We recently announced our initiation into the Totara Partner network. (Read about it here)
That means we’re now able to offer the Totara Talent Experience Platform alongside the other e-learning products we support. So we figured there’s no time like the present to kick off a new series of articles exploring the platform. We’ve explored the benefits and features it brings to the table, and how it supports L&D, staff training and employee engagement in organisations of all sizes.
Whether you’re completely new to Totara, or it’s been a while since you checked in on the latest features, we’re sure you’ll find all the initial info you need, plus links for further reading below.
01 - Who is the Totara Talent Experience Platform designed for?
Everyone! Okay, everyone involved in eLearning, at all levels. As a comprehensive L&D solution including a learning management system, learning experience platform, and performance management system, there’s something for everyone in the Totara Talent Experience Platform.
From the learner’s perspective, the platform provides a user-friendly and clutter-free interface that makes it easy to navigate to the resources, activities or assessments they need without undergoing extensive training or spending days trying to get to grips with the layout.
For course creators and administrators, the process of setting up new courses, recommending content, reviewing and assessing learner submissions and viewing key engagement and attainment metrics is made simple via the user-centred, responsive design.
Leaders and managers will find all the tools they need to engage with employees, identify rising talent, target additional support where needed, and appraise, evaluate and reward employees.
And the advanced real-time reporting tools built into the solution ensure that throughout the wider organisation, stakeholders at all levels are kept informed and up-to-date on the metrics that matter most to them.
A core advantage of the Totara Talent Experience Platform, when compared to other, more fragmented, solutions is that it brings users together whatever their role, encouraging effective and open communication and collaboration throughout the learning journey.
02 - What are the key features of the Totara Talent Experience Platform?
Totara’s Talent Experience Platform is made up of three elements, which address individual areas of eLearning. Combined, they create a comprehensive platform that supports and facilitates the learning cycle from start to finish. Let’s take a look at each one in turn.
Totara Learn – learn & grow
Totara Learn is a learning management system (LMS) which provides a more flexible, customisable environment than many last-generation learning platforms. It’s designed from the ground up to fit around the way your people work, not force you to adapt your processes to suit the software. From custom themes to optimised navigation, the user experience is always prioritised.
Whether you’re supporting a small team, or a suite of organisations, Totara Learn offers the resilience, reliability and scalability you need to ensure that nothing gets in the way of learning and development. And with advanced reporting, automated notifications and compliance tracking, you can make sure that all relevant stakeholders are kept in the loop.
Find out more on our service page: Totara Learn
Totara Engage — engage & deliver
Totara Engage is a learning experience platform (LXP) that brings together content curation, resource sharing, collaborative learning and personalised learning within one user-friendly environment. It’s designed to build and maintain employee engagement by making it quicker and simpler to complete learning activities and providing easy access to support feedback and advice.
From a management perspective, Totara Engage streamlines tracking and administration, ensuring that L&D leaders can access key metrics, spot rising talent and intervene where learners need additional support. It provides opportunities to reward behaviours like peer-to-peer learning—through ratings and comments—and allows course administrators to guide users to the most relevant content and resources.
Find out more on our service page: Totara Engage
Totara Perform — perform & succeed
Totara Perform is an integrated performance management system which empowers leaders to increase employee engagement and productivity by aligning their activities with strategic business goals. It adapts to your unique workflows and allows you to monitor performance and development at both a macro and micro level.
Managers can conduct regular employee check-ins through Totara Perform to identify skills gaps, create action plans, and execute objective performance appraisals, combined with self and peer evaluations for a 360-degree view of an individual’s contribution. The system also integrates seamlessly with HR software to streamline recruitment, talent management and remuneration.
Find out more on our service page: Totara Perfo
03 - What are the main benefits of the Totara Talent Experience Platform?
