Ask just about anyone today to name one thing they learned within the past week and where they learned it, and they’re likely to tell you about a video they watched on YouTube or Tiktok. In our modern digital age, it’s difficult to have a conversation about learning without considering the vastness of the Internet and how it’s shaped learner expectations around workplace training.

In light of all this, there has been a lot of talk about the concept of “learning experience platforms” (LXPs) in recent years. Many Learning and Development (L&D) leaders now seek learning platforms that not only help them deliver training across their enterprises, but also engage their employees through more interactive features and dynamic content suggestions.

Problems arise, however, when an LXP alone is unable to meet an organization’s core learning requirements. Over the years, this led some L&D professionals to implement two platforms for their organizations—both an LXP and a learning management system (LMS). This also proved to be tedious and costly though, and caused many challenges for organizations.

A common difference between an LMS and an LXP is that an LMS is primarily built to distribute training content and often emphasizes course administration, learning program management and compliance, while an LXP focuses more on the learner experience through features like sophisticated content delivery, skills mapping, and personalized career paths.

What sets us apart here at Schoox is that we created our platform with a focus on learners first, as well as an aspiration to build engaging learning experiences that complement and enhance the vital functionalities of an LMS.

Today, Schoox empowers some of the world’s largest enterprises to deliver the training their employees need to succeed, in nearly any language and on any device—and take learning and development to the next level with many of the core functionalities of an LXP embedded right into our award-winning platform.

To further enhance the LXP functionalities of Schoox, we’re thrilled to introduce pre-populated external content channels as a quick and easy way for L&D leaders to share free content resources from YouTube directly within the platform. With just a few clicks, admins or learning managers can opt to make these curated video playlists available to all or select groups of learners.

Some of the best learning resources out there today are easily accessible on the web by anyone with a broadband internet connection. Sites like YouTube democratized learning, and not only is democracy a value we take seriously here in Greece—it’s one we invented. From day one, we designed Schoox to be the best LMS to help businesses of all sizes democratize learning across their entire organizations and give their people the power to drive their own learning journeys forward.

On behalf of everyone here at Schoox, I invite you to follow along here on our blog as we continue on our path toward making learning more rewarding and fun for all.

The post Ready, Set, Play: Leveraging External Content Channels for Learning in the Digital Age appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

However, it can be a tricky process. One simple change can affect every single part of an organization.

If a new initiative is to be introduced in your organization, you need to be prepared. Most organizations focus on project management, process management, or some kind of implementation methodology. However, this overlooks one key area – the people affected by the changes.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown (Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success) explores the steps organizations need to take to implement change effectively.

Listen to the podcast below or keep reading.

Why learning and development is key to implementing initiatives

The key to implementing a successful new initiative is to have everyone on the same page, aware of the changes, and eager to get involved. That’s where L&D professionals come in. Who else is better placed to understand people and how to drive engagement?

L&D professionals are uniquely equipped to see all areas of an organization and provide support where needed.

How to manage requirements across the organization

One way to start is to get it all down on paper and document the requirements of everyone. What does everyone need for this new implementation to be successful?

Start with the global requirements of the organization. What’s going to apply to anyone and everyone affected by this implementation?

Next, use a department or team-specific approach. Some things will only apply to a small subset of the organization.

You may walk away with multiple lists, but this can help you better understand how changes will affect everyone.

Triage the requirements

Once we have all this documented, the next move is to triage the requirements. This is where you work out which requirements are critical versus which are just nice to have.

When we designate something as critical, it’s vital to document and discuss everything thoroughly. The more specific these conversations are, the better.

Once you get a better understanding of what’s critical, you can reprioritize things and streamline the run-up to the big launch of your company’s initiative.

Engaging people in the initiative

The next stage is all about the people. How do you engage the people in your organization? Who do you need to be engaged in this project?

This is something a lot of places overlook. It’s easy for us to get locked into just identifying the active, core project team – the people who will be directly involved in executing the changes.

While these team members are key, you also need other perspectives.

You need your key decision-makers, those who will help make new decisions and keep the project oriented to its goals. You also need your stakeholders, those who have a stake in the project, either from contributing feedback or other input.

Also, think about those who don’t have process ownership but may be affected by these changes. You can split them up into three different groups:

1. The champions

These are the people in your organization who are advocates of the team or the new changes coming. They’re on board with the coming changes, have enthusiasm, and are willing to support others.

2. The anti-champions

These are the types of employees who have more of a “sit and wait” mindset. They may even openly challenge the ideas and are naturally skeptical.

It’s important to have both representations from champions and anti-champions to get a true slice of your employees’ mindsets.

3. The influencers

Look at where the influence is coming from in the organization and strategically bring these individuals into the fold of the project. These may or may not be reflected in your champions or anti-champion groups, but it’s important to get balanced perspectives.

