Why Doing the Blend Just Got Better with Totara 9

Totara LMS, the global provider of learning management systems with over 1,000 corporate clients, has recently announced their latest release – and it was worth the wait.

Totara 9 will give training teams greater flexibility when managing blended learning programmes.

So why is this important?

Blended learning is the key to successful training programmes.

According to Bersin by Deloitte’s recent Human Capital trends report, 2016, HR teams are having to rethink their structure to support new ways of working.  For example, the ‘gig economy’ (as Bersin puts it) has come about, which is essentially where companies of freelance teams hire for specific organisations. Secondly, the digital revolution means HR teams are having to use technology more than ever in their talent management strategy, e.g., data analytics This means HR teams have to drop the notepad and pick up the iPad; if they don’t adopt technology, they’ll be left behind. Then finally, the rise of the millennial. According to a survey by PWC, Millennials rate learning and development as the third most important factor when choosing an employee, this was after compensation and career opportunities.

Ok, so what does this mean for me as an HR professional?

Ultimately, you are under more pressure now to deliver results, than ever before.

1. Reducing in spend for L&D, the more-for-less agenda
2. Digital revolution has happened and is here to stay
3. HR reform, organisational structure changes leading to new ways of working

Why is Totara 9 so influential in supporting me?

We all know Elearning isn’t the only ingredient for delivering corporate learning programmes; take for example a leadership course which is aimed at developing emotional intelligence.  In our opinion, this would be a struggle to achieve totally online. You would need to have repeated, face to face, 1:1 sessions with those who need the candid feedback, so a blended approach would be the most sensible.

So, this makes the blend essential. The previous version of Totara LMS used to manage this wasn’t as powerful as what is available in 9. For example, you couldn’t assign equipment required for training.

With Totara 9, we evaluated the new functionality and here are our top features:

• Training dashboard: easy to use dashboard which is searchable and filterable
• Room layout management: within Totara you can now specify this
• Default settings: used for training admins, making it much faster to create workshops or seminars with preferred settings
• New custom field types: includes cancellations, so rather than paying for changes, you can add these yourself
• Asset management: this is the most sophisticated tool we have seen on the LMS market. You can book equipment, trainers, resources and even change the room layout!
• 2nd level approval: if you boss needs to approve, you can now add this in, though it’s optional
• Google maps integration: via the Google API, you can now locate meetings quicker than ever for attendees