Staff turnover is a headache even for companies with a strong reputation. The reasons for resignations are often unclear and go far beyond the issue of salary. Key factors include lack of development, emotional burnout, and loss of connection with the team. The good news is that some of these challenges can be addressed with unconventional but entirely feasible approaches.
In this article, we have compiled four practical ideas that will help you not only reduce turnover but also build a culture of engagement, support, and development. All this with the help of an LMS (Learning Management System).
From internal LinkedIn to digital mental health support. We will tell you how to make your learning platform the center of your corporate culture and professional development.
1. Internal LinkedIn: creating a network of experts
Imagine LinkedIn, but inside your company. Employees talk about their experiences, share their achievements, collect badges, and find like-minded people. It’s like a social network, only without cats (although, why not? 🙂).
How to implement:
- Create a separate section called “Company Experts” in the LMS (this can be done via a banner or announcement on the home page);
- Allow employees to fill out their own profiles: add experience, skills, certificates, achievements;
- Implement a system of awards (badges) and feedback from colleagues;
- Display the actual level of competencies in profiles (this will show progress in development).
How it works in LMS Collaborator:
In LMS Collaborator, employees automatically receive badges and certificates for completed tasks. All of this is stored in their profile. Plus, they can add certificates for external training they have completed to share their achievements.
Separately, the system can maintain a competency library and use it to create position profiles. After completing the assessment, employees can see their current level for each competency. This helps them better understand their strengths and areas for improvement.
🧡Value: Affects feelings of belonging and recognition. When employees see that their expertise is valued, they feel like an important part of the team. This is especially motivating for ambitious professionals who are looking to advance their careers.
2. Book club: reading together
This is not your typical book club with tea and cookies. Although those can be part of it too! Here, there are real-life meetings in the office, where colleagues discuss what they have read, share their thoughts, and build professional relationships outside of work projects.
How to implement:
- Create themed reading groups (leadership, innovation, self-development);
- Plan regular offline meetings at the office or a mixed format (offline + online);
- Upload books or summaries to the LMS knowledge base;
- Add a meeting calendar and automatic reminders;
- Use forums to share impressions before/after discussions.
How it works in LMS Collaborator:
LMS Collaborator will become the club’s digital assistant: download e-books and summaries, set up automatic reminders for meetings, and create forums for exchanging ideas between meetings. Participants can leave comments, ask questions, and share quotes. They can also receive a “book lover” badge for active participation. This will help them easily recognize like-minded people and motivate others to join the reading adventure.
AKVANTIS Book Club
The book club is an integral part of AKVANTIS’ corporate culture. Every few months, employees choose one book to read. All books are available in the LMS Collaborator Knowledge Base, where employees can easily access licensed copies. The company also has a library with paper copies of books.
«We read books that contribute to our development and discuss interesting cases that we can use in our work or in our lives», says Andrii Lahutin, Head of Training and Development at AKVANTIS.
Reading books is also an important part of the employee adaptation process. Over the course of three months, they read one required book: Delivering Happiness, Eat That Frog!, and The Toyota Way: 14 Principles for a Highly Effective Team.
For reading each book, employees receive a badge in LMS Collaborator, which confirms their familiarity with the material and readiness to move on to the next stage of development in the company.
🧡Value: Creates a sense of community with shared interests. People stay with the company because of the opportunity to develop among like-minded people. Particularly effective for retaining employees who value self-development.
3. Mental health as a priority: digital support in your pocket
Exhaustion, constant stress, feelings of loneliness – these are common causes of emotional burnout, and with it, staff turnover. Caring for mental health is a mandatory norm of corporate culture for employers who want to retain people and create a healthy working environment.
How to implement:
- Develop training tasks with practical advice on emotional relief, time management, and digital hygiene.
- Add videos, resources, and materials on mental health, emotional intelligence, and stress management to the knowledge base.
- Conduct regular anonymous surveys on stress levels, job satisfaction, and work-life balance.
- Create thematic communities based on interests.
How it works in LMS Collaborator:
LMS Collaborator makes it easy to gather all your digital support in one place. You can:
- Upload videos, podcasts, courses, and collections of useful techniques for maintaining mental balance;
- Create anonymous surveys to assess stress, anxiety, or burnout levels;
- Launch forums or group chats for support—for example, a morning jogging club or an adaptation group for newcomers.
Maintaining mental balance at OKKO
The OKKO team took care of the emotional state of each participant in the “Recruitment from Scratch” training course. In the Knowledge Base, they created a separate category called “Mental Health Support and Development,” to which they added:
- the “Energy of Recovery” course, where each participant could find individual ways to maintain mental balance;
- a test for self-assessment of emotional state, which helped participants scan their inner state;
- a selection of useful articles and techniques aimed at developing psychological resilience.
And also the “Development with OKKO” category, which includes:
- The “Learning Made Easy” course, which guides participants through a conscious learning process and provides practical tips for effective assimilation of material;
- The “Emotional Intelligence” course, which helps participants better understand their own emotions and interact with others;
- Additional materials for self-development and motivation.
«We paid special attention to the “Podcasts” category, where colleagues share their stories, experiences, and inspiration. These are lively conversations about development, challenges, and personal victories that resonate and inspire», said Kateryna Ivanchenko, a distance learning specialist.
🧡Value: Such initiatives foster a culture of trust and care. They show that companies care not only about results, but also about how their employees feel. This is the best way to prevent quiet resignations and the key to loyalty and engagement.
Create a digital ecosystem for mental health care: add courses, podcasts, forums, and surveys. Care is also a retention strategy.
4. Improving through challenges: one step closer to yourself every day
We will be talking about regular team or individual challenges to develop soft and professional skills. It’s like fitness, but for professional growth. Every day is a small step towards becoming a better version of yourself.
How to implement:
- Launch monthly challenges: “1 small talk per day,” “teach someone something new,” “give constructive feedback to a colleague.”
- Award points and badges for completion, and create rankings.
- Create an internal gift shop where points can be exchanged for training.
- Add a social element – the ability to comment on and support colleagues.
How it works in LMS Collaborator:
It is easy to organize gamified challenges in LMS Collaborator. You create tasks, and the system automatically awards points for completion. Participants receive badges, form a rating, and can exchange points in the gift shop.
LMS Collaborator Gift Shop
Points, number of attempts, deadlines – everything is customized to your scenario. It’s a cool way to engage your team and motivate them to develop.
🧡Value: Gamified learning is not just fun. It is about action, engagement, support, and development through simple daily steps. It also provides an opportunity for everyone to express themselves.
Conclusion
Retaining talent is not about money, but about creating an environment where people want to stay and grow. LMS can be a powerful tool for building such an atmosphere.
We have looked at four approaches, each of which addresses an important need of today’s employees: to be recognized through internal LinkedIn, to grow together in book clubs, to feel cared for through mental health support programs, and to continuously grow through exciting challenges.
