What Is a Learning Experience Platform (LXP)  and How It Revolutionizes Training

Learning experience platforms, or LXPs, might just sound like another buzzword like AI, machine learning, or green technology. 

But, the truth is, LXPs offer a new way for employees to learn and grow within an organization, improving learning while simultaneously saving time for the people operations department.

Learning experience platforms are filling the vacuum created when a massive portion of knowledge workers have shifted to remote or hybrid arrangements.

Employee development has never been more critical for achieving company growth but has never been more challenging. That's where Learning Experience Platforms (LXPs) come in.

Traditional forms of training have been losing popularity in favor of modern methods like microlearning and peer-to-peer learning. The shift to a digital commute was just the final nail in the coffin.

A learning experience platform turns traditional training, and even the top-down approach of LMSs, on its head. 

This clever software provides a portal to connect employees with multi-format learning resources for self-guided, custom-curated training content. 

Read on to learn how an LXP can benefit your business.

👨‍🎓 What is a learning experience platform (LXP)?

A Learning Experience Platform (LXP) is a software application that helps organizations deliver personalized, engaging, and self-directed learning experiences to employees or learners. 

An LXP typically includes features such as:

1. Content management: Users can upload, organize, and manage learning content such as videos, documents, podcasts, and presentations.
2. Personalized learning: With machine learning, LXPs identify which content is most beneficial to achieve the goals of specific individuals. Users receive personalized learning recommendations based on their preferences, learning history, and job requirements.
3. Social learning: LXPs enable collaboration and knowledge-sharing among learners through discussion forums, peer-to-peer learning, and user-generated content.
4. Gamification: LXPs incorporate game mechanics and incentives to motivate learners and make learning more engaging and enjoyable.
5. Analytics: It provides insights into learner engagement, course completion rates, and learning outcomes to help organizations measure the effectiveness of their learning programs.

✨ Learn about 19 easy learner engagement strategies to implement for effective training.

What are LXPs used for?

LXPs are added to an organization's application stack to offer individualized learning experiences. L

earning experience platforms work alongside learning management systems and other employee training tools to boost their effectiveness and give users more freedom. 

Rather than people operations setting up an LMS with content that trickles down to each employee, an LXP allows employees to take the wheel and connect with helpful resources that will help them grow.

The key differences between an LXP and LMS

A common mistake is that learning experience platforms are a replacement for or upgraded version of learning management systems. 

This belief is not really true. 

An LMS empowers human resources to collect resources and track employee learning from the top down. At the same time, an LXP allows employees to pursue self-driven learning from the bottom up. Using these systems in conjunction allows management and employees to start at each end and meet in the middle for superior results.

➡️ Learn more about the LXPs vs. LMSs and how they work together.

🌟 9 Key features of learning experience platforms

A variety of learning methods

Since LXPs offer flexible learning opportunities for employees, it is crucial that they provide different options for training. Some common examples include:

• microlearning;
• social learning;
• different media types;
• a variety of content sources.

Individual employees can craft and be served their ideal learning regimens by providing a menagerie of content options and teaching methods.

Deep personalization

Machine learning allows for automated personalization so that organizations of any size can provide each individual with their own learning experience. This outcome is enabled by self-assessment, manual customization, and by behavior tracking via AI. 

The result is that each employee receives the ideal training material at the best possible time.

Predictive analytics

Some LXPs offer predictive analytics to anticipate the learning needs of individual learners and recommend learning content proactively. 

This approach can help organizations stay ahead of the curve and deliver the right learning content at the right time.

Extensive integrations

For LXPs to have the flexibility necessary to meet modern needs, they need to integrate with several information sources. 

Whether it be internal databases, LMSs, or external repositories like an expert's blog, an LXP must serve as a portal to all of these resources. 

Intuitive learning interfaces

To deliver a personalized experience for employees with different positions and learning styles, the UI also needs to be flexible and easy to use. 

