An operating training system serves as the singular system of record throughout each area of training operation, including scheduling, resources, budgeting, compliance, and reporting, just as an ERP system does for finance or CRM does for sales, rather than relying on separate point solutions for each function.
This piece defines the category while demonstrating how point solutions stop working when training departments expand and ultimately explaining what happens when teams switch from many tools to a single operating layer.
Why Do Point Solutions Stop Working as a Training Function Grows?
Point solutions can be successful on a smaller scale because one person is able to visualize the entire situation. Problems arise when the training process attains a level of size and complexity where a single tool can no longer view the entire approach and has only a partial perspective of what is happening.
In our own experience, when the break happens, there is nothing extraordinary about it. For example, there could be a scheduling spreadsheet that does not match the data from the LMS enrollment. The same could happen with a budget tracker that hasn’t been updated after the invoice from months ago. A case of the compliance report can require three people two days to prepare precisely because it has its data distributed across several locations. None of them indicates failures of the tools themselves; rather, they confirm that the tools still do their job, while the problem is at the interface.
This is not merely a specific challenge. According to industry analyst Josh Bersin, it is the same trend that is visible in the HR technology domain. As per the report, the average big enterprise today uses around 80 different employee-related tools and the overall number is continuously rising. The same can be said for training tools. The tools that fall under this category are LMS, scheduled software, costs spreadsheets, compliance certificate portal and more. Each time a tool is added, a new challenge in terms of data reconciliation emerges.
According to Bersin’s research on HR technology, large firms are now utilizing more than 40% more systems compared to five years ago because of individual solutions specific to certain problems. The situation in the area of core HR is a clear parallel to the situation in the field of training, which continues accumulating various point solutions instead of forming and developing one clear operating system.
As L&D grows, disconnected tools for scheduling, enrollment, budgeting, and compliance create fragmented data and increase the amount of manual reconciliation required.
What Exactly Is a Training Operating System?
The Training Operating System isn’t another tool that’s been added to the set, it’s the underlying layer below every other tool working together. Similar to how the operating system works on a computer or an ERP across business units of finance, supply chain, and human resources, here we have the Training Operating System that gets everything working together. Instead of having a scheduling tool, a budget spreadsheet, and a compliance tracker that do not work together, now there’s a possibility of having a single system that gets us the whole picture while having everything synchronized.
Consider the distinction in this way: a Learning Management System (LMS) tells us what a learner has finished doing; a Training Management System (TMS) informs us when and where a training event is taking place. While both systems provide useful information when used separately or in combination, they still do not provide critical information to training managers. Advanced Training Operating Systems (TOS) can provide the information needed seamlessly and automatically because one of their critical features is integration of scheduling, budgeting, resources, and compliance functions.
That is the key difference between these two types of systems, where point solutions streamline a process, while operating systems automate the entire operation process.
Bersin similarly differentiates HR in a general sense, maintaining that organizations must “redefine HR as an integrated operating system that is concerned with ‘problems to solve’ and does not just deliver a range of services or programs.” When we apply this to L&D, we find that the ‘problem to solve’ is not how to deliver content per se but rather how to run a complete training organization.
A training operating system is the operational layer for the entire training function. Instead of managing individual activities through separate tools, it connects scheduling, budgeting, resources, compliance, and reporting around a shared source of truth.
What Does a Training Operating System Actually Run, Day to Day?
A Training Operating System operates three elements non-stop: the individuals providing and managing the training, the procedures that manage the sessions and the compliance, and the records systems that facilitate everything and all of these elements get operated simultaneously through the same information set, not three varied versions of the truth.
People
Qualified professionals, trainers, instructors, experts, and leaders are using the same records instead of utilizing export versions of reports and emails. Thus, scheduling for instance, an instructor is informed about the instructor availability in his scheduling. The financial stakeholder knows the same numbers from a budget report that the training manager knows, his numbers being updated in real-time.
Processes
Scheduling, participant enrollment, reminders about compliance, budget roles, and reporting are done through system-defined processes, rather than relying on someone remembering the independent tool to coincide with. In this way, when a session is rescheduled, compliance and budget lines are updated automatically.
Systems of Record
In every category of educational data – who attended the course, how much it cost, what’s outstanding, which company provided the training – there is a single place to track this information. This is what sets the operating system apart from existing solutions: a company becomes aware of the training processes as whole rather than through several inconsistent records.
Studies concerning the effectiveness of training programs show that many companies still do not evaluate their training programs. For example, one research paper found that only 36% of companies engaged in training formally assessed the processes of their training activities. Moreover, another paper from 2023 comes to the conclusion that out of the group of companies that improved their training processes, only 30% are paying attention to the upgrade of the processes connecting the people and the tools used. This gap is covered by the use of a single system of record: in order to evaluate and improve a training process, there should be one record system that allows making a transparent assessment.
A Training Operating System brings together the people, processes, and records required to run training effectively. The goal is to ensure that everyone works from the same current information rather than disconnected reports, spreadsheets, and emails.
How Does the ERP Analogy Apply to L&D?
The consolidation page has been turned on nearly every other important functional area and training is one of the very last functional areas still operating on the non-consolidated model. There have been changes in Finance, from using multiple ledgers/spreadsheets to consolidated ERP systems. In Sales, the shift has seen the move from numerous contacts and leads to a single CRM. Both transitions were motivated by the growing complexity of processes: once functions become complicated enough, the cost of reconciling the data of various disconnected systems surpasses the cost of maintaining one solid system with a clear picture of everything.
