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In the world of HR, we’re all accustomed to using learning management systems (LMSs). Not just using them, but learning how to use them, teaching others within our organization how to use them, reminding people to use them, asking people politely to use them…you get the picture. Even the most eager employees who want to learn as much as possible so they can grow in their career can find navigating, tracking, and using your average LMS a challenge. So we incentivize until that wears thin, try to generate excitement about new courses, and bring up LMS resources in our performance management cycles. And we still feel like we’re losing engagement.

 

Part of this is likely due to the past year that many of us have spent working remotely, from our homes, and setting aside uninterrupted time to take self-paced classes in a LMS isn’t our highest priority. We have had to work swiftly and smartly to ensure that our dispersed workforce has the tools they need to be able to do their jobs remotely. Many companies have embraced the remote work model, some are going hybrid to part in-office and part remote, and others plan to have a full staff back in a building together at some point. In the interim, we have goals to meet and a bottom line to think about. 

 

This is where Schoox comes in. Schoox started in 2012 as a learning management system, but has expanded from a LMS to a robust talent development solution that transforms learning into business growth with a wide range of activities to promote talent development. Now with more than 1,600 customers, over 14 million users in 120+ countries, 15,000 courses, and they just added the 29th language to the system. 

 

It’s a platform your employees can enjoy using and that can make performance management and career development easy for your HR team and your hiring managers. While Schoox is modular in use (meaning you can turn on and off the features you wish to use – more about that later), its pricing model is all inclusive. No add-ons, no customization costs, everything Schoox offers is available to you under your current pricing model. 

 

For example, if your company is expanding into the global market and you need to add languages other than English to your current platform, it’s easy to do and you don’t have to pay to upgrade. I really love this aspect because I’ve spent a lot of time working with HR teams and tech and it seems like most of the issues that come up during new technology implementations come from a communications gap that occurs somewhere between the demo and installation and ends with: “That functionality requires adding a module, we’ll send you a quote.” All functionality in Schoox is there for you to use when you need it. 

 

Schoox also integrates with your HRIS (and any other HR applications that you have in place) to give you options for streamlining and managing your data and information. The open API is developer-friendly, giving you a lot of flexibility and eliminating redundancies.

 

What Makes Schoox Stand Out in a Crowded HR Tech Marketplace

 

Significantly different from other products on the market, Schoox is structured around a hierarchy management model. When log in to the admin panel, you’ll see that it’s clean and well organized because the customizable dashboard only shows the features that you’ve activated and want to see on your home page. Being able to tailor what the home page looks like is at the top of my list for ease of use and it’s also super easy to change out what you see.

 

Each module within the Schoox platform –  Learning Engagement, Goals & Performance, Business Impact, Career Development, Social Collaboration and Content Curation – can be turned on and off with a toggle switch. This means that even if your company’s goals and objectives are complicated (and we know they are), Schoox can be customized to fit as a talent development solution for learning, achievement, skill development, scoring, and so on. You can even toggle them on and off for individual and specific groups within your organization.

 

These modules make up a skills profile for each employee. What I really love about this is the amount of data and information we can access in order to create actionable tasks. For example, traditional mentorship programs partner a more experienced employee with a less experienced employee. With Schoox, you can use the information from skills profiles to select “best fit” mentors, meaning not just a fit as a mentor for the skills a mentee wants to learn, but someone who is also skilled at coaching and mentoring and works within a similar culture. 

 

It’s easy to use for employees, managers, administrators, your IT department, and your HR team. The desktop and mobile versions are intuitive and super functional, and there is a Schoox app for iPhone and Android.

 

How Schoox Drives Talent Development

 

There’s a lot to unpack here, but I’m going to touch on the six primary modules in Schoox and explain what I love about each one. Keep in mind that each feature can be used on its own or in any mix-and-match way simply by turning a toggle switch on and off so I’ll be talking about integrated functionality with some of these features. For example, if you’re using Learning Engagement you will also likely use Content Curation (and vice versa). 

The skills management component in Learning Engagement is a complete library of competencies broken down by industry. These can be connected to your learning management and goals management tools to allow you to personalize the experience for employees.

The learning structure supports virtual learning (through pre-built integrations with popular conference platforms like Zoom) as well as instructor-led courses. This feature also includes on-the-job learning, or OJT checklists, that can be uploaded as the employee completes this type of training. Your employees can also rate and review courses so that you and your team can get data on what courses are impactful and which are not.

Goals & Performance is a collaborative tool for managers and employees to access the information they need to reach their career development goals. The performance review experience allows managers to bring in multiple sections, delivered by skills and competencies or create other items to review based on the way your company structures its reviews. This can be separate from goals management or inclusive (the score on the performance review can be tied into goals management or not).

If your current system of success measurement doesn’t tie into the broader company goals, it’s difficult for employees to see exactly how their roles affect the success of the company. Business Impact can easily correlate company key performance indicators (KPIs) with your training metrics without the need for a separate business intelligence tool. Schoox lets you go beyond basic data to deliver tangible insights that are connected to the organization’s overall business objectives. I really like this feature, since it’s such a great tool for the HR SVP or CHRO to get the really specific data that helps us with skills planning, succession planning, forecasting, and so on. 

The Career Development module gives employees a view into their skill strength and helps suggest personalized learning paths they can follow to get the required skills for the job they want. Administrators can define which factors the system uses to suggest personalized courses to employees, and even customize the sequence of courses based on job assessment. 

The Social Collaboration module is a Facebook or LinkedIn style feed that can be entire company, customized for groups or teams, and extend learning and support via peer sharing. Just as you can in social platforms, you can create specific groups within this framework to encourage collaboration – which is great if you have some employees working remotely and others in-office, or team members that are separated by distance. Also highly customizable, this can be a tool for engagement or a way for team leaders to send shout outs, for employees to rate and review, and also works as a messaging tool.

Content Curation lets you add content easily from other sources like YouTube, a URL, a document, PDF, SCORM, image, virtually any file type to curate within the content library. I love this – you can easily drag and drop from the content library to create custom courses. Employees can create and share their own curated content, as well as share, collaborate and rate content.

 

Finally, the one thread that runs through all of the features in Schoox is that it is so uniquely scalable. Any size company can start with any module and build from there, scaling up or down as needed and integrating other technologies to ensure that all of the functionality you’re using is meaningful to your organization and -most importantly – the people who make up your organization.

There are a lot of things that make Schoox outstanding and I’ve only touched on the basics here. 

Interested in more information? Click here to speak with Schoox to learn how they can help you streamline your HR processes. 

FTC Disclosure: We received compensation for mentioning and reviewing the product listed above as part of one of the services we offer our clients. Regardless, we only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.