The interface must be quick and intuitive for an LXP to be effective at microlearning and delivering different content.

Reporting features

Reporting features are instrumental to LXPs as much or more than with LMSs. 

LXPs use data analytics to track learning outcomes, such as acquiring new skills or applying learning in the workplace. This information can help organizations measure the effectiveness of their learning programs and demonstrate ROI.

Access to key data will help your learning team optimize the content and proactively address skill gaps.

Gamification

Gamification training is an old tactic that fits perfectly into the LXP framework. 

Intuitive design and progress bars help motivate employees with simple and achievable goals. 

Quizzes are another common form of gamification that work well for microlearning and the LXP concept.

Social learning tools

Especially as coworkers distance themselves physically due to remote and hybrid work, maintaining a company culture of open and friendly communication is vitally important. 

Social learning is an excellent method for maintaining positive relationships throughout the company and learning from one another.

Self-directed learning

The self-directed nature of these new platforms separates learning experience platforms from LMSs and traditional training methods. 

User self-enrollment is an essential first step. 

Allowing flexible pacing and learning paths to match different roles and schedules is also important. 

From an admin perspective, this frees administrators from manually customizing learning opportunities for each employee, instead allowing individuals to enroll in courses independently with AI-powered suggestions based on competency.

📚 5 L&D trends contributing to the emergence of LXPs

While the term "learning experience platform" is relatively new, the earliest examples of software that meet the definition are already a decade old. 

The need for this type of platform evolved naturally over time alongside changes in learning and development trends, accelerating during the global pandemic, which shook things up and pushed businesses toward digital solutions.

Self-directed learning

There has been a significant shift from top-down training to self-directed learning. 

As many workers shifted to remote or hybrid work, teaching in the traditional fashion became more difficult. 

Distributed workforces paved the way for self-directed learning for professional growth, upskilling, and cross-skilling.

Pushing boundaries and standards

It is becoming increasingly common for employees to wear multiple hats due to organizational needs or a desire to learn and advance along one's career path. 

Gone are the days of clearly defined roles like CEO, general manager, and network administrator.

New roles like Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Chief Data Officer, and Chief Happiness Officer are just a few examples of how things are changing. And rather than these being clearly defined positions, they are instead vague concepts tagged onto pre-existing roles. 

Employees need unique and flexible learning opportunities to train for these bonus titles that fit their current workload.

Prioritizing the learning experience

From onboarding to climbing the ladder, employee experience is more important now than ever. 

The Great Resignation made providing a fulfilling experience with upward momentum more important than ever. 

From an L&D perspective, this meant giving employees the freedom and flexibility to pursue their own needs, interests, and passions for their betterment and that of the organization at large. 

Developments in machine learning

Machine learning has revolutionized automation across all categories, including business and L&D. 

Unlike learning management systems that enable HR to better manage training from the top down, learning experience platforms leverage AI to deliver personalized training opportunities from the bottom up.

Decision-making empowered by data analytics 

Data analytics is becoming instrumental in L&D as organizations seek to measure the effectiveness of their learning programs and demonstrate ROI. 

LXPs provide rich analytics and reporting features to help organizations track learner engagement, course completion rates, and learning outcomes.

LXPs are leveraging data analytics to provide organizations with valuable insights into their learning programs and help them make data-driven decisions to improve learner engagement, course completion rates, and learning outcomes. 

Using data to personalize the learning experience and track performance, LXPs are helping organizations optimize their L&D investments and deliver measurable business impact.

😧 5 Common pains with corporate training programs that learning experience platforms try to address

A massive shift in employee growth and professional learning culture has been kicked into high gear since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The old ways of yearly performance evaluations and traditional education are being phased out in favor of self-guided learning and 360-degree performance reviews.

LXPs are a natural extension of this cultural shift as they empower individuals to pursue and manage their learning in whatever way best suits them. 

Whether they have a lot of time or only a few minutes a day, an established professional growth plan, or don't know where to begin, LXP connects them with the best available resources.

