Podcast 116: How to Fix Broken Certification Programs

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EPISODE 116: HOW TO FIX BROKEN CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS

Jay Kinker, CEO, SimpliTrain

Have you ever tried to run a certification program by cobbling together a bunch of specialized applications alongside an LMS? If so, this conversation with SimpliTrain CEO, Jay Kinker, will hit home.

Jay knows this struggle all too well. That’s why his team is devoted to removing the chaos surrounding certification training. They do it by combining an LMS, a TMS, and an LXP with functionality that drives assessments, scheduling, resource management, e‑commerce, and compliance tracking. All these things come together in a single operational platform.

Sounds impressive. But does this all-in-one approach really work? To find out more, join Jay and me on this Talented Learning Show podcast…

HOW TO FIX BROKEN CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS — KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Certification training is big business. In the U.S. alone, nearly 23% of civilian workers require a license or certification. And global growth is expected to remain strong (12% CAGR through 2033), as interest in upskilling and reskilling continue to drive demand.

• From the outside, certification training seems simple enough. But it is not just about content delivery. These providers are running complex businesses with regulatory and revenue implications. And the systems they rely upon must rise to that challenge.

• AI is making a profound impact on learning systems of all types, and certification solutions are no exception. But even though AI dramatically decreases content and software development costs, it can’t replace trust, which is the bedrock of certification.

HOW TO FIX CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS — Q&A HIGHLIGHTS

Welcome, Jay. For those who aren’t familiar with SimpliTrain, why don’t you start with a brief overview?

Sure, John. SimpliTrain is a solution that brings together what you normally find in 4-5 different systems, including LMS, LXP, and TMS functionality, along with assessment tools and course authoring.

So, it is a unified platform that primarily serves two groups:

1. Commercial training providers who treat training as a product, and
2. Training departments in compliance-heavy vertical industries like aviation, healthcare, and manufacturing, where instructor-led training is critical.

Okay…

So, think about a training company that sells safety courses. They must coordinate public course registration along with instructors, room bookings, payments and certifications. And in situations like airline pilot training, those certifications expire, which means they must provide recurring courses within a fixed regulatory calendar.

And neither of those scenarios are about pushing content to an employee. So, while most learning platforms help you deliver content, we help you run your training operations.

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Right. And anyone in those industries knows just how complex it all is. For instance, a lot of learning platforms can issue certificates. But managing certification programs is entirely different, right?

Yes. Basically, a certificate as a physical artifact — a pdf document. So, issuing a certificate is a moment, but managing a certification is a lifecycle.

For instance, nursing certification isn’t a document you deliver once. It expires every 6 months or 2 years. So, ongoing education is necessary to maintain a valid certificate.

That means you have to check eligibility and assessment scores, along with issuance and expiration dates. You also need to track recertification. A complete documentation trail is necessary because you have to survive an audit. If you can’t demonstrate compliance, the consequences are serious.

That’s why I say issuing a certificate is the easy 5% step in the certification process, while everything around it is the hard 95%.

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What causes the toughest issues in certification management? 

The biggest challenge comes when a certificate is tied to compliance, or revenue, or partner enablement. That’s when some kind of recognition for training becomes critical. If legal exposure or lost revenue are at stake, training is no longer just nice to have.

Of course, the root problem is data fragmentation. Some people see spreadsheets as an administrative norm. But that’s a problem when you manage registration in one tool, training delivery in another, and certificate management somewhere else.

Think about a highly regulated industry like aviation. What happens if an auditor asks you to prove that every technician who signed off on a particular aircraft is currently qualified? The answer can’t be in a spreadsheet, or an email thread, or some other source you manually update.

The moment a certificate carries consequences, your spreadsheets become a business liability.

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Interesting. So, because the consequences of certification are so serious, how does that drive requirements for continuing education based on ILT, VILT or hybrid learning?

Certifications can’t be based entirely on self-service videos or self-paced courses, right? Even in an AI world, we need humans.

Usually, there’s an instructor-led training component. Assessments require some proctoring. We also need some hands-on effort to pull together class scheduling, attendance rosters, instructor management, and resource booking.

For example, think about crane operators. They can’t really become certified through elearning or a video. So, there’s a point in the certification process where learning shifts from a content problem to an operational problem.

Great point. Knowing something is fine, but it’s not enough to prove a grasp of key skills. I can read about how to salsa dance every day of my life, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever be able to do it.

Sure…

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So, with hands-on skills like operating a crane, the certification process is even more complex, because you also need the right equipment at the right location at the right time for assessments, right? How does training management functionality help with that?

Well, 15-20 years ago, it was all about the LMS, which was born to deliver and track self-paced online training. So, it was deeply content centric. But then, the TMS emerged because the LMS model couldn’t handle the manual aspects of instructor-led training we’ve discussed.

So, LMS platforms are built around the learning experience, while TMS platforms are for companies or departments that run training. An LMS is great for assigning compliance modules and tracking completions. But a TMS makes it possible to coordinate all the elements needed to run a training program. And ideally, you blend the best of both.

That’s why we built SimpliTrain as a unified solution.

And what are the benefits of bringing these systems together?

Well, for those who haven’t integrated a TMS with an LMS, I will tell you it is not fun.

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Absolutely…

You have to deal with two sources of truth, two vendors, two licenses, two reporting mechanisms, and an inconsistent learning experience. You could choose to manage these things directly, but that soon becomes an expensive, time consuming IT burden.

Whereas with a unified solution, you have one data model, one source of truth, and seamless administration. It’s easier for IT to manage and you avoid integration troubles. So, the cost of ownership is lower.

This also makes it easy for training companies and teams to focus on managing certification programs, rather than the underlying technology.

Mmhmm…

Of course, you can always choose best of breed systems and integrate them yourself. But in the end, you’ll still need a complete solution for certification operations. So, the whole always wins.

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Speaking of all the elements, e-commerce is a huge pillar for many training organizations. Where does that fit in, here?

The moment you start charging for training, your learning platform must think and act like a business, rather than a content library. So yes, absolutely, e-commerce is essential.

Too often, organizations duct-tape a web store application like Shopify to an LMS, along with accounting and spreadsheets. But a unified solution builds a complete commercial layer around the LMS.

And what about AI? Surprisingly, we haven’t talked about that yet. How is it changing the certification process?

AI is collapsing the cost of many things, including content. Things like courses, translations, and assessments are now nearly free. So, when we’re talking about self-paced courses, no problem…

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Hmm…

But with instructor-led, evidence-based training, we need to prove assessment integrity. So again, in an AI world, the bottleneck becomes operational.

What does proctoring look like? What do anti-cheating methods look like? How do you research the logistics? What do qualification and tracking look like?

A unified solution runs on a single database, rather than different systems that aren’t meant to work together. This is far more future-ready, in terms of adding AI, and it is critical for certification in heavily regulated industries. For example …

… For complete answers to this and other questions about the value of integrated certification tools, listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on Amazon, or right here on our site.

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