The key to a successful eLearning campaign?

Whilst set­ting aside funds for train­ing is a good start, organ­isa­tional growth takes a much lar­ger com­mit­ment. If eLearn­ing is to be suc­cess­ful, it needs to be embraced at every level — from the higher-ups down to the work­force who are sub­ject to the train­ing. Many Learn­ing Man­age­ment Sys­tem imple­ment­a­tions fall at the first hurdle because L&D pro­fes­sion­als fail to provide any real engage­ment strategy. If you fail to get your work­force engaged in their own devel­op­ment, you can­not expect your train­ing cam­paign to be a success.

You wouldn’t sign up for a gym mem­ber­ship if you weren’t pre­pared to put in the time and effort it takes to get fit, lose weight, or bol­ster your biceps. Train­ing is no dif­fer­ent. If you’re not pre­pared to flex your engage­ment muscle, there’s little point of ini­ti­at­ing the cam­paign in the first place.

Of course, sup­port at every level depends on the qual­ity of eLearn­ing mater­ial presen­ted. If the con­tent is smart, rel­ev­ant and inform­at­ive, it is gen­er­ally going to cap­ture the ima­gin­a­tion of learners. How­ever, much more can be done to manip­u­late user engage­ment through­out eLearn­ing cam­paigns. It is up to those in pos­i­tions of lead­er­ship to develop an enti­cing engage­ment strategy by:

• Motiv­at­ing staff to want to learn and offer­ing a reward for doing so.
• Out­lining and advert­ising the bene­fits of the training.
• Provid­ing a clear, con­sist­ent message.

The dia­gram below details how we view engage­ment strategy. It starts with the cre­ation of enga­ging learn­ing con­tent that is sup­por­ted by L&D Pro­fes­sion­als who then provide the engage­ment strategy for their workforce.

The key to engage­ment is provid­ing an emo­tional hook. Effect­ive learn­ing revolves around the manip­u­la­tion of our emo­tions. Gami­fic­a­tion — the pro­cess of apply­ing game mech­an­ics to non-gaming envir­on­ments is a great tool for grip­ping learners emo­tion­ally. By adopt­ing game mech­an­ics like badges, awards and lead­er­ship boards, you are adding an entirely new level of involvement.

These trinkets sat­isfy our basic human need for reward. They act as mark­ers of our hard work. Upon col­lec­tion, some­thing in our brain says, ‘I like this and I want more’ and com­pels us to con­tinue. Gami­fic­a­tion is just one of our meth­ods for cre­at­ing user engage­ment. It is more than just a passing fad. Accord­ing to a prom­in­ent Tech­no­logy Research com­pany, ‘Gami­fic­a­tion will be a key trend that every CIO, IT plan­ner and enter­prise archi­tect must be aware of as it relates to busi­ness’ (Garter Group, 2010).

Enga­ging your work­force dur­ing a train­ing cam­paign is one means for ensur­ing that it earns the max­imum ROI on invest­ment pos­sible. By fail­ing to get your team gripped, you are com­mit­ting your­self to earn­ing only the min­imum level of return on your investment.

Growth Engin­eer­ing seek to raise user engage­ment through gami­fic­a­tion and social learn­ing. But our unique design meth­od­o­logy The Dis­cov­ery Method can also raise levels of engage­ment through­out a workforce.

Click HERE for our mam­moth ‘Busi­ness Case for eLearn­ing’ report

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