L&D has not yet made that jump due to history and being historically organized by outputs , LMS for learning materials delivery, TMS for scheduling. It makes the gap that the Training Operating System fills: this is the first category based on the need to run the entire function instead of one element of it.
The similarity is not just trivial. An ERP system does not just collect financial information, it also manages processes aimed at moving an order through stages such as placement, acceptance and payment, allowing the departments involved to use the same up-to-date information. The Training Operating System does the same for learning and development. It does not only monitor the completion of training but also organizes the procedure, from planning to execution, making it possible for every interested party to come to terms using the same data.
According to the analysis by eLearning Industry, the issues of the existing model are not new already: a learning management system is not meant to be the central eight as it serves other purposes, making it necessary to develop additional functionalities around it.
What Are the Warning Signs Your Training Function Has Outgrown Point Solutions?
Prior to a team becoming aware that their point-solution stack has turned into a bottleneck, they typically begin to experience some signs that suggest this has happened. If the team finds that one or more of these symptoms resonate with them in any way, they are usually alerted that there is an issue.
- Meeting regulatory requirements requires a lot of time since there is no way to find answers to the question “who is compliant now” without using multiple software that do not interact with each other
- Cost overruns are discovered at the end of the quarter when they could have been discovered in the middle of the spending period.
- The point is that costs are tracked on a spreadsheet that stops being updated until one of the sources is updated manually
- Besides, coordinators spend most of their time in coordination process reconciling data from various sources. So figuring out the answer to some operational questions is not an easy task either because the required information is kept in different places.
Besides, coordinators spend most of their time in coordination process reconciling data from various sources. So figuring out the answer to some operational questions is not an easy task either because the required information is kept in different places. With each new training initiative, there is a need to evaluate a new solution since existing software lacks the necessary approach necessary to accommodate novelties.
The need for a more unified approach often becomes visible through everyday operational problems, including slow compliance reporting, unexpected costs, duplicated data, and coordinators spending more time reconciling information than managing training.
How Do You Start Moving Toward a Training Operating System?
Transitioning to a Training Operating System does not suggest that one should get rid of their existing tools all at once. Instead, it indicates being careful about figuring out which of the systems will be the ultimate authority for scheduling, budget, resources, etc. Instead of treating the remaining tools as other systems, it is necessary to treat everything as a part of the complete system and not as several competing ones.
So, the first step in this paradigm shift would be to identify where your existing system fails. Then it would be beneficial to determine which one or two workflows take the most manual work, well-known to relate to scheduling and compliance tracking. After this, your task will not be to buy new software tools; rather, the new system of record would become the foundation.
Moreover, those training departments that manage to introduce this transformation perceive it as finance departments did when they shifted to implementing the ERP systems.
Moving toward a Training Operating System does not mean replacing every existing tool overnight. The process starts by identifying the biggest operational gaps, determining where manual work is concentrated, and establishing a clear system of record.
Final Thoughts
The training operation becomes complicated before the team understands that their stack is built inefficiently. Point solutions can solve particular issues but as training expands will always create disconnects between solution, leading to manual processes and disintegrated data.
The Training Operating System provides an alternative solution in which there is no need to add another tool to the technology stack. The new system serves as an operating layer in a great L&D department where scheduling, budgets, resources, compliance, and reporting are based within a unified system of records.
This transformation need not take place rapidly or instantly. A compliant starting point for various L&D teams may be identifying the processes that require more effort for manual coordination, reporting delays, and reconciliation, then create an operational source of truth regarding the indicated tasks.
It is not enough to combine software. The ultimate objective is to create an ease-of-use, ease-of-measurement, and ease-of-scale training system. With the increasing complexity of the L&D function, the differentiation should be the distinguishing feature between a variety of training tools and the proper training operation system.
FAQ
1. What is a training operating system?
A training operating system is also known as a single track of record which is responsible for managing scheduling along with resource allocation and budget approval as well as compliance that occurs throughout a training process the same way that ERP application does for finances.
2. How does a training operating system differ from an LMS?
An LMS is used for delivery and monitoring of learning content and tracks its completion, meaning that it only shows what has been learned by a learner and when, while a training operating system operates throughout all processes that occur around that learning content: scheduling and budget approval as well as resource allocation and compliance.
3. What is the variance between the training operating system as compared to TMS?
The TMS system usually takes care of logistics and timing relating to training which is conducted manually. The training operating system goes a step ahead by even helping with financial budgets, reporting for compliance and allocating resources.
4. Why do point solutions become infeasible for training purposes as the training function expands?
This is because point solutions function efficiently but they are not built in such a way that they can account for the big picture. When training activities increase, reconciliating data becomes more difficult, creating both a bottleneck for activities and overwhelm in the workforce used.
5. What does ERP refer to and how does it tangentially apply to training?
Just as its usage implies, the financial processes are combined into an ERP like process, the same is done with training functions through the training operating system.
6. What are the signs you should move past point solutions?
Some of the most apparent signs include slow compliance reporting, budget surprises arising post-factum, coordinators spending more time reconciling data rather than coordinating staff, and simple operational questions that require answering through multiple systems.
