EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT
Employee engagement is the key to boosting effectiveness, creating a vibrant organisational culture and encouraging the behaviours that matter. Behaviour change is what all L&D departments, learning technology companies and training providers aim for. Without employee engagement, you might see improved test results directly after training but this probably won’t create lasting behavioural change.
Even though employee engagement is accepted as the fuel for a strong organisation, few training programmes do anything to improve it. Online learning has truly earned its reputation as boring and unexciting.
WHAT IS EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT?
If we want to do something about it, we need to answer the question: what does employee engagement really mean? The American Heritage College Dictionary defines engagement as being ‘actively committed’, to ‘involve oneself or become occupied; to participate’. In their 2009 research paper on school engagement, Fredricks, Blumenfeld and Paris define engagement in three ways:
BEHAVIOURAL ENGAGEMENT
EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT
COGNITIVE ENGAGEMENT
If employees are happy to invest their time in their training, we’ll be more thoughtful in our day-to-day work. We’re also more willing to put more effort in to grasp complex ideas and master difficult skills.
WHAT 'EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT'
REALLY MEANS
When we talk about employee engagement, we’re talking about how enthused and motivated the workers are. Companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook, are known for having vibrant company cultures. Their success doesn’t just come from having fun at work and rewarding employees with money, days off and gift certificates.
To really get employees engaged, they need to know how important they are to the organisation. Once employees see that they have a role to play in the company’s mission, their engagement levels shoot up.
If you want to keep your organisation running like a well-oiled machine, every component is important, from the part-timer to the MD. If your Engagement Engine needs tuning up, our workbook will help you figure out what you can do.
WHAT MAKES AN
ENGAGEMENT ENGINE?
THE OPERATOR
THE FUEL
GAMIFICATION
SOCIAL FEATURES
PERSONALISATION
THE OPERATOR
Without a driver, the engagement engine can’t change anything.
The Academy manager/Admin is the unseen controller, bringing learners together and engaging them with their content.
It takes a special kind of person to wield the Engagement Engine’s power –
- Someone who puts the learner first
- Someone who understands the importance of engagement
- Someone who wants to make a real difference.
THE FUEL
When you’re powering an Engagement Engine, you don’t need to worry about your carbon footprint. This machine runs on an inexhaustible fuel source and it’s the same thing that powers your company’s growth
- Your Mission – the Epic Meaning that drives everything you do.
- Your Vision and Values – the principles that define you.
- Your Brand – this is the way the world sees you.
GAMIFICATION
It’s not enough to create a familiar environment –learners need an excuse to stick around. Gamification takes the elements that make people want to play games and it applies them in an online learning experience.
These ‘game mechanics’ include:
- Levels – to add meaning to the learner’s journey.
- Badges – to reward them for their achievements.
- Leaderboards – to leverage the power of competitiveness.
SOCIAL FEATURES
Most of what we learn at work doesn’t come from manuals or instructional content – we learn it from those around us. Social learning brings everyone together, creating a learning community and unlocking the potential for behavioural and cultural change.
With social elements on a learning platform, you can also:
- Find experts and identify internal champions
- Share Knowledge and find the hidden expertise among your learners
- Generate Discussion and encourage deeper contemplation.
- Retain Knowledge and build a growing, organic training resource.
- Create real change by bridging the gap between knowledge and behaviour.
PERSONALISATION
An engaging LMS shouldn’t be just another site. With personalisation, your learning platform becomes a familiar environment built around the things that matter to you. Personalisation is important for the following reasons.
- Branding your learning platform gives you the power to reinforce your organisational values.
- A custom solution is a more relevant solution – learners can see how their goals are connected to the wider business objectives, giving them a sense of purpose.
- Customisable profiles let each learner add a touch of their own personality to their platform.
- With personalised, adaptive pathways, your learners experience their own unique learning journey.
READY FOR SOMETHING AWESOME?
With the right learning platform, you can elevate employee engagement, boost productivity and encourage the right culture for your organization! Why not try it today!
