What is an LXP and why do you need one?

Technologicaladvancements have nearly changed the face of many an industries within the pastdecade or so. And, the Learning & Development (L&D) and learningtechnology industries have followed suite, with more positive transformationstaking place in terms of learning delivery mechanisms and addressing the learning needs of the tech-savvy modernlearners.

Today,organizations are able to automate and track learning activities across diversetouch points anywhere and in real time, which has clearly elevated the expectationsfrom L&D and employee skilling as a whole. Addressing skills gaps within the workforce and maintaining an engaging learning culture areprimary challenges facing global L&D leaders.

Fortunately,L&D has some help in form of the fast evolving technology solutions, amongwhich stands the Learning Experience Platform (LXP). Although the LMS is stillthe king in terms of providing proven and tested learning delivery mechanisms,the LXP offers a new ‘experience’ for the modern learners that expect simple,efficient and engaging learning environments, much like the Netflixes of theworld.

What is an LXP?

AnLXP is an advanced, more intuitive and flexible version of your traditional LMS.Where an LMS is still critical for managing organization-wide learning and LXP is designed especially to help engage morewith the learning through easy discovery of relevant and recommended content. 

Whilesome LXPs out there also offer AI-powered chatbots and personalized learning, VirtualReality and so on, the LXP’s role is largely to offer a more self-directedlearning approach for the modern learners by curating content, skill buildingand developing learning pathways, and providing learners with recommended contentwhenever needed.

Why do you need an LXP?

Accordingto Josh Bersin, the LXP market is on the rise, but it’s unlikely to replace the burgeoning USD 4 billion LMSmarket anytime soon; although most LMS vendors in the market are realizing theuse cases of an LXP and taking concrete steps in that direction.

Now,let’s take a deeper look at why the LXP is making greater inroads in theL&D space. Again, as Josh Bersinsuggests, LXP gained popularity not only due to their sleek UI/ UX but alsobecause they address the basic challenge of ‘content discovery’. Although today’s advanced LMS platforms have solutionsthat are more employee-centric, they are better at ‘learning management’ andfocused on business objectives, regulation and compliance training activitiesetc; whereas an LXP looks something like YouTube, where the learners can easilyfind relevant content.

Thisis what an LXP looks like

Letus explore some key reasons that make LXPs so effective for employee learning.

• Learning/ Content Recommendations

Justlike a Netflix or Spotify recommends entertainment content, an LXP recommendslearning content by creating personalized learning plans for employees throughan AI-driven recommendation engine that uses historical data, learning styles,learners’ likes and dislikes, so that learners always have the most relevantand engaging learning content. An LXP ensures that a learner is never stuck by recommendingthe next course to take.

• Great UI/ UX

LXPsmake it much easier for employees to navigate, much like Netflix, YouTube etc. Likeindicated in the image above, an LXP gives learners the option to search topics,videos and other content, while also enabling learners to pick and choose from mostpopular topics taken by colleagues for a customized learning experience. Likean LMS, the LXP also tracks the learner’s progress and enables them to viewtheir progress in real time through the learner dashboard.

• Designed Mobile First

Today,most people access digital media on their mobile devices almost 69% of thetime, and with increasing mobile penetration across the globe and availabilityof high speed internet, it's critical for organizations to leverage devicesthat their employees use. Just like an LMS, an LXP is also available asindividual mobile learning app for anytime, anywhere learning that offers thesame set of features and functionalities.

• Boost Collaboration

Beinglargely learner-centric and employee driven, LXPs make for great collaborativeand social learning platforms by enabling learners to share popular content,quality learning materials like courses, videos, or even discussions. Usingan LXP, learners can make the existing content more actionable by sharinginformation, thus fostering collaboration and boosting team work andperformance.

Takeaway

Althoughpopular learning trends seem to favor the LXPs, there is a case to be made forthe relevance and the criticality of an LMS in addressing core challenges faced by global organizations. 

Forexample, companies still need to track and manage compliance, which calls forsome mandatory content to be taken by learners. Similarly, employee onboardingand training new employees just can’t be employee-driven as it has at leastsome prerequisites. But, more importantly, sometimes the employees just don’tknow what they must learn and need the system to preset their learning for themthat would help them in their current jobs.

Learningtechnology has always delivered newer and better ways to enhance the employees’learning experience by mimicking the experience they have with popular consumerbrands. The LMS still remains a go-to solution for organizations looking to align their L&Dprograms with business objectives, while the LXP offers key learner-centric capabilities,like relevant content, collaboration and social interaction, better UI/ UX aswell as analytics capabilities.

Organizationscan certainly look at an LXP to resolve long-standing and pressing problems likelack of engagement, underutilized content and ineffective search capabilities. LXPshave earned an important place in the constantly evolving learning technologysolutions space. And, in conjunction with the established capabilities of anLMS, the LXP stands to positively impact organizational learning and deliveringthe desired learning and business objectives.

To know more about an LXP, request a personalized demo of UpsideLMS version X here.