If you only have champions in your influencer group, the initiative is undermined from the beginning. People will be suspicious of a project that people have only nice things to say about.

You may want to avoid any negativity, but be brave and get those visible anti-champions on the project as well. You may be able to convert them to advocates by the end of the project.

Get feedback

Once you have all the requirements written down, you can circulate them through the entire group to get feedback. The earlier you do this, and the larger the group, the more time you save in the long run.

By getting feedback early on, you’re identifying barriers and obstacles sooner before they negatively impact the project.

Be realistic about the launch of your initiative

The next tip is to be realistic. Sometimes we can all be guilty of delaying a launch because we want it absolutely perfect. The problem is that these delays can mean you miss out on the ideal timing when there’s engagement and momentum.

Instead, you could prioritize and deploy the changes that matter most in phase one. This shows that you are taking action, driving change, and are solving problems. It doesn’t matter if it’s not the whole thing yet, but it gets the ball rolling.

Communicate often

When making any major changes that affect the whole organization, communication is the secret ingredient to success.

Don’t be afraid to communicate often and throughout the entire project. Poor communication can cause even the best implementations to fail.

Even if your team is working hard, you’re hitting all the goals and milestones, you can still trip up if communication isn’t clear.

Introducing a new system or process is a big change, and everyone reacts to change differently. Finishing up your project, launching it, and expecting everyone to get on board straight away is just not realistic.

Instead, you should communicate throughout the build-up to the launch and afterward as well. Everyone will know what to expect then.

You can start communicating openly about this in a few ways.

1. Sow the seeds

One way is to introduce it when you start documenting requirements. You can start to sow the seeds here and build excitement, even if you don’t explain the full scope of the project just yet.

2. Use cascading messages

Make sure you also check in with your leaders at regular intervals. Get them involved from the start and let them see what’s changing. This will help them to better understand the changes, and they can start to instill confidence in the employees.

3. Use direct messaging to all employees

As well as going directly to the leaders, we should also go directly to the employees. Some company cultures make this harder but going to the teams that will be driving the process makes the project much more inclusive.

If you just rely on cascading messages, it can create the wrong impression and perpetuates a strict hierarchy of who gets the exclusive information.

4. Connect feedback to action

The final piece of communication advice is to connect feedback to action. Whenever we receive feedback, we should always approach it with the intention that we will act on it.

Everyone wants to be seen and heard, so when employees give feedback, they need to know that it’s contributing to real action. It shows you’re truly valuing your employees and their opinions, which is one of the quickest ways to build trust and confidence.

Remember to celebrate the success of implementing your initiative!

Finally, it’s also important to remember to celebrate. Sometimes we can be too focused on the work, the processes, and hitting all the timelines and budgets involved with the initiative that we lose sight of the celebration stage.

Celebrating is a clear signal of progress. It’s a way to create a positive connection across the organization and to just have fun. This is where you just let loose with all your thoughts and celebrate the milestones your team has reached.

If we can celebrate all of that, it creates an expectation for people. It shows that we should never stop learning. We should never stop growing and evolving.

The post How to Successfully Implement a New Initiative in the Workplace appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

Creating an effective strategy to develop and retain your employees can have several benefits beyond just the employee. It can also improve the performance and growth of your business.

But first, employers should understand the reasons why employees leave their jobs to begin with.

Most commonly, an employee leaves due to:

• A negative corporate culture
• Not feeling valued
• No room for growth
• Having a bad relationship with their manager

Once you can identify the specific reason an employee leaves, you can begin addressing the issue more effectively.

Following is a list of strategies you can implement to start building a culture where employees feel engaged, motivated, and driven to succeed and grow alongside your business.

Eight strategies to hang on to your employees

1. Treat employees with respect.

Most importantly, show employees that you respect and value what they bring to your organization. As a result, it will motivate them to be as invested in your company’s success as you are.

2. Ask for feedback.

Ask employees why they work at your company and if they feel any improvements should be made. This not only promotes trust, it also gives you the specific information you need to make things right.

3. Provide mentorship.

Mentor your employees regularly to continually build trust. Doing so will help them envision a path to success within your organization.

4. Play fair.

Being just and fair is an essential quality for managers. Showing favoritism or dabbling in office politics will undoubtedly create a negative impact on the entire team.

5. Have their back.

Also important, stand up for your employees whenever the need arises. When employees know they have your support, they can build and solidify trust.

6. Show recognition.

Take time out of your day to acknowledge each of your employee’s achievements. It goes a longer way than you may realize toward boosting morale and productivity.

7. Provide opportunities for growth.

A recent Software Advice article on employee trends found that 49% of small-business employees we surveyed told us they haven’t developed any new skills during the pandemic. In fact, 30% of employees chose learning and development (L&D) opportunities as the most important factors they consider when evaluating a new job after the pandemic.

