When Frodo and co journeyed to Mordor in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, they didn’t just simply (spoiler alert) throw the ring of power into the pit of Mount Doom, they learned some life-altering stuff along the way too. The point being that behaviour change is a journey with different twists, turns and interventions en route.
This is what makes it memorable. You can make your behaviour change journey just as entertaining (minus the talking trees and hairy feet) by sprinkling it with engaging activities. Learning activities can include anything from quizzes to events, from clubs to challenges.
But there are challenges to behaviour change. Luckily there are also plenty of learning activities out there all designed to spice up your behaviour change journey. In this section, we bring everything together. Here are the best activities you can introduce to your team to successfully implement in your behaviour change journey.
1. Host An Event to Kick off your Behaviour Change Journey!
The most important part of your event is not actually the event itself, it’s the hype beforehand. You need to create a buzz and get your learners engaged from the get-go. 41% of marketers (the most) believe that events are the single most effective marketing channel. On top of this, 69% of B2B marketers consider in-person events effective.
The London Olympics in 2012 were a great example of how an event can have a positive change in behaviour. When London won the Olympic bid in 2005, the number of adults participating in sports on a weekly basis in the UK, rose by an extra 1.5 million people. The good news is that you don’t have to do what London did and spend £8.77 billion on your event! What can you include in your training campaign launch?
- How the training relates directly to your organisation’s mission.
- Why the training will help employees in their roles.
- Introduce any prizes and rewards that will be up for grabs.
- Info on where the training will be hosted.
- Share any apps that need to be downloaded for the training. You can use QR codes to make this easier.
- Share endorsements from management.
Post-event is when the reinforcing starts! Remind colleagues of highlights from your day with regular posts and follow-up emails rounding up the key points.
2. Release The Initial Training
Follow the launch with the release of your mobile training. You could share microunits to your learners’ phones and use push notifications to encourage them to open your app and learn.
Delivering microunits straight to your learners’ phones frees them to learn wherever they want, whenever they want and however they want!
3. Create A Battle
Battles are an exciting way to reinforce behaviour change. They encourage competition and they can be completed in minutes. Create and release one Battle a week after training so it refreshes what employees have learned (just before the majority of it falls out of their brain!).
You can use Battles to create a dramatic, exhilarating and breath-taking competition amongst learners! The top battler in the Battles championship could win a reward of your choice, such as high-street vouchers or eternal glory. 50% of employees benefit from competition in the workplace. It can help drive engagement, knowledge retention and ultimately, behaviour change.
4. Create A Social Channel
Social channels help build a culture around newly learned behaviours. This unique tool for social learning can be a nerve centre for encouraging new approaches, new attitudes and new values.
The continued conversation around the topic nudges people with gentle reminders, reinforcing the behaviour at any given moment.
5. Share A Refresher Video
Mobile video consumption rises by 100% every year. It’s no surprise either, given that videos are found to be 27 times more engaging than images and text, generate 12 times the number of shares and are 380% more effective at inciting action! If that doesn’t make a convincing case for the power of video then we don’t know what will!
This makes it very clear that video should play a key role in your campaign for behaviour change! Only a few years ago, video was out of reach for your ordinary L&D team. It required highly-specialised expertise. But recently, easy-to-use video software has exploded onto the scene!
You can now create engaging videos your learners will devour with no background in video editing at all. This makes video an ideal choice for reminding your learners what they recently learned. You could share a refresher video two weeks after your learners first complete their training. That way you’ll make sure the training stays front of mind and that you’re doing everything you can to combat the forgetting curve.
Combine a refresher video with Battles and you can be sure your learners will have all the support they need from you to change their behaviour. In fact, the average viewer retains 95% of a message when it’s delivered in this way!
6. Set Challenges
Set your learners challenges which will encourage them to apply what they’ve learned in the workplace. It will help them make the step from knowledge and understanding to application. You can set challenges using social functionality on your training platform. Or you could then ask learners to reply with their responses. You could even offer prizes for the best responses.
One advantage of challenges is how easy it is to set them and apply them to any context. Here are some examples:
- Information Security: Ask learners to upload an image of their password protection system.
- Sales: Ask learners to describe their hardest objection and how they handled it.
- Retail: Ask learners to upload their best example of visual merchandising.
- Graphic Design: Ask learners to share a video of the latest graphic design trends.
- Social Media: Ask learners to describe their plans for viral results.
Challenges are brilliant! They help learners apply their training in practical ways, making sure they understand how what they’ve learned works in practice. They also encourage learners to share their own knowledge and top tips.
Want to know more about behaviour change? Here’s what our very own Juliette Denny has to say about B.J Fogg’s Behaviour Change model:
Final Words
If you’re finding the lofty task of changing your learner’s behaviour to be a bigger challenge than you expected, you’ll love our new eBook: Behaviour Change in the Workplace Using a Mobile Learning App. It’s full of practical tips and helpful strategies that will help you deliver the sort of training that helps your organisation achieve its goals.
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