Why Savvy Planners Look Beyond MS Teams for L&D Excellence

Importance of Learning and Development (L&D)

Learning and Development (L&D) events are crucial for both organizations and employees. They allow employees to learn new skills, improve existing ones, and stay updated on industry trends.

For Companies

• Leadership Development: L&D events help employees become great leaders and learn things that are important for their position. L&D events make sure skilled employees are ready for leadership roles.
  
  
• Improve Talent Retention: These days, retaining top talent has become crucial for any business. Organizations can show their commitment to employee development and retain top talent by hosting L&D conferences.
  
  
• Build Learning Culture: L&D events build a strong learning culture within the organization. The continued learning encourages employees to think of new and creative ideas. Ultimately, their innovative thoughts contribute to the growth and success of businesses.

For Employees

• Increase job satisfaction: L&D events improve employees’ confidence and make them more capable in their roles. When companies prioritize employee development, it shows how much they care about their workers. Subsequently, it contributes to increased job satisfaction.
  
  
• Make Ready for Industry Changes: Learning and Development (L&D) events prepare employees to adapt to new changes in the industry. It helps employees know about new trends, the latest technology, and industry best practices.
  
  
• Skill Development & Career Advancement: L&D conferences allow employees to gain new skills and knowledge, which nearly opens the door for career progression. The employees can improve the skills and expertise that are required for career advancement. 

Reasons for Not Using MS Teams for L&D Events 

The following are some of the reasons why the MS team is not the best fit for L&D events:

• Gaps in Engagement Features: Engagement features are crucial for L&D conferences as they increase involvement, strengthen knowledge, and boost the learning experience. MS Teams do not have features that can help increase participation and build a robust learning environment at live events. Learning & development (L&D) conferences need advanced interactive features like a whiteboard, gamification, and more to create deeper engagement and connection among learners.
  
  

  Also, Airmeet has an extensive set of networking products like speed networking, social lounges, fluid spaces, breakout rooms, large meeting rooms, one on one meetings, etc., making it a good platform from an engagement point of view.

• User Interface Challenges: A user-friendly interface is required to organize effective and successful L&D events. MS Teams does not have a user-friendly interface, so it would be challenging to navigate the platform for both the presenter and the participant.
  
  

  Learners like to engage and show interest if the platform is easy to operate. If the platform is not easy to use, then the learning experience and overall involvement of the L&D event get reduced automatically.

• Customization Limitations: Customization is essential to online meetings as it enables flexibility and brings a more personalized experience. However, MS teams offer limited customization options for Learning and Development (L&D) events. However, the customization features of MS Teams are optionally simple and not even upgraded
  
  

  L&D conferences need updated features where companies can customize event themes, logos, and colors as well as design unique landing pages. Compared to MS Teams, Airmeet offers basic to advanced customization options such as virtual booths, networking tables, and more.

  Virtual booths help L&D leaders create engaging places for exhibitors, while networking tables allow learners to collaborate with other learners.

  Plus, Airmeet has a lot of customization options when it comes to themes, logos, colors, etc., hence giving its customers enough room to personalize their event as per their needs.

• Less Analytics Options: Analytics is an important component of every online conference as it is used to track the overall performance of the event. MS Teams has basic analytics tools. You won’t be able to track learner progress, engagement levels, or event results. Advanced analytics tools are required for learning and development (L&D) conferences for collecting critical data such as booth visits, conference involvement, poll responses, and material downloads.
  
  Airmeet offers deep analytics about the attendees experience, behavior, likes and dislikes, actions, etc. Hence, it gives a lot of insights about the success of your event.
  
  
• Lack of LMS Integration: The Learning management system (LMS) plays a significant role in learning & development (L&D) conferences as it makes it easy to manage course content and learning materials. MS Teams faces difficulties in working smoothly with these tools. For example, if MS Teams doesn’t connect well with a specific LMS, then it will be hard to share training materials and track learners behavior with the content. 

Conclusion

You likely know why Learning & Development (L&D) conferences should not be conducted on MS Teams. The MS team’s lack of interactive features, fewer customization and analytics options, and a tough user experience do not make it a suitable platform for an L&D event. Use a platform that will provide an additional set of features to host effective and successful Learning & development (L&D) conferences.