With this in mind, be sure to provide training activities for employees. They help you better assess their strengths and areas for improvement so you can better develop them.

8. Give them a platform.

Empower employees to present their current projects, performance data, or other activities. As a result, you’ll also increase their confidence, improve their sense of role ownership, and boost productivity.

Getting started

In short, an organization’s culture is an essential factor for employee development and retention. And it begins with leadership.

When leaders visibly demonstrate their commitment to an organization’s mission and values, they empower employees to do the same.

The eight strategies above are only just a small number of other initiatives organizations can take to generate a positive and productive work environment.

To learn why organizations choose Schoox to helps organizations develop a productive, engaged workforce, visit our website.

The post 8 Effective Strategies to Develop (and Keep) Your Employees appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

You feel blindsided. You didn’t know that they were unhappy, or that they were actively seeking other employment opportunities. You’ve just lost one of your best workers. Why?

That’s a great question—and one we’ll answer in this article. We’ll discuss why top-performing workers often leave, and what you can do to prevent “brain drain” at your business. Let’s begin.

Why top-performing employees leave

1. You’re not paying them enough money

Okay, this one is pretty simple to understand. Money isn’t everything, but it is a big thing. If you don’t compensate a top-performing employee appropriately, chances are that they will find another company that will.

Job-hopping is very common in the modern business world, and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of their career, an employee can expect to change jobs up to 12-15 times. And this number is even higher for younger workers. Staying at a job for only a year or two is no longer a stigma, people expect it!

If an employee can find a competitor who will give them a better salary, there’s not a lot you can do about that. However, you can take steps to boost employee engagement and ensure that they can always talk about their compensation.

If you make it clear that your employees are free to talk to you about getting raises or bonuses, they’re more likely to come to you before they start looking into a job at another company.

2. You’re not challenging them

Top-performing employees have many traits in common, no matter what industry they may be in. They’re passionate, driven, motivated, and hungry. They always want to learn more and they devour corporate training videos and e-learning materials.

So, what happens when they are no longer challenged by their work? The development of employee skills is important, but if an employee begins to feel inadequately challenged, they may become unmotivated and seek a different job.

Again, this can be solved by having an “open door” policy for employees and regularly asking them about how they feel about their current position. If you start to notice them using social media at work, or if they’re on their phones quite a bit, for example, these could be signs that they don’t have enough to do, or that they’re unengaged and would relish a new challenge, like learning a new skill or earning a promotion.

3. They don’t have a clear path for advancement

One of the most common reasons that top-performing employees leave is that they feel like they’ve “peaked” in your company, and there is no clear way for them to continue up the corporate ladder and earn more responsibilities or compensation.

When an employee feels like their career has plateaued, they’re more likely to become disengaged. As a result, the quality of their work may suffer. Even if they are a top performer, they may not see the point in doing more work than they have to because they won’t be rewarded for it.

This problem is best solved during the onboarding process. When you hire a new employee, you should make their path of advancement quite clear, including details about requirements for earning a promotion, a raise, or additional compensation.

By doing so, you can quickly create a culture where employees understand the value of their hard work and how they will be rewarded for “going the extra mile.” In many cases, simply providing a clear path for advancement is enough to retain your top talent.

Speaking of providing clear paths for advancement, you may also want to consider integrating your LMS with your performance management system.

In a recent Software Advice survey report, 5 E-Learning Trends Shaping the Future of Training, Sr. HR Analysts Brian Westfall and Sierra Rogers found that integrating employee training and performance management software systems and data is having a large impact with significant benefits. For instance, “employees can automatically receive personalized e-learning content based on areas of improvement, while managers can observe if training investments are actually improving employee performance.”

And organizations are catching on. In fact, Gartner indicates that 43% of L&D professionals plan to integrate their LMS with their performance management systems—making it the highest planned future adoption rate of any LMS feature. Definitely something to consider.

4. Your corporate culture needs improvement

Unfortunately, sometimes employees leave because they don’t like your current corporate culture. This is a difficult problem to deal with, because changing corporate culture requires buy-in from C-suite executives and managers. It also may require a change of corporate policy from the ground up.

Still, you should do your best to encourage a more active and engaged corporate culture. You can take steps such as:

• Creating more flexible schedules for employees
• Allowing some employees to work from home
• An “open door” HR policy that lets employees voice their concerns
• Encouraging collaboration between different teams and departments
• Providing a way for anonymous feedback and suggestions from employees
• Implement more transparent management communication policies

Changing your corporate culture is not easy, but it may be the key to retaining your best workers.

Keep your top-performing employees happy and engaged

It’s not always easy to keep your best workers around, and there’s never any guarantee that they’ll stay with your company for the long term. But with these simple tips, it’s easier to understand why they may leave, and take steps to prevent this from happening.

