22nd May 2023
3 Min Read
Eight steps to an unbeatable eLearning experience
Declan Newcombe
People & Change
Love it or hate it, mandatory training must be done. But how it lands is up to you.
Learning and development (L&D) spending can reach around £1,300 per person in larger businesses. That’s a huge cost to shell out for your people to just feel ‘meh’ about it.
Contrary to what you might think, your people actually want to learn! In fact, when evaluating a potential new job, 65 per cent of people believe upskilling is an important part of their prospective employer’s offer. But if learning isn’t enjoyable, then minds can quickly wander.
So how can you help people engage with training materials? We’ve put together eight simple steps to remember the next time you’re putting together an eLearning module.
Your training modules should be an extension of your brand. It should look and sound like you. But remember, user experience is key. If it’s a challenge to log on and complete the training then you’ve fallen at the first hurdle and it becomes a chore, not a chance to learn.
When we were tasked with helping overhaul science and technology innovator Danaher’s core behaviors with a specialised set of eLearning modules, narrative was non-negotiable. We used real-life scenarios to tell the story and bring the core behaviours to life.
There’s no excuse for inaccessibility. Your training must cater to everyone in your workplace. Don’t make the simple error of making your content incompatible with screen readers: transcripts, colours and fonts all need to be well planned out.
Gamification has gripped the L&D world. Learners recall between 10 to 20 per cent of what they hear – but they remember up to 90 per cent of information delivered through interactive gaming. Gamify and make your user experience that much more spectacular.
Impossible navigation and lack of progress is an easy way to lose anyone’s attention. Show your people the end is in sight to motivate them to keep going: include a progress bar.
Make navigation intuitive, so that the next step is obvious to anyone – and use direct links when further materials are available.
Compatibility is everything. Consider the devices your people will use to access the training and try not to offer usernames and passwords for something that people will only access once a year from within your organisation’s digital walls – it just hampers completion rate.
Consider the people who need to be involved from the very beginning to make this process smooth as possible. Setting and managing expectations from the off will set you up for success.
What’s the point of creating beautiful and informative eLearning modules if no one is going to remember the lessons they’ve learned? When Aviva needed a helping hand creating eLearning around the theme of crisis management, we came up with quizzes to make that content stick.
We created multiple scenarios, each with a series of questions that made their user journey answer-dependent. The modules hit the mark and we got some incredible feedback from employees: “Great training. Clear, concise and use of decision-making to bring the subject to life was really powerful.”
Even if your training is mandatory, it’s as much your responsibility to engage your employees through their learning as it is their responsibility to complete the training – eLearning doesn’t have to be a chore.
Ask yourself: can I really expect people to take in the information they need in the way I’m delivering it? And if you’re stalling on the answer, use the eight steps above.
For more information on how to create an unbeatable eLearning experience, get in touch.
