Benjamin Franklin once said, "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn". A simple sentence that emphasizes the importance of engagement in learning. And how important is engagement? Today most organizations employ workforce that fall under a broader demographic range. From baby boomers to Gen Y. And the training for them falls under the category of adult education. Adult learners are those over the age of 25 and hence, the way they learn is different from that of traditional education.
Such learners are usually impacted by various extrinsic and intrinsic factors that act as barriers to learning. Busy work schedules, issues in scheduling, lack of prior knowledge (basics), travel schedules, work targets etc. being the major ones. The role of L&D here is to motivate such learns to pursue learning, retain at least some learning and meet the performance goals. The solution however doesn't manifest overnight, and requires preparation and planning. So, what are the top ways to motivate employees to learn? Here are a few.
1. Involve Them
The thing with adult learners is that, they don’t like to work in blind. The whats and whys need to be explained well before expecting that they take up any eLearning. Highlight the benefits of training, emphasize on the ways in which employees can gain in closing the skill gaps and on how this helps making their profiles stronger. Such factors tend to be great motivation. re. This can happen in many ways, say for instance, freeing the schedules for starters, planning how the learners can easily access learning, having flexible BYOD policies, secure access rights that allow users to login from anywhere etc. Encourage discussions and create an atmosphere that facilitates learning.
3. Cultivate a Socio-collaborative Nature
A part of creating a learning ecosystem. Encouraging socio-collaborative learning and knowledge sharing is a great way to motivate learners. An organization as a whole can be turned into a learning ground by allowing learners to share knowledge with others through discussion boards, wikis, chats, group discussions, content creation and sharing. Learning from peers often is more effective and tends to boost the morale too.
4. Don't Bind Them
Employees in the organization can be of different and not all like to be confined. Most learners wish to have a free hand when it comes to learning. An organization's learning ecosystem, the trust it has on learners play crucial role in how the learners view training. How free are the learners to choose the modules, take decisions within the course etc. are critical factors. After all, learners like to have a say too.
L&D Managers, or those who handle organizational training have to find innovative ways to motivate, encourage and engage learners. Personalization, gamification etc. are parts of the engagement, motivation depends on how you plan to introduce the training in a way that it goes hand in hand with the work flow and slowly becomes an integral part of the work culture. Internal marketing strategies too can help in garnering interest. However, all the efforts can be effective only if the eLearning is designed well, so don’t ignore that aspect either.
At Knowzies, we take special care to analyze the learning requirement and create eLearning that perfectly fits the bill. Get in touch for all your eLearning requirements.