The post Why Top-Performing Employees Leave—And What You Can Do About It appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

Even those who love learning can sometimes struggle to motivate themselves to learn. It’s a common problem across all industries, and one reason is because training is usually a must-do, not a want-to.

Even when training isn’t mandated, a lot of people are still stuck in that same mindset. It may come from school or other workplaces where training is seen as a necessary evil. It’s something that distracts you from your routine and responsibilities.

How do we get employees to want to learn? How do we teach them about the joy of learning for learning’s sake, not just as a box-ticking exercise? The best way to achieve success with training is to have enthusiastic and open employees, but for that to happen, some mindset retraining needs to take place.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Schoox’s Matthew Brown, VP of Learning and Brand Success, discusses just that. He shares some reasons why employees are hesitant about learning and what we can do to change their learning mindset.

Listen to the episode below or keep reading to learn more.

Current mindset: Learning is often compliance-heavy

Since the first moment we were introduced to the concept of learning, we have been pre-programmed with some very specific expectations.

Going back to our school days, the teacher would stand in the front of the room. They had all the answers. They told you what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. But they didn’t always say why.

As a result, people have years of habits and preconceived ideas whenever they approach learning later in life. They associate learning with something they must do.

In an organization, this continues. When we think of learning activities, it’s all phrased in a similar way:

• You MUST do your security awareness/anti-harassment training
• You MUST complete your new hire training by a certain date

These phrases all have an undertone of compliance, so we need to be careful in choosing our language.

If we want highly engaging learning environments, we need to figure out how to reprogram some of those ideas. We need to democratize learning and build excitement.

A simple way to start is to try and adjust the language you use when talking about training. You’ll then want to try to tackle some of the bigger culture issues to help shift that compliance mindset.

It’s not that employees don’t want to learn. They’re not completely averse to it. It’s about breaking the muscle memory and retraining their brains to accept learning as a want-to, not a have-to.

Common excuses and barriers against learning

People often come up with reasons against spending time in a training session. One of the most common ones is “I’d love to, but I don’t have enough time.”

Everyone’s busy with their usual responsibilities, so it can be a big ask for them to take time out from their day to learn.

Another one is, “I’ve already done something similar. I already know the content.”

Do any of those sound familiar? We live in a world where workdays are already crammed, and so trying to squeeze learning in there feels more like a chore. It becomes a box-ticking exercise where no one really absorbs the content or wants to be there.

The issue of trust affects employees’ learning mindset

On a similar note, one roadblock could be a lack of trust in the workplace.

If your employees don’t trust that you have their best interests in mind, they will be less enthusiastic about getting involved in learning.

When organizations push training, it’s usually to tick boxes or to fulfill items on a job description list rather than to benefit the employee themselves.

Employees may not trust you because they feel you’re only giving them training for selfish reasons.

A different approach to learning

Our main job is to help employees learn how to be learners again.

In their own personal time, they will have no problem seeking out information they need to solve problems or learn something new. For example, if they need to fix a home appliance, they might watch a few YouTube videos.

The issue isn’t that they’re averse to learning as a whole. It’s all about how it’s presented and integrated into the workplace.

Another approach is to think about making employees excited to learn. Instead of just focusing on the job they currently have, introduce opportunities for them to learn and grow for the job they want to have. Perhaps even make time for them to learn about their own personal interests and hobbies.

Make learning and development a benefit for the learner, not just the organization. This will achieve two things. One, it earns their trust, and two, it can drive some exciting transformation.

As an employer, you could provide a library of content to satisfy a wide range of needs to help earn their trust. You might want to encourage employees to each carve out a protected hour or hours per week just for learning and development.

By doing so, you can start to remove some of those obstacles to learning and make it more integrated into everyone’s work lives. It won’t be a quick fix, but subtle changes in the way you approach learning and the language that you use can slowly start to shift your employees’ mindsets.

The post How to Shift Employees’ Learning Mindset from “Must do” to “Want to” appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

This is much easier said than done. So, how do you create learning content that resonates, sinks in, and is retained after a training session?

The solution may not be what you include in your content but more about how you deliver it.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown, Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success, discusses why modality matters.

He shares his thoughts on why organizations should add additional content on top of pre-built training solutions to improve engagement. He also talks about why L&D professionals should take note of learners’ different learning styles.

Listen to the podcast below or keep reading to hear more.

Times have changed: Revisit your training delivery methods

We live in an age of change. The old rules and ways of doing things often don’t apply as they did a few years ago. This has been an adjustment for everyone and learning and development professionals have had to revisit their training delivery methods.

When it comes to offering value to your learners, most would agree that a one-size-fits-all approach is just not effective. That’s especially the case in this current world of always-on technology and the constant competition for headspace and attention.

