisation’s HRIS is lots of juicy information for managers when it comes to their talent. They can see everything from demographics to pay. This makes it very tempting for organisations to think that simply adding on an LMS within the platform is the way to go.

Truth be told, there can be lots of benefits, as widely told by system designers. Data entry is simple and done once, meaning less time is wasted and mistakes are less likely. Systems which are integrated can make it easier to spot patterns.

However, there’s an enormous problem: the benefits rarely reach fruition because no one outside of HR truly gets on board. The HRIS nature of the system limits usefulness and ease for managers and employees. Even if it is used, it’s usually used with limited capacity.

Doing things differently

The alternative is to look at things from the opposite side. This brings about the benefits above and some extra ones too. Instead of adding the LMS, maybe with some performance management options, to the HRIS, the trick is to integrate the HRIS to a top-notch, learning and performance platform.

Instead of ‘making do’, managers and employees suddenly have a system that they want to use because it simplifies management, performance, learning, progression, succession planning and more. You’ve now got everyone truly engaged with using the full potential of the system which helps the organisation to meet its objectives.

A word about performance

Additionally, you really need to make sure that performance management isn’t completely forgotten. Typically when an LMS is added to an HRIS, the result is performance management doesn’t even get a look in. Yet performance management works so much better when it is actually combined with the LMS, like with Bridge.

You need things like feedback and employee engagement surveys to be intertwined with learning and development. That simply doesn’t happen with the typical LMS add on for HR systems.

This is because both the learning and development approach and the performance management approach are forced to take a back seat to the wildly different user experience needed for the HRIS. The result? The user experience of the learning and performance platform is less than ideal.

And when that happens, no one uses it. No one benefits from it.

Smooth integrations

Instead, keep the day-to-day operations of HR off to the side by making the learning and performance platform the primary, and let the HRIS neatly integrate. That way you get the functionality needed for regular valuable use for HR, but also for individual managers and employees.

We’re expecting too much to use one single approach to three very different tasks the way most currently do it. Let HR have the admin heavy solution it needs, whilst managers and employees have the efficient, insightful, useful system that they need. Everyone ends up engaged, everyone is happy.

Integrate your HRIS with an outstanding LMS and performance management system. You’ll benefit a whole heap more.

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