Every day, we work with companies and franchises across the country doing amazing things with learning and development. All of our partners use their learning management system (LMS) to create world-class learning experiences for their employees. A handful of all-stars have tackled not only this tall task, but figured out how to use their LMS to build their brand, scale their business, and — most recently — develop company culture.

Research from Deloitte shows that about 80% of corporate leaders rate culture and employee experience very important or important, and yet only 22% felt they were good at building it. And, based on conversations we’ve had with hundreds of clients, we’re pretty sure it’s because most companies don’t understand the integral role their LMS and learning and development can play in building and sustaining company culture.

Today we want to share three tips from Wisetail’s expert Client Success Manager, Lana Dalton, on how L&D can help your company improve employee engagement, build culture, and achieve big goals.

One of the biggest challenges for building company culture in restaurant and retail organizations is the extraordinarily high rate of turnover. A 59% turnover rate each year is abysmally normal in fast casual and retail companies, which makes it extremely difficult to maintain a consistent company culture across the business or for employees to build long-lasting relationships with their peers.

It should be no surprise, then, that many employees don’t see their job as a place where they can build a community and a career but rather a place to clock in, clock out, and get a paycheck — a ship they can jump from whenever a better offer comes along. Which reveals the first place using an LMS for company culture will shine: giving your employees an accessible way to build relationships no matter where or when they’re at work.

Speaking of breaking down barriers, another way organizations use their LMS for company culture is by making people and positions throughout the organizational hierarchy more accessible. Not only can an LMS provide an opportunity for standard training initiatives and survey opportunities, but it can play a pivotal role in giving entry-level employees more interaction with higher-ups and more information about job opportunities.

“Of all the companies running company culture initiatives through their LMS, two really stand out,” says Dalton. “First, the company that’s seeing great results in engagement and team-building from their CEO’s weekly LMS check-in videos. They post the announcement on the homepage of the LMS and give staff at every level the opportunity to interact with their senior management. Their people really value that and it makes employees proud of where they work.

“Next, there’s the company that uses their LMS to help entry-level employees engage in career mapping by publishing a high-quality graphic of all the positions within the company,” Dalton continues. “If an employee is curious about moving up, that person can consult the map about what each position entails and what kind of training is required in order to be eligible. The company has found that this encourages employees to explore opportunities within the company and shows them the company truly cares about their future success.”

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Moving your training and onboarding library into an LMS can be an intimidating undertaking — even more so if your goal is to not merely upload your existing content into the LMS, but to also update the format and delivery to make it more engaging to today’s workforce. So we’re excited to share with you one time-saving and team-building tip that many of our clients find exceptionally effective: get your employees involved in the training development process.

“Clients always want to know how to improve engagement with their LMS platform,” says Dalton. “So in addition to breaking those big binders and hard drives of training content down into smaller pieces and turning it from text to video, we always recommend they get their star employees involved in the content development and creation process.

“Using the share tab, employees can go into the LMS and upload photo and video content to share tips, lessons, or experiences they’ve had within their roles, and your LMS manager can easily edit and approve them,” continues Dalton. “It’s a fun way for employees to get more involved and feel ownership over the content — and it can open a lot of doors. In fact, one client had one employee who got so involved in creating content and lessons for their LMS that she later became their LMS administrator!”

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If there’s one thing we want you to take away from here, it’s that your LMS can be more than a source of learning. If you have the right technology in place, your LMS platform can be the source of community, culture, and engagement as well as rich learning experiences. Consider how you can encourage social interaction, accessibility, and empowerment with your LMS and we’re confident you’ll see a dramatic improvement in your company culture this year.