If we want to ensure that knowledge is transferred, gained, and applied to a job, we need to go beyond the one-size-fits-all approach.

It’s very easy for L&D professionals to deliver solutions like these because you buy or build them once, and everyone is put through the process. It becomes a factory-like mindset that is easier to manage in a busy company or when there are time constraints.

However, think carefully before relying on this approach. Think about the needs of your learners. You may just find that the longer route makes more sense.

When bearing your learners’ needs in mind, it makes sense to use a wide array of different learning approaches and tactics. This could mean making use of micro-learning, structured e-learning, infographics, blogs, peer-to-peer interactions, and other formats.

By exploring all the different options and mediums out there that suits an employee’s optimal learning modality, you can truly start to support them and help them succeed.

How to consider a learning modality if you have a pre-built solution

If you have bought a third-party or off-the-shelf training solution, you may believe that your hands are tied.

In reality, this doesn’t have to stop you from delivering what your learners need. You can always bring in some additional components to provide support to the pre-built program. You can extend the learning potential from that original piece of content and ensure that it sinks in.

Let’s look at an example. Take anti-harassment or security awareness training. These are common training programs that most people will go through at some point in their professional lives. Often, companies will outsource this or buy a pre-built solution. This is so they don’t have to worry about getting all the regulations and rules right in the content itself.

The problem is that they end up feeling like a page-turner conference. One where everyone’s watching or listening and navigating through the content almost mindlessly.

This doesn’t mean that the content is bad. It might have lots of different interactions and video elements. Or, it could also have questions to answer or even a full-blown exam at the end.

This may be a great, effective way to introduce the topic. And it certainly checks the box. But there are other ways to extend the learning to ensure people take something away when they leave the room.

How to extend your learning content

You want to make sure people retain course information for more than five minutes after the course ends. To do this, create a bunch of content to go with it.

This could be a quick reference guide to help your learners recall the most important information. Alternatively, you could create an infographic highlighting elements from the course or relating them to the organization specifically.

Alternatively, include personal messages from your leadership team. For example, in a video message or an audio clip slotted into the course. This could highlight the commitment from leadership that they want to support their employees in their learning.

Help the messages sink in. For instance, experiment with quizzes or smaller informal tests to ensure that the course is doing its job.

Alongside the main course, you could either create or collate resources like podcast episodes, infographics, even explorative scenario-based journeys. These tactics can all encourage critical thinking and logic, which helps the message of your content stick.

All of this helps to keep the learners engaged and gives them the best chance of success. You can easily make the training courses much more personalized and fun as well.

Bear different learning modalities in mind

There are many benefits of varying your approach to learning. One of them is that, by using different mediums, it reflects your audience.

Your learners all learn in different ways. A learning modality, or style, that resonates with one person may not have the same effect on another. So having a varied approach is not just more interesting, it’s also the more effective approach.

Tap into the needs of each learner. It will help you build a program that keeps as many people as engaged as possible. With more engagement, you have more knowledge transfer and retention.

The post Modality Matters: Why Learners Need More Than an Off-the-Shelf Solution appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

Capturing your audience’s attention and holding it can make the transfer of knowledge much more effective.

It’s more important than ever to try and create a memorable connection during the learning process. It’s not enough to simply check the boxes and have all the right content. The content needs to be arranged and presented in a way that sticks in your audience’s minds. You want people to walk away with as much knowledge as possible.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown, VP of Learning and Brand Success at Schoox, has some great ideas on making learning more memorable. Listen to the podcast below or keep reading to learn more.

1. Use emotion

The first thing to note is that the best way to connect a learner to training content is to use emotion. This is often done by invoking one or more of the senses at the same time, and there are lots of ways you can do this.

Whether it’s virtual training or in-person sessions, ways to invoke the senses include the clothes you wear, the background you use in virtual learning, and other little Easter eggs that you use throughout your sessions. You could use interactive experiences that get participants to physically do something. This helps to invoke different senses beyond the visual.

When we do this right, it leaves a lasting impression that makes the learner want to come back for more.

Sometimes, this is difficult; for example, it’s hard to make compliance training fun. However, adding something different or unusual into your training can help participants pay attention and remember what you’re saying. When we do this, we increase the likelihood of engagement.

Why is that so important? Increasing engagement and attention in your training sessions means that they’re more likely to learn and remember things.

2. Leverage technology to make learning more memorable

Learning doesn’t have to be dry and boring. You can make it more fun for everyone involved. Of course, fun is going to be relative to the audience and company culture. However, at its core, what we mean is finding ways to bring in interactions, to keep it fresh, and to leverage technology.

You can do this in a variety of ways, for example, quizzes and games, breakout rooms, or collaborative experiences. These are things that can be applied to both in-person and virtual sessions.

