There is nothing more certain about the future of corporate learning than the potential that technologies have in terms of transforming the learning experience. By taking a closer look at current technology trends and the amazing opportunities that can be created with different technologies, it is clear that elearning is a way to go for any modern organization aiming to implement a successful corporate learning strategy.
Choosing the best LMS for your company can be a challenging task. As discussed previously, there are certain aspects that should be considered before choosing the best LMS for your business. But what happens next? How do you make sure your employees actually engage in the elearning? How do you get the most out of your chosen elearning platform?
Designing or choosing a high quality elearning platform is not enough because it will only be successful if we succeed at engaging and motivating our learners. Engagement of employees leads to improved motivation, knowledge retention and enhanced learning outcomes. Today we will look at some of the main factors that can influence the engagement of your employees.
Define your goals
Defining your organization’s goals is important for both choosing the best LMS as well as for sustaining the employee engagement. It is important to come back to your organizational learning goals when you are creating learning content for your employees and it does not matter whether you are doing it yourself or you are using your LMS provider to create the content.
Know your audience
Again, this is a very important aspect to consider when choosing the LMS for your company and it must also be considered in order to keep your employees engaged. Keeping in mind that with new people coming in and with the constantly changing organizational structure, new needs are appearing. This means that the things you knew about your employees might not be making a lot of sense anymore.
To get the most out of your LMS and to keep your employees engaged, you should constantly be considering the needs your team. Ask yourself these questions: Who are they? What experience and education does your team already have? How do they like to communicate? What do they like? How do they spend their time? How do they like to receive communication? What annoys them? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your team? This knowledge will help you to keep employees engaged and to make elearning more effective.
Keep it simple
Make sure the elearning content that you create is as simple as possible in terms of accessibility, language and making it easy to use. You do not want your employees to lose the interest in the content you create because it is difficult to use.
Keep it organized
The topics that are covered in the elearning course should be relevant to the course itself and to individual learners. Avoid confusion by making sure that headings and subheadings clearly describe what the learner can expect to read, gather and gain from the content.
Make sure it is interactive
Making your LMS interactive is very important for maintaining the employee engagement. Even if you have the best techniques to get them started, it is very important to consider things for continuous engagement. Effective training is expected to provide opportunities to gain new skills and knowledge in exciting and engaging formats.
There are so many opportunities presented by the latest elearning trends that should be considered by any organisation aiming to implement a successful elearning strategy and some of the trends are expected to help with making corporate elearning more interactive. For instance, elements of gamification could be used to make elearning more fun or even to encourage some healthy competition among learners.
Another way to keep employees engaged is through social learning which is one of the hottest trends in elearning. It is based on collaboration and information sharing that can lead to improved learning experience and improved learning outcomes. With the technologies available, it has never been easier to incorporate online based social learning within organisations. Some of the most popular ways for engaging employees through social learning include:
-Connecting and communicating on different social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+ and others.
-Creating content, sharing knowledge and collaborating with team members using online platforms like Google Docs, Blogs, Forums, Wikis and others.
What is more, you can use different video and audio resources or simulated job performance exercises to keep learners interested which can help improve knowledge retention.
Give your employees more control over their learning experience and try to experiment with personalized learning which allows employees to create their own learning paths by being able to choose the ways they prefer to learn and the information they need.
Make sure you only add quality content (know your content)
It does not take long for employees to realize that the elearning content is irrelevant or that it has been created by someone who is not an expert in a particular topic. Always use quality content provided by experts or consult someone who knows the topic well to help you generate quality content to help keep your learners engaged.
Make it relevant
Learner engagement can be influenced by many factors, including how relevant the elearning content is for individuals. Explain your employees how the training will be helpful for their roles and for their daily tasks. As mentioned before, keep it organized to help learners find what is relevant for them.
Go mobile
Mobile learning is another big trend when talking about elearning technologies. Mobile learning provides even more flexible learning opportunities because it can be accessed instantly through mobile phones or tablets. The ability to access learning materials from anywhere at any time might be another factor that influences learner engagement.
Give feedback and offer other support
Always provide feedback to your learners and offer any kind of support that they might need to engage in elearning. Receiving feedback and support is very important for engagement that leads to improved learning outcomes.
We can help with your corporate elearning solutions
Contact Webanywhere to learn more about the latest elearning products for workplace, including Totara LMS, Tin Can Api and Promatum. We have helped thousands of businesses worldwide to find the best elearning solutions and to maximize the benefits of their elearning strategies.