Practical tips to make business learning engaging

When the stats show that 20% of employment turnover happens in the first 45 days, and 23% of new employees turnover before their first anniversary, it’s never been more critical to ensure employees are engaged and motivated with regular learning and development. But what practical tips are there to enhance learning in a way that makes it engaging and worthwhile? We spoke to Liz Walton, Product Owner for HRM at MHR- Talent Management, specialists in HR, Payroll software & outsourcing solutions about her tips to make learning engaging.

Know your objectives

When your business says ‘We need some customer service training!’ what happens? When objectives aren’t known the danger is that what is delivered is made too generic to cover a subject at a high level which is not relevant to the learner’s needs and ends up wasting time and money – giving your learning department a bad reputation. As learning providers, we need to ask ‘why?’ more often and get to the bottom of why it is perceived that this training is needed, the ideal outcome and the solution to the issue, which might not necessarily be ‘Training’.

Choose the right medium

Everybody learns differently so if you are delivering a training course make sure you have got something for all learning styles in the group you are facilitating. If you are a dedicated internal trainer take the time to perform a regular learning style inventory so that you know the styles of the people you are training and can adapt each course to suit them.

Stop thinking of learning as a one-time event

Learning is continuous. It doesn’t just happen 1 day a month in a classroom. we are always learning! From reading articles, watching videos, talking to each other or from just doing. As job roles change to become more multi-faceted, learning from doing is becoming event larger than the 70% in the traditional 70:20:10 model. Employees are also taking more ownership of their own learning, not waiting around to be told or sent on a course, they now have the technology they need to find out what they need to know now. They are now unconsciously learning all the time from everything they watch, read and observe.

Use an LMS that is simple to record all types of learning.
Because learning is continuous we need a way to record what has been learnt and how individuals are developing. We need to be able to provide a quick action from wherever you are to say, ‘I’ve learnt something’, whether it’s watching a video on YouTube, embracing free learning MOOCs on sites such as Future learn or Udemy or even reading an old fashioned book.

Review regularly > Get feedback> Adapt
People evolve, businesses evolve, goals and objectives change yet year in year out some businesses still churn out the same courses in the same format with the same content.

As a learning professional ensure you are involved in and know about your businesses goals and objectives so that you can adjust the courses you provide to reflect these needs. Take notice of feedback forms, investigate new ways to gather feedback, gauge a courses success by the change of results and behaviours within the business.