As an L&D or HR manager, you might find yourself asking, "Should I invest in a talent management system (TMS) or a learning management system (LMS)?" Additionally, you may be concerned about whether choosing one means missing out on essential features offered by the other.
In today's hybrid and highly competitive work environment, talent management has become a top priority for L&D professionals. In fact, two-thirds of leaders agree that, among various organisational goals, L&D has the greatest potential to enhance talent strategies boost employee engagement, and improve staff retention.
Navigating a rapidly evolving landscape, combined with pressure from the C-suite, can make selecting the right technology a challenging task. With a learning system already being a substantial investment, is it worth considering a talent management system as well?
"What type of learning management system do I need?"
Before the panic sets in over your budget, take a moment to consider what you want your learning technologies to achieve. Having this as a starting point will help you identify the specific functionalities you require from both learning management systems (LMS) and learning experience platforms (LXP) to meet your objectives.
With so many options and pressure to deliver results, we know that choosing the right learning system can feel overwhelming. To help you cut through the overwhelm with your decision-making, we've created a free guide to help you choose the learning system that will enable you to achieve your strategic goals and deliver impactful results.
Download it for free below.
When exploring learning systems, you'll typically come across two main types: learning management systems (LMS) and learning experience platforms (LXP). The primary distinction is that an LXP emphasises enhancing the learning experience, while an LMS focuses on managing and delivering learning content.
Both systems have their advantages, and the best solution often combines elements of both to create a dynamic learning environment that addresses individual use cases.
But what about developing your in-house talent? How do you identify top performers, provide clear pathways for development, and build a strong succession plan? That's where talent management systems come into play.
"What is a talent management system and do I need one?"
A talent management system is an integrated software platform that the HR department uses to support the management of people. This includes:
A robust talent management system enhances every stage of the talent lifecycle—from recruitment to succession planning—while automating tedious manual processes. This streamlines your strategy and frees up valuable time for HR Managers.
Employees benefit as well. With improved onboarding and structured professional development, employee engagement levels rise across the board. Investing in your team's growth sends a powerful message: “We care about your future.”
This approach to learning technologies can benefit L&D pros, with 87% stating they can show real business value by helping employees gain skills to move into different internal roles.
These systems often include features like compliance training, 360 evaluations, skills and leadership development, and coaching and mentoring. By identifying your ‘ready now’ and ‘ready soon’ talent, you can allocate resources for maximum return on investment.
"How can I make my budget stretch to both a learning system and a talent management system?"
We have some good news: you don't have to.
In many organisations, talent management systems are within the scope of the HR function. However, as business leaders become increasingly focused on performance and capability outcomes, HR and L&D are looking for a more collaborative approach. 77% of L&D professionals reported that their role became more cross-functional in 2023, with 56% reporting a deeper relationship with talent management and employee engagement.
The trends in learning technologies are increasingly shaped by the growing demand for seamless integration between business operations, HR, and L&D functions. Fosway's research highlights how this broader, talent-focused perspective is becoming a key factor in organisations' decisions when selecting LMS and other learning systems.
This means you can now implement a learning system with all you need for talent management and succession planning as part of its core functionality.
Say, for example, you're struggling to recruit leadership talent in your organisation. You've held multiple interviews with candidates, but they turn out to be an unsuitable fit or end up accepting another offer elsewhere. Your organisation now wants to look inward as part of its succession planning.
To do this, you need to identify and map existing leadership roles and outline the core competencies necessary for your internal talent to step into these roles.
1. Outline your competency profiles
First, you would create a competency profile, outlining the knowledge, skills, and attributes people need to carry out their roles effectively. This is a great way for employees to see what kind of behaviours your organisation values and to evaluate their own current competencies against what they need to work towards.
Remember, the competencies you create need to be relevant or your employees will have difficulty seeing why these competencies are required and how they can be applied. It helps to involve HR and others who are already in similar roles.
2. Create your success profiles
So now you've got your competency profiles for your leadership roles in place, it's time to consider success profiles. Consider the specific competencies each leadership role requires. This will be crucial for identifying skill gaps and guiding your team members towards their career aspirations.
To begin, you might want to launch a pilot project. You can do this by selecting one key role you need to fill. Next, you'll want to evaluate how many of your team members are close to meeting this profile. From there, you can cultivate this talent pool, helping them reach a level of readiness to step into the role.
Providing a clear development pathway and actionable guidance for reaching the next career milestone is essential. This not only motivates your staff but also significantly enhances retention.
3. Use your reporting tools
The final step is to utilise your reporting tools. It's time to run reports across the organisation against the success profiles you've created. This will help you identify who is 'ready now' (i.e. fulfills all the required competencies) or 'ready soon' (i.e. fulfills many of the required competencies but not all). This is key for determining how healthy your succession pipeline is and how soon you can fill critical roles from within your current workforce.
Finally, you can link any missing competencies to personalised programmes of learning to help fill the gaps. This might include, workshops, mentoring or a blended learning experience where the learning outcome is to address that specific competency.
The great news is that all of the above is brought together in one powerful system with Thinq's smarter learning system, meaning you no longer have to separate talent management from learning. This is about breaking down traditional silos and joining up processes to create a workforce ready for anything the future holds.
To summarise...
By using learning systems that incorporate talent management functionality and powerful reporting capabilities, your organisation can easily plan, measure and prove to ensure the business achieves both short-term and long-term objectives. Digital workflows mean many time-consuming and manual processes are also streamlined and automated for greater efficiency allowing both L&D and HR teams to focus on more meaningful tasks.
The result? A future-proof workforce that is aligned with your organisation's goals.