The Totara TXP helps organisations build a more engaging, resilient and focused workplace, ready for a rapidly changing world. Here’s how:
It’s user friendly
In Totara TXP, the user is always at the centre, whether that’s a learner, a course creator or a manager. The interface is designed in line with User Experience Design (UXD) best practices to ensure that employees can identify, locate and complete the tasks they need without hassle or delay. Custom themes and layouts allow organisations to provide a consistent experience across Learn, Engage and Perform, optimising onboarding time and reducing internal support requests.
It’s collaborative
Communication is key to effective learning and development, and Totara TXP is built around this concept. Users have a wealth of options available, from direct channels such as in-platform chat and messaging, integrations with apps like Microsoft Teams, and collaborative tools like forums and wikis. For quick and instant feedback to colleagues or trainees, social features such as likes and comments provide an easy way to stay connected.
It’s comprehensive
The three products which make up the Totara Talent Experience Platform—Learn, Engage and Perform combine to offer an end-to-end solution which supports, engages and motivates both employees and leaders. With single-sign-on, seamless integration and a consistent, user-friendly interface, Totara TXP provides the tools, features and resources needed to deliver effective L&D at scale, from onboarding right through to assessments and appraisals.
It’s flexible
No two organisations are exactly the same in terms of their people, workflows or L&D goals. Totara Talent Experience Platform supports this individuality by enabling a high degree of customisation across the product suite, from company-branded themes, to personalised course layouts and bespoke reports. The result is a comprehensive L&D platform which flexes and adapts to fit the preferences and requirements of your user base, not the other way around.
04 - How much does the Totara Talent Experience Platform cost?
The customisable nature of the Totara Talent Experience Platform, and its potential for scaling, means that off-the-peg pricing doesn’t really apply. The total cost of the solution will vary significantly from one organisation to another, based on a number of factors including total user numbers, hosting configuration, custom theme design, content authoring, and the level of consultancy or support needed.
To get a more accurate picture of the costs involved, get in touch with one of our consultants to run through your specific requirements in more detail, and we’ll be able to price up a solution tailored to your use case.
05 - Totara Talent Experience Platform—top tips & tricks.
If you’re keen to discover what’s possible in the Totara Talent Experience Platform, or you’re already using it and want some tips on how to optimise your experience, here are our top 10 suggestions for making the most of Totara Learn, Engage and Perform.
1. Customise everything.
From theme design to course layout, to additional plugins that add new features, Totara TXP lets you tweak your user experience to maximise ease of use and functionality.
2. Celebrate your launch.
To build interest in your new platform, make sure you market and promote the launch to all stakeholders ahead of time, so everyone is raring to go from day one, boosting engagement.
3. Onboard in-platform.
Train employees on Totara, in Totara! Using Totara Learn courses to deliver user onboarding is the best way to build familiarity with the platform and interface from the start.
4. Pick user champions.
Rather than a top-down approach to onboarding, nominate Totara champions from within your teams and encourage peer-led training and support, it’s great for motivation.
5. Integration, integration, integration!
Take advantage of the seamless integrations available with other systems, from HR or CRM software to communications tools like Teams, adding extra functionality to the platform.
6. Automate reporting.
Use the custom report builder to push critical data from Learn, Engage or Perform to the relevant stakeholders, without them having to go looking for it manually.
7. Recognise success.
The key to building long-term employee engagement is making sure that your learners are recognised for their success, building a positive feedback loop which will keep them motivated.
8. Target support.
Just as importantly, use the reporting and analysis tools available in Totara TXP to identify and intervene early where learners are struggling with a particular course, task or assessment.
9. Stay up-to-date.
Totara TXP is constantly evolving, so whether you’re a cloud or on-premise user, ensure you’re up-to-date with the latest version release to benefit from new features and updated security.
10. Help us improve.
As a Totara customer, your feedback is important to us. Let us know what works well for you, what new features you’d like to see, and if there’s room for improvement.
06 - Getting started with the Totara Talent Experience Platform.
If you’re looking to boost engagement with your learning and development programs, and equip your organisation to respond to a fast-changing world, then the Totara Talent Experience Platform is just what you need.
Check out our service page for more information on the packages available, or book a time to speak to one of our learning consultants, and see the platform in use.