If you want to check how well your participants are retaining information, mini-quizzes are a great way to do this. It breaks up any lectures or PowerPoint presentations and keeps the learners thinking and focusing.

3. Include your learners

Another way to freshen things up is to include your learners in your content. Ask them questions that force them to really connect on an emotional level to the content.

Generic questions directed at everyone can be very thought-provoking, but specific questions for individuals can go much further in creating engagement.

4. For memorable learning, do something unexpected

Including something unexpected in your content can also enhance the experience. Even something as simple as wearing a colorful shirt or changing your background can create a fresh experience every time your learners come back.

They may be focused on figuring out what’s different this time, but while they are in that receptive mode, they will listen and hear your content.

5. Make learning part of their day

Another thing to think about is ways to make learning part of their day. A lot of people see workplace training as entirely separate from their job. When it comes time to do a training session, it can feel naturally disruptive and jarring, which isn’t a great experience.

What we should be doing is making the training fit naturally into their day. Make learning more of a regular experience that people become accustomed to on a daily basis – rather than leaving it to once a year.

6. Create a safe space

Another thing that learning professionals and managers can do is to create a safe space for people to take risks and make mistakes. When employees engage with the content, it’s a lot more memorable and fun if they feel comfortable enough to try out new things and ask questions.

This creates a much deeper connection to the learning content at that moment.

7. Involve learners in the content review process

How do you know whether your learning experiences are fun and memorable – unless you ask?

Find a way to include your learners in the content review process to ensure they receive the kind of training they need and want. Hearing their thoughts and feelings about your content makes your learners feel heard. It also helps you tailor the content towards them for the greatest effect.

Honest feedback from your learners is an invaluable part of the content review process. Ask them, does the tone seem right? Does it have the right aesthetic/company culture feel? Are the interactions valuable?

Remember that if you open the doors to this type of feedback, you might hear things you’d rather not. But the most important thing to do is never ignore it.

The worst thing you can do is ask for feedback and then do nothing in response. All that says to the learner is that you don’t value their opinion, which just creates a negative experience for everyone.

While you don’t have to take action on every single piece of feedback, being able to follow up, explore new ways to improve and take feedback on board is crucial. If there’s something you decide not to change and have a good reason why, don’t be afraid to be transparent with your learners and explain why.

Involving your learners and making training a two-way process is such a simple way to make your content more engaging, memorable, and effective.

The post 7 Ways to Make Learning Memorable and Fun appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

If so, you’re not alone. Let’s face it, compliance training often carries with it a stigma of being “boring” or “dry.” Regardless, it is still an important and necessary aspect of business—one that can come with significant consequences if you fall out of compliance.

Naturally, it begs the question: If employees view compliance training as boring, and HR and L&D teams see it as a one-time, annual event, how can employees retain what they learn? Likewise, how can their behaviors change if the information isn’t enforced? And how can businesses continue to avoid risk?

Organizations can address all of these issues with a shift in mindset about how they create and deliver their compliance programs. How? By treating compliance training the same way they treat continuous learning.

What is continuous compliance training?

Continuous compliance training is about building a culture and strategy within your organization through learning to continuously manage and address risk more effectively. It ensures that you meet regulatory requirements while upholding the safety of your employees, customers, and systems.

While people often link continuous compliance training solely to data security, it can cover all areas of compliance risk, from cyberattacks and workplace safety, to sexual harassment and discrimination. 

It is also important to note that being able to continuously evaluate and manage your level of compliance does not mean running a report or viewing a dashboard to monitor course completions. Completion rates are not evidence of the effectiveness of your compliance.

Qualitative information, on the other hand, is helpful in determining the effectiveness of your compliance programs. For example, post-course exams, evaluation surveys, and conversations to determine the level of information the employee retained from the course. Role playing or on-the-job observation could also be helpful to determine an employees’ ability to demonstrate what they’ve learned.

Why does it matter?

Continuous compliance training matters more than ever. Companies are functioning in a much riskier environment as compared to even just a few years ago. The COVID-19 pandemic and remote work adjustments have made certain data risks more pronounced. 

And as mentioned previously, not just data risks. The George Floyd incident and Black Lives Matter movement put a glaring spotlight on employee behavior risk. And social responsibility risk, too. This prompted organizations across the country to develop or improve their diversity, equity, inclusion programs. It also revealed the need to implement or revamp their corporate social responsibility initiatives to regain public trust.

Additionally, the #MeToo movement caused employers to rethink their sexual harassment prevention strategy. Several states have passed laws to expand their sexual harassment compliance training. Some states even call for the training to be more meaningful and relatable.

Thus, it might be easier to consider what could happen when companies think continuous compliance training doesn’t matter. By underestimating the need to implement these programs, organizations could be faced with:

• Disengaged and complacent employees
• Harsh fines and penalties from auditors and regulators
• Increased susceptibility to discrimination lawsuits or security attacks
• Exposing their systems, employees, and customers (and their data) to risk

How can my organization make the shift to continuous compliance training?

