3 Learning Motivation Tips to Engage Employees

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So you’ve just finished designing an exciting, challenging What is e-learning? course for your corporate training initiatives. Now what? Well, even with a top-notch, interactive and informative course, there’s still the process of actually motivating employees to learn. Your staff has to want to learn and be ready to absorb new information in order to make your e-learning course a success. How do you motivate employees to learn? Try these tips to encourage learners during training.
1. Set up problems to solve, not questions to answer
Tests alone won’t always measure whether a learner fully grasps the information presented. Oftentimes, tests are structured so learners simply have to recall information. Rather than only testing what learners remember, also give them problems to solve. Problems that require an understanding of the material motivates users to actively seek out information in the course material and think critically about how to use it. This also offers a more interactive and engaging experience for the user, which leads to a better understanding of the core concepts and processes you present.
2. Design a visually stimulating course
Even if the material isn’t inherently flashy, it doesn't mean the design has to be bland. To engage learners, every course you design should be stimulating and user-friendly. You don't want to distract learners with a complicated design, but large features and a few bold colors can go a long way toward making content appear more interesting. Also remember to include images, videos, charts, graphs, and any other stimulating multimedia that can both enhance the quality of the course, and the overall appeal. Since the goal is to motivate students to learn, a course that looks enticing will soon start to feel exciting.
3. Let learners know the objective
Create clear objectives for each course you build. It is essential that learners are made aware of those objectives as well. If the learner is not sure what to expect from the course, or what skills or knowledge they’re supposed to acquire, navigating won’t necessarily be easy. With specific objectives laid out in advance, users are trained to pay extra attention to the portions of each course that are pertinent to their training goals. Learning objectives can also serve as reminders for learners after completing the course. In other words, this helps employees remember important sections later on once they are out of the “classroom” and back to their daily job responsibilities.
When it comes to engaging and motivating learners, it's not only the material itself that matters, but how you present it. When the training is made to appear interesting and exciting, but also clear and well-defined, users are more likely to stay focused and embrace the course. Use these tips to help employees get the most out of each course they take.
 
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Educate to Engage

Linking Learning & Employee Engagement

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But what exactly is employee engagement? Employee engagement is a combination of being invested in your work; it’s knowing what your company’s goals are, and having the tools and the drive to contribute to your organization effectively.

45% of employees are only partially engaged. 26% of employees are completely unplugged.

At Instructure, we believe there’s a better way to engage your employees.

 

It’s not about maintaining a morale level just high enough to avoid a mass exodus.

It’s not about spending whole workdays watching compliance videos that are forgotten as soon as they’re over.

And it’s not about trying to motivate employees with yearly reviews and hopes of small cost-of-living increases.

Unengaged employees using an exit
Dinosaurs- old employee engagement plans are going extinct

A lot can happen in a year, so the dialogue between managers and employees should be ongoing. That way, problems are solved instead of stewed upon, people get the tools needed to do their jobs better, and the company thrives.

Only when employees feel safe enough, valued enough, and empowered enough can innovation occur. Without employee engagement, you aren't headed toward innovation, you're headed for extinction.

You can’t scare your employees into caring

What do you want most out of your employees? Productivity? Quality customer service? A positive impact on your bottom line? Then you need engaged employees.

But are you still using “carrot-and-stick motivators” (rewards and punishments)? It’s time to rethink those methods. In his bestselling book “Drive,” Daniel Pink says there’s a gap between what science knows about motivation and what business knows. What are the key characteristics that motivate your workforce?

Eye-See how new tools can increase employee engagement

Autonomy - "Let me do my job my way"

Lightbulb- discover new ways to retain employees

Mastery - "Help me learn and grow"

Brain-Educate to engage

Purpose - "Make me feel like what I'm doing matters"

Is your business ignoring these motivators?

Engage your employees now, before someone else does.

People using an exit

Continue training your top performers or you could soon be training their replacements. Focus on learning as a key tool to improve employee engagement.

Access to learning and training opportunities is the second-most valued form of recognition among employees surveyed by Quantum Workforce across a variety of industries, experience levels and demographics. It even outranked receiving a spontaneous cash bonus!

