Organizations invest a great deal of time and resources into their learning and development (L&D) programs — and for good reason.
Research shows that 92% of employees think having access to professional development is important. Without a strong L&D program, you’ll find it challenging to attract and retain top talent.
The right learning technology is at the foundation of any effective L&D program — but if employees don't embrace and adopt your learning solution, you will have wasted money, effort, and time.
So, how can employers make their learning solution an enticing place to visit again and again?
In this blog post, we’ll explore practical ways to ensure your learning technology delivers an engaging experience that keeps employees coming back for more and helps you achieve greater learning impact.
Learning doesn’t have to be a chore or a mere box-ticking exercise. With the right technology, it can become more engaging and productive for your employees.
Here are four ways to make your learning solution a place employees want to be:
1. Connect learning to career growth
Today’s employees have a lot on their plates, so motivating them to engage with your learning solution requires them to understand WIIFM (“What’s in it for me?”). If you can’t show how the solution will help them do their jobs better or achieve the next level of success in their career, forget it.
Addressing the WIIFM aspect by clearly connecting your employees’ career aspirations to personalized development plans will help make your learning solution feel like somewhere employees want to be — not somewhere they have to be.
2. Enable easy access
Employees only spend an average of 24 minutes per week on formal learning, with the biggest barrier being lack of time. Fortunately, this is an easy fix with the right solution.
By making learning accessible from anywhere, you’ll empower employees to turn a spare 15 minutes into valuable learning time while they’re waiting for the bus or sitting on the couch. Leveraging a learning platform with a native mobile app for iOS and Android allows you to serve relevant content to any mobile device, increasing learner engagement and productivity.
To further remove barriers, integrating learning directly into the flow of work is essential. Half of all employees say they want to access learning at the precise moment of need, so making content easy to find, mobile-friendly, and quick to consume is key.
That’s where the SumTotal Intelligent Assistant (SIA) browser extension comes in. Using SIA, a learner can highlight a topic of interest in a web browser or social platform and instantly gain access to bitesize, contextual learning in the form of videos, courses, books, and audiobooks — all available through SumTotal’s platform. And with the SIA for Microsoft Teams integration, learners can access, navigate, and share this content directly in Teams.
3. Deliver personalized, relevant content
In the age of Netflix and YouTube, employees expect a learning platform that supports personalization and leverages machine learning to offer relevant recommendations across an array of formats.
We’ve all had to sit through corporate trainings that simply didn’t grab our attention. With content-agnostic learning platforms, you can deliver any type of content from any provider you choose, resulting in an impressive roster of learning content all housed in one place.
4. Use social and gamification techniques
When learning feels less like work and more like fun, it becomes something employees want to do — not something they feel obligated to do. Learning is most engaging when it is an interactive, social, collaborative experience. By incorporating game mechanics and social elements into learning, you can excite employees and increase engagement via features like quizzes, leaderboards, gamified learning paths, points, and badges.
Moreover, enabling employees to interact with each other through discussion boards and team-based learning exercises housed within your platform can help cultivate a culture of learning and make your solution a place employees want to be.
L&D is a major investment for organizations. By using a modern learning management experience platform (LMXP) that connects learning to career growth, enables easy access, delivers personalized and relevant content, and uses social and gamification techniques, you can deliver a learning experience that benefits your employees and your bottom line.