Transitioning from your one-time annual approach to compliance training to a fully-fledged continuous strategy will take some planning. Here are ideas to consider before you start:

• It might go without saying these days, but for optimal results, you’ll need a trusted learning management system (LMS). You’ll also need online learning courses, whether you buy them, design your own, or both.
• Select a trusted content vendor that regularly updates their compliance courses to meet changing industry, state, and federal requirements.
• Speaking of content, it must be engaging and relevant to remain top of mind for your employees. Select content that includes scenario-based learning. Include checkpoints throughout the course to assess knowledge retention, or add an interactive “choose your own adventure” type of course.
• Incorporate points, badges, or leaderboards to boost friendly competition among individual employees, teams, or departments.
• Training doesn’t only have to be online. It could be on-the-job training or other in-person activities that you can still track in the LMS. 
• Find an LMS that makes it easy for you to track and report on your compliance training.
• Align your continuous compliance training strategy with your company’s overall risk management strategy.
• Finally, measure the true effectiveness—not completion rates—of your program.

For more information on how Schoox simplifies compliance training, download our free eBook: Take the Complicated out of Compliance.

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For companies dedicated to learning and development, content curation is a great way to add value to their employees.

In the context of learning and development, content curation is the process of gathering, sourcing, and organizing information that’s helpful for a team.

In many workplaces, the learning and development team is solely responsible for creating this type of content.

However, companies should consider the benefits of empowering their L&D teams to tap into their employee community to help provide curated content, too.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown (Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success) discusses the benefits of content curation in workplace learning and development.

Listen to the podcast episode below to learn more or keep reading.

The problem with off-the-shelf learning content

When it comes to training, companies may purchase an off-the-shelf training solution that doesn’t quite hit the mark when it comes to your team, specifically.

For example, you might work in the restaurant industry and sit down to watch a training video featuring people in suits and ties. If it’s not something your employees relate to, it’s much harder for that content to resonate with them.

So, what if, instead of this, you had a training program curated by the very people it concerns—other employees?

Here are four benefits of involving your employees in content curation.

1. Increased trust and adoption

Including employees in the process and asking them to share things that work for them can increase trust and adoption.

Employees could go away and find articles, websites, training videos that they find helpful and share them with others. Additionally, they could take part in some content creation and create videos or process flows for other team members.

Therefore, when the people sourcing the material have experience in the same role, it’s easier to trust and take their advice.

2. Content with fresh perspectives

We can always benefit from a fresh perspective, especially in the world of learning and development.

Learning and development professionals may be too close to the problem. Even subject matter experts can be too close to it. The perspectives are too narrow and the training becomes less effective or even over-engineered.

Additionally, try to consider the perspective of the training course. Did a boss or learning professional design it? How well will that translate to employees?

Similarly, you may have experienced training programs squeezed into a four-step method just for the sake of being in that four-step structure. Maybe it’s the typical way your company does it. Perhaps it’s based on a template. And the cycle continues with that structure.

So, what if you had a different perspective? You might find a far better way of organizing your content or program. With outside perspectives, you can start tapping into other ways to articulate messages that resonate with their intended audience. In other words, sometimes it takes a different voice to spark a better idea!

3. Positive effect on employee engagement

A lot of companies tend to think too narrowly about career development and growth. For instance, they may design programs with the primary purpose of helping people move up the career ladder.

Consequently, the problem here is assuming that everyone wants to move up. Some people would prefer to move sideways into a different department or role. Some people don’t want to move at all and are happy where they are.

For instance, if you design your training resources around promotions and getting ahead they’re likely to fall flat for those who don’t share that goal.

Does that mean these people shouldn’t take part in learning and development programs? No. Everyone can benefit from learning experiences that help them learn and grow, regardless of their career aspirations.

By realizing that not everyone is searching for their next promotion or wants the same outcome, we can alter our training programs to focus on development, not a fixed end goal.

The key is to encourage participation. Encouraging different types of people to contribute can be a critical element of your employee development strategy. This ensures that your training programs aren’t serving just one select group of people.

This takes us back to the second point: Sometimes, all you need is a fresh perspective.

But most importantly, encouraging participation in content curation and creation can add value to employees, increase engagement, and ultimately improve retention.

4. Helps you avoid building a program just for your needs

If you don’t involve employees in the content curation process, you end up building a learning experience tailored to your needs, not the employee’s.

For example, you may design a program and exam to keep a log of everyone’s skills and knowledge. But what value does this add to your employees? What more can you teach them about, beyond passing an exam or being a statistic in your records?

This doesn’t mean you can’t have exams, of course. There are other things to consider from an employee’s perspective, not just from the stakeholders in the background. 