Implementing a learning experience platform has many benefits, but here are some of the most common pain points we have seen solved or alleviated by using LXPs.

Low engagement

Traditional forms of organizational learning often lack the specificity to deliver the correct information to the right person. 

Instead, they barrage everyone with everything, hoping the right information will hit the right people.

This broad approach is highly inefficient and wastes time while harming focus, interest, and retention.

Low information retention

Learning experience platforms are a scalpel where learning management systems are a hacksaw (from an employee's point of view). 

An LXP delivers precise learning opportunities to each individual, pointing them to what they need to learn. 

LXPS also support bite-sized microlearning experiences that improve knowledge retention and persistent improvement.

Lack of flexibility

Most company learning initiatives cast a wide shadow over their employees, demanding a lot of time and energy without providing a commensurate payout. 

It would be borderline impossible for your HR and learning team to create customized plans for all of their subordinates, wouldn't it? 

LXPs use machine learning and schema markups to efficiently categorize content and deliver it to each person meaningfully with automation.

Outdated content

In most cases, the amount of work it would take people operations to maintain up-to-date learning resources for different employee categories is unrealistic. 

The result is often vague mandatory training that tries to target everyone without really helping anyone. 

Automating the collection and delivery of new or cataloged content with a consistent schema makes it easy to add and update new resources while phasing out the old ones.  

Low efficiency

A top-down approach to learning often means employees get exposed to content irrelevant to their role or performance needs. 

LXPs solve this problem by identifying which content categories are most relevant to each employee through self-evaluations, behavior tracking, and machine learning. 

The result? Individuals receive the most valuable content available for their personal growth and upskilling.

➡️ Ensure more rewarding learner experiences with Zavvy

Zavvy is more than just a learning platform. 

We are the go-to source for employee enablement. 

We aim to bridge the gaps between performance feedback, learning, and employee development. 

By solving these challenges in one place, employees and managers can grow stronger fast while constantly keeping track of progress.

Zavvy's learning experience platform combines a multitude of software solutions to empower people operations professionals, business owners, and individual employees to reach their full potential. 

These tools work together and apart, giving you options for how and when to improve your operation. 

To learn more about how Zavvy's universe of employee enablement can help your business, contact us today for a free consultation.

You can also schedule a demo to see our software solutions in action.

❓ FAQs

How is LXP different from LMS? 

The main difference between an LMS and LXP is that an LMS has a "top-down" approach while LXPs focus more on the individual learner. 

You can think of an LMS as a classroom with a large group of students, while an LXP is a personal, one-on-one tutor. 

LMSs act more as a repository of structured information without much personalization. 

In contrast, LXPs offer a more catered approach that is not only customizable to each individual but learns your needs and wants to deliver the most valuable learning opportunities. 

Is LXP better than LMS? 

LXP is not a new version of LMS or a replacement. 

In fact, an LXP offers the most benefit when used in conjunction with an LMS. 

In other words, LXP can make an LMS better, but you should not compare these two systems apples to apples. 

Where does the content on LXPs come from?

LXPs serve as a portal to all kinds of content and information, including but not limited to:

• Company databases
• Expert blogs
• Social networks
• Articles
• Videos
• eBooks

An LXP aggregates and categorizes educational resources and recommends them to the users who will benefit most from them.

What are the benefits of a learning experience platform?

LXPs offer several benefits, which can be summed up as "more effective learning on an individual basis." 

These aren't company-wide slideshows or a thick employee manual. 

They are laser-focused learning experiences that provide the most bang for your buck when investing time and money in employee growth.

What makes a learner experience engaging?

One of the most important aspects of an engaging learning experience is relevant content. 

If you've ever skimmed a company-wide email or been dragged into a department-wide meeting, you know this frustration. 

Part of what makes LXPs so superb is that they deliver the content most valuable to each individual at the right time for meaningful, effective learning.