In a nutshell: help your employees grow as professionals and they will help your business grow. Keep them engaged and on board with these best practices:

open eye to focus on millennials learning styles

Focus on millennials’ learning styles

a clock to make time for stretch assignments

Provide time for stretch assignments

wrench to build a culture of learning

Build a culture of learning

train your people

Train your leaders

Training shouldn’t feel like torture

We’ve all heard groans when training and development is mentioned. But it doesn’t have to be that way. This is especially important for the ever-growing numbers of millennials in the workforce. By 2025, millennials are expected to make up 75 percent of the global workforce.

Are you still making employees watch that two-hour video on sexual harassment or safety compliance? Millennials will check out before you even press “play.” Engage them the way they live, work, and interact:

Your content must speak ‘TwitChatGramTube’ (aka millennial)

Trainings should be given in bite sized pieces

Make it bite-sized.Millennials are accustomed to 140-character limits, 10-second disappearing videos, and the ability to fast forward through commercials.

Trainings should be social

Make it social.Eighty-four percent of millennials are social media users.

Make your trainings visual

Make it visual.Over 65 percent of millennials prefer to learn visually. Beyond millennials, visual content still rules the day. Ninety percent of the information our brains process is visual, and our brain is able to process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.

To Get Started:

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What are you waiting for?
Ready, set, engage.

Studies prove that engaged employees drive greater productivity, quality, and profitability. Yet employee engagement is at abysmal levels throughout the United States. And workers under 25 rate professional development as their number-one driver of engagement.

The message is clear: it’s time to move learning and development to the front burner and start finding ways to make employee training easier, more effective, interesting, and intuitive. Have we convinced you? Want to learn more?

About Bridge

Bridge is a modern learning and engagement platform created to drive a compelling learning experience, while helping employees and companies grow.

Learn more at www.GetBridge.com

Use Bridge LMS on all your devices.

Why you need a
culture of learning

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Workplace learning makes employees smarter. But did you know it also makes them more engaged and loyal?

Survey Says

We surveyed more than 2,000 people at companies across the United States to find out how company culture and values relate to:

Loyalty Engagement LeadershipSkills ProfessionalDevelopment

Employees want more than a culture of free food. (They want free learning too)

Among the elements of company culture we studied, free meals had the least effect on engagement and loyalty. Workplace learning, on the other hand, did the most to align personal and organizational values - and that's where engagement and loyalty come from.

 

Almost 100 percent of employees at companies with a strong culture of learning reported feeling engaged at work and loyal to their company.

 

A culture of learning = a culture of leadership

Less than half (44.4%) of employees we surveyed said they're actively being developed for future leadership positons. But most (60.6%) said leaders in their company are promoted from within.

How can you help your future leaders develop the skills they need to succeed?

Learn more about how a strong culture of learning can help lay the groundwork of success - for your employees, your leaders, your company, and your bottom line.

Bridge is a modern learning platform created to drive a compelling learning experience while helping employees and companies grow faster.

Published November 2016 by Instructure, Inc.
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© 2016 Instructure Inc. All rights reserved.

