7 Ideas to Build an Engaging and Powerful Learning Experience
An engaging and long-lasting learning experience is critical to the success of your organization.
Today’s businesses demand rapid development and even faster deployment. Competition is fierce in nearly every sector and the low-unemployment economy has created a war for talent. The demand for training programs across organizations is on the rise to increase speed to market, product knowledge and ultimately a competitive advantage – all while expecting the L&D department to deliver more with less.
How can learning leaders cut through volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of these challenges and deliver a learning experience that will both meet employee expectations and business goals?
Adopting to better ways of learning will always boil down to one basic element – The Learning Experience
Factors such as budget, available resources, learner’s schedule and the learning environment are responsible in devising a development program. Different methodologies like on-demand, self-paced and mobile learning has shown noteworthy impact in reducing these costs. However, learner disengagement and non-completion of courses continue to rise. Learning in a corporate environment is irrespective of the role of the learner, be it for leadership development, product training or customer service. They want it to be dynamic – flexible as well as adaptable to their changing needs and schedules – and should also be available on-the-go – support different platforms like desktops, laptops, smartphones etc. Their approach towards a training program is for a holistic learning experience. It could be in the form of cross-platform content (audio/video, simulation), assessment during sessions, multilingual or fragmented into small modules.
To cater to such wide-spread expectations of learners, there are some trends that organizations must look into to avoid interruptions. Though today’s learning is more about creating experiences, it must be understood that its implementation to satisfy business requirements is equally important.
Here are 7 trends to inspire a next-gen learning experience at your organization:
Create Micro Modules
Today’s learners will have everything but time. For trainers, it is important to create programs in small chunks/portions, making those lean, light and easily consumable as per learners’ availability.
Social Learning
Learning programs must emphasize on social learning. This allows learners to absorb from a range of content – be it audio-video, news feed or even in the form of live streaming. Also, the setup of the program should be in multi-consumable format for various social media forums.
Diverse Integration
The focus of next-gen learning should be to make it highly integrated to different communication media – audio, video, and other multimedia. As learners are becoming more agile, it is necessary to ensure seamless integration across channels.
Interactive Content
It is vital to accommodate collective ideas to make the experience worthwhile for learners in a knowledge program. Approaches like polling options, online assessments, use of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) must be encouraged for better engagement.
Peer-to-peer Learning
Learning is no more a one-way communication. It has hugely transformed into an open communication channel. So, it is crucial for content creators to make courses in a way that encourages collaboration and empowers learners to learn from each other.
Supplemental Learning
Curiosity is one of the prime characteristics of next-gen learners. While they are engaged in developing a specific skill set, they always look for possibilities to inflate their learning horizon. It is necessary for trainers to offer supplemental opportunities by adding resources in content to help expand their knowledge.
Learning Management System (LMS)
A Learning Management System is a one-stop solution that can help trainers accommodate all the above requirements. Not only it provides flexible learning options, but also keeps a track of the progress for a learner. It helps them to fast track productivity, decrease admin burden, enhance performance and remain focus on their career development paths.
Ready to put these ideas into action? Learn how to transform outdated programs and improve your learning experience with the free eBook – Modernize for Engagement.
Infopro Learning, a leading provider in corporate training outsourcing and human capital transformation, helps organizations create an exceptional employee and customer experience through bespoke eLearning solutions. For more than 25 years, the company has designed and implemented engaging learning experiences that attract, develop and retain talent across the entire employee lifecycle. To learn more, visit www.infoprolearning.com.
About the author: Divesh Srivastava is currently working as the Marketing Manager at Infopro Learning, a leading provider in corporate training outsourcing and human capital transformation. He has over 5 years of experience in marketing strategy development and is a certified Content Marketing professional. His interest lies in conducting market researches to understand learning business needs and develop best practices to benefit organizations and amplify their return on investment.