In conclusion, try to get different perspectives. It can be eye-opening to hear alternate views and combine them together into something that really harnesses the power of all that expertise, passion, and talent.

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For some, the virtual experience has been ideal, but there are certainly challenges that come with it. As a learning and development professional, one of the challenges for virtual training is getting people engaged and interacting.

There are all sorts of distractions that affect our attention in a virtual meeting. How you approach building and managing your training sessions can help boost engagement and create a productive learning environment.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown (Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success) shares some great tips and insights into engagement in virtual training sessions.

Listen to the podcast below to learn more or keep reading.

Know how to cope with distractions during training

One thing that a lot of people don’t consider is the distractions in our learners’ spaces. When we give in-person training sessions, some of those distractions can be pretty obvious. We can pick up on body language. We might see someone grab their phone or even place a laptop on the desk.

While this can be frustrating, it’s sometimes a bit easier to contend with these distractions because we can see them.

But what about virtual sessions? In some cases, we might have employees who aren’t willing to turn on video or audio if they feel uncomfortable. They may need to stay on mute if they’re at home due to noisy children or pets in the background. 

But if there’s no audio or video, how do you read the room? How do you adapt to your learners and spark engagement? Video and audio help to build a connection, but we shouldn’t mandate it if the other person is uncomfortable.

So, what can we do? Perhaps we should think about these distractions before we even start building the content. You could do this in a few ways, which we’ll outline below.

Build your virtual training course with some flexibility

Rather than rigidly planning each course down to the minute, you could instead build it to be flexible enough to suit your learners.

Sometimes we need to be flexible. Rather than planning a course where each piece links nicely to the next, you may want to think about cutting your course into micro sections. When you build storyboards and design the content, you can take these micro sections, move them around, cut them, and still have a valuable course.

This gives you a great amount of flexibility in structuring the content, engagement, and creating much-needed breaks for learners.

When building a course, we need our audience to understand that we’re not there to hold them hostage. We’re there to help them achieve whatever they’re there to accomplish. Being flexible with your content and working your plans around your learners will help develop good engagement and trust.

Be aware of different personas

In most training sessions, there will be three types of people. There are those who are ready to engage, ready to be vocal, and participate.

Then you have a group of people who are a bit slower to warm up to the group, but once they feel comfortable, they will engage.

The third group is those who show up because they’re told to. They don’t want to engage. They may or may not believe they already know everything you’re going to cover.

When training is virtual, it can be a bit more challenging to manage all these personas. We need to think about creating a pathway for everyone to feel comfortable enough to participate.

Consider how you market virtual training sessions

When you are telling people about the session, how do you explain what it is? How do you set expectations before anyone arrives? How we market our courses piques interest, helps you build trust, and also sets some expectations.

When we market our courses, we need to ask ourselves, how can we get people excited about it? How do we get them to want to come and feel comfortable about what to expect?

People prefer to know they’re entering a safe space where there will be multiple ways to interact. Many people will be comforted knowing that they won’t be called on or put on the spot if they’re shy. If people know they won’t be put in the hot seat, they may be a bit more enthusiastic about joining and participating.

Set expectations

Whenever we have a class, we should try to set expectations – not just for the course’s content but also about the rules of engagement and the session’s length.

If we have people in a learning environment who have something urgent going on in their lives or work, we need to balance that. Those people will be distracted, so it helps to break a session into little chunks and set that expectation for the person to work around.

Another good thing about breaking a course into small chunks is that it reduces the temptation to multi-task. During virtual meetings, many people will have different tabs open or read emails when attending virtual training.

Keeping sessions in short chunks and communicating that structure from the start can hold people’s attention a bit better.  We should let them know that we understand that life is still going on and other things need their attention. Building our sessions around that will require a bit of creativity.

Give people permission to contribute

You may be wondering, why do I need to give someone permission to contribute? This isn’t a formal thing, it’s mostly subliminal, and it’s all about group dynamics.

We mentioned above that there are three types of people who show up to a training session. Those who are very vocal and don’t need encouragement can cause a bit of an imbalance. Those in the middle group who just need some warming up may feel hesitant to contribute if the more vocal people are dominating the conversation.

If we don’t consider the different needs of different personas, we could miss a lot of opportunities for engagement. That’s why sometimes a mix of different interactive features can be useful – for example, using polls or reactions on Zoom rather than just waiting for people to jump in and speak.

The more interaction and engagement we get, the more comfortable many will feel to share their thoughts. This can go a long way in developing trust in the group, making a much more productive learning environment.

Being a training session facilitator is a lot to juggle. With distractions and different group dynamics, it can be difficult to get people to engage but setting clear expectations, managing group dynamics, and offering different ways to contribute are great ways to encourage engagement.

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