Working with Millennials

An Informative Guide

Laptop for Working with Millennials Glasses for Working with Millenials Pizza for Working with Millenials Mustache for working with Millenials Video Game Controller for Working with Millenials Donut for Working with Millenials Smartphone for Working with Millenials
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The millennials have landed, and the workplace is never looking back.
People born between 1981 and 2000 are all grown up and they’re taking the workplace by storm. More and more, baby boomers are retiring and millennials are on track to take their place as the dominant generation, making up 75% of the workforce by 2025.
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— 75%
So what’s the big deal?
The largest and most diverse generation in US history has more to offer the working world than just volume. The good news is that millennials are very driven, but employers need to step up their training and development programs to grab their attention and their loyalty.
Building with text saying I want to be here
For millennials, it’s not about entitlement. It’s about engagement.
You’ve heard the hype that millennials expect a corner office by their first year out of college. But this idea of entitlement isn’t quite on the mark. In a recent study, training and development ranked 300% higher than cash bonuses for millennials. Millennials not only seek continuous improvement and development, but two-thirds expect their employers to provide them with the opportunities.
Close the technology gap or get left behind.
According to a recent study by Instructure, creators of the modern learning and training platform Bridge, 54% of managers feel millennials are only somewhat prepared to contribute to a company right when they start. On the other hand, millennials are eager to learn and engage. More than 20% of this Generation feel their employer-provided technologies are pretty terrible. Thankfully, this “largest generation” happen to be very ambitious, but only if the training is on their terms.
Laptops can help Millenials learn and engage in learning job skills
Zero tolerance for outdated training & technology.
Millennials are the first digital natives. When you grow up using computers and cell phones while you’re still in diapers, you have a whole different perspective of technology and its role in everyday life. The “Lunch and Learn” presentations and half-day sessions used in training today are about as old school as dial-up to this generation. As difficult as it is to imagine, PowerPoint isn’t popular with this crowd either.
The use of mobile technology is very important to Millennials
It’s time to get onboard with their lifestyle:
Mobile devices offer Millennials the flexibility the desire
Go mobile — give them the flexibility they want, combined with the tech they can’t live without. Nearly all millennials are permanently attached to their smartphones: four out of five even sleep with a phone or have it beside them.
Millennials thrive on social interaction and networking
Get social — include elements for social sharing and engagement. 70% of millennials have friended a manager or co-worker on Facebook.
Shorter tasks are better for Millennials
Stay bite sized — millennials switch between tasks up to 27 times per hour. That doesn’t give you much time (around 2.2 seconds) to get your message across. Think short videos (five minutes or less) and resource libraries where they can guide their own studies.
Millennials love to collaborate in the workplace
Foster collaboration — 88% of millennials would rather collaborate than compete at work.
Millennials work harder when they know where their work is going
Give feedback (and fast) — 95% work harder when they know where their work is going. Remember, this is the instant gratification generation, so provide same-day feedback if possible.
Millennials thrive when you set expectations and let them loose in accomplishing the task
Set the framework, then set them loose — tell them what’s expected of them, and get out of their way. This generation is all about discovery, curiosity, and maintaining control of their own destiny.

Don’t expect a work 9-to-5,
retire-with-a-gold-watch mentality.

Millennials know what drives them and what will push them out the door. 88% need a “positive culture” or they’ll start looking elsewhere. And, even if they find meaning in their work, most expect to stay in a job for less than three years. Side projects and hobbies are second nature, and 78% of millennials feel that their “hustle” could take them on a different path, so it’s worth the extra effort. Essentially, their multitasking ability and short attention spans carry over into their professional lives.

Why bother if they aren’t
going to stick around?

Because their short attention spans can give way to great feats in multitasking. Millennials use technology not only to connect, but to be more efficient. Plus, they’ll be the majority of your workforce soon.
Millennials know what drives them and that is a positive culture
To get started:
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Millennials are here to stay, so you better engage them.
Now that you know just how different this generation is from its predecessors in the workplace, it’s up to you to tailor learning and training programs to meet their needs.
About Bridge
Bridge is a modern, sleek Learning Management System. Bridge measures and improves employee sentiment, alignment, and knowledge to support the goals of your company. In a nutshell, it gets everyone the tools they need to do a great job.
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Thriving in the Workplace of 2020

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Technology has changed the way today's (and tomorrow's) workers communicate, collaborate, learn, and live.

By 2020, baby boomers, Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z will all be sharing the same workspace and Keurig machines. While their differences run deeper than age and an espresso-filled swimming pool, there is hope.

Training is more vital than ever to organizational success, and today’s L&D and HR pros need an arsenal of tools to empower a diverse group of workers.

From onboarding to ongoing training, your L&D programs MUST be:

  • Snackable

  • Mobile

  • Relevant / not one-size-fits-all

  • Multi-format

  • Designed for advancement

Is your relationship status “disengaged”?

Organizations with high engagement scores outperform the market at an alarming rate, even during tough times. But only 34% of U.S. employees are engaged at work.

Boomers are heading out. Boomerangs are coming back (and back and back).

With flighty workers zigging and zagging around the career ladder, many of them are sure to return to your office. Create hiring and training processes to accommodate this new phenom, and even gain some competitive intel.

Workplace 2020 is coming in hot.

Brace yourself with this e-book:

7 Trends for Workforce 2020: How to Make Today’s Ever-Changing Workplace Work for You.

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Bridge is a modern learning platform created to drive a compelling learning experience while helping employees and companies grow faster.

Published June 2016 by Instructure, Inc.
GetBridge.com
© 2016 Instructure Inc. All rights reserved.

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