Five Strategies to Engage Employees Who Aren’t Receptive to E-Learning
In today’s rapidly evolving corporate world, eLearning has become a widely-used and beneficial tool for engaging employees’ training and development. However, despite the countless benefits of eLearning, some employees may not be as receptive to its approach as you’ve anticipated. Due to their resistance, they might struggle to derive meaningful outcomes from their training courses, and your efforts might not provide the desired result. If this is your present situation, do not fret or despair; you’re in the right place! In this detailed guide, we will share five tested and trusted strategies to engage employees who aren’t receptive to eLearning.
These valuable strategies will help you unlock the full potentials you never thought existed in your seemingly unengaged employees; it will help you boost their motivation to embrace eLearning in its full glory and unleash their skills to greater heights.
Employ Gamification Strategies
Without a doubt, whether for the old or young, games are fun. A recent survey discovered that 83% of engaged employees that receive gamified training feel motivated. While on the other hand, 61% of employees who receive non-gamified training feel unproductive and bored. The difference in the result of this statistic is clear, so why not use it to your advantage? Employees already see their regular tasks as “too serious,” so you shouldn’t burden them with bland training.
It would be best if you infuse some humor into your training content. It makes the whole learning experience fun and interactive. This way, it catches and hooks the attention of your uninterested employees. Utilize a learning management system with features like leaderboards, badges, and certificates. It will motivate your employees to start, finish up and keep coming back for more training.
Offer Regular Recognition And Feedback
Consistently providing feedback and recognition to your employees who start and complete their online training is like a magic wand to motivate employees who are not receptive to the training. People like to be praised; when they know exactly what to do to earn praise, especially one that is done publicly, they’ll do it without hesitation. When you honor your employees publicly, it will create healthy competition among them.
In addition, you can set up automated feedback on your learning management system. After an employee completes a training stage and receives this feedback, it motivates them to push further and take up more training.
Create Social Learning Activities That Centers Around Group Collaboration
This is an effective strategy to motivate and engage employees who are eLearning-resistant. Naturally, humans are inclined toward social experiences because we are social beings. Therefore, infusing several group collaboration projects and social learning activities can motivate an employee who is not receptive to eLearning. Such employees would want to perform as high as their peers. The desire to not perform below expectations inspires them to acquire more skills and knowledge. Establishing a corporate learning community is, therefore, an excellent idea for increased performance.
Personalizing Their Learning Experience
The reason some of your employees might not be receptive to their training might be because the training isn’t suitable for their personalities. Permitting your employees to direct their learning does more magic than you can imagine. Your employees understand their individual needs more than any other person. So, why not let them make the sole decision of how they want to learn? Some employees struggle with time management and prefer to take time management courses. Others might struggle with technical issues at work and will prefer courses that can help in that regard. The idea is that your employees will be more motivated to start and complete the courses they chose for themselves instead of one that was forced down their throats.
On the other hand, if there’s a general course that employees in a department must take, you can personalize it by giving them the freedom to choose when, where, and how they want to take the course. A platform like eLeaP can help in this regard. With it, you can customize courses for your employees.
Usefulness And Urgency
Let your eLearning-resistant employees understand how the training will make their tasks easier. Explain to them how it’ll help them and the organization grow. Let them know that there is an immediate payoff for the training. Imagine how thrilled they’ll be knowing that the course will make their job more straightforward than having to call a manager every time.
You can further drive home your point for why an eLearning course benefits them by letting them see testimonials from their peers who are actively taking up training. For instance, a customer support tech might not know how much easier their job can become with training until they hear their counterparts talk about it.
Your eLearning-resistant engage employees might not think they need help with their present job until you open their eyes to see the ease that the training brings to their job. Let them be aware of the short-term and long-term benefits that their participation in training will get them.
It is a misconception that the primary reason your workers aren’t responding to e-learning opportunities is because they are resistant to change. That may be true in some cases, but the overwhelming reason is they don’t feel they have the time.
One of the most comprehensive studies into employee e-learning activity and outcomes conducted by Kenneth Brown at the University of Iowa determined that a heavy workload put off more engaged employees than any other factor.
“The results for workload suggest what could be called an e-learning paradox: employees with the greatest workload. who are likely to need the training to improve their efficiency, were least likely to spend time learning. Thus, those who needed the training most were the least likely to actually do it,” wrote Brown.
A second factor is that while certain employees can handle basic skills on the computer, they feel inadequate at the very idea of e-learning. It seems complicated, and they believe that they are not capable of using the technology necessary to engage in e-learning.
As a result, rather than risk failure, they avoid volunteering for available training or learning opportunities.
How do employers meet these challenges and create a climate that welcomes e-learning?
Here are five strategies to get your employees interested and excited about e-learning:
- Do what Dow did. Dow Chemical, one of the first companies to embrace e-learning as a training and educational vehicle for their employees, went out of its way to help employees create time to learn at work. They had a series of signs the workers could hang on their doors when they were taking their courses with messages like “Cybersurfing for Skills” and “Learning in Progress.” Since then, some companies have created e-learning centers within their facilities where employees can study free from distraction.
- Invite participation rather than forcing it. Use in-house marketing ideas to encourage employees to sign up for e-learning. Ensure that part of your marketing message is that one-on-one computer assistance is needed for the employee to get started. it will be available for them in private sessions.
- Leaders need to walk the walk. It is difficult for a manager to motivate his or her engage employees to engage in e-learning if they are still asking their assistant to print off all their e-mails for them because they haven’t really mastered the computer.
- Ensure that the educational material is interesting. Researchers have found that e-learning programs have an interesting beginning and are presented in short-contained components. That an employee can master within a fairly short amount of time, and then following that with another similar package is more effective than presenting a 10 or 12-package program all rolled into one.
- The biggest question you need to answer to overcome employee objectives to further e-learning is, “why should I do this?”
Final Thoughts
Undoubtedly, engaging employees who are eLearning-resistant can be a burdensome task. However, with the appropriate strategies, it is possible to tweak the narrative and turn them into enthusiastic learners. By personalizing their learning experience and following the tips mentioned above, you’ll successfully engage your engage employees who aren’t receptive to eLearning and set your organization up for good.