Organizations may invest a lot of money on employee training and development. However, if their learners don’t find the courses challenging enough for their liking, they’ll quickly disengage. So, what does that mean to the company? Learner disengagement means wasted L&D investment. On the other hand, employees who are fully engaged with their training not only display greater knowledge absorption and application, but they also stay longer with the company.

But how do you get learners to engage with their training?

Creating engaging learning content

Here are six proven best practices, to foster learner engagement, that L&D teams should consider when developing eLearning courses:

  • Interactive videos: A great way to promote learner engagement is through an interactive video format. The general approach to eliciting engagement via this format is by encouraging learner reactions to video content you create around course topics.

How to do this…

  1. Require learners to view an online video, and then pose questions around the content they’ve just heard/viewed.
  2. L&D professionals may also use audio podcasts (in lieu of video content) to provoke similar learner engagement.
  3. Pause the video and ask a question that must be answered to resume the video. This could be selecting an object displayed in the video, such as a specific component of a device or a button on a software screen.
  • Interactive assessments and quizzes: Use interactive quizzes at multiple stages of the course – not just at end-of-chapter or module end milestones. Engagement often requires interaction between instructor and audience. The more frequently such interaction occurs, for instance by asks questions throughout, providing feedback at multiple points in the course, providing guided/discovery tours related to the subject matter at hand, etc., the greater the level of audience engagement.

How to do this…

  1. Build interactive quizzes around recently acquired knowledge, and allow learners a finite amount of time to answer the questions.
  2. Use a mix of point-and-click game formats (e.g. click one of the doors, numbered 1 to 5, to get a hint or click on image); and drag-and-drop games as end-of-lesson and end of module quizzes.

Renowned consumer products giant, Proctor & Gamble (P&G), uses a version of an online interactive assessment to screen prospective employees for certain skills.

  • Scenario-based learning: Learning theory might interest some, but there’s nothing more captivating to your learners than understanding how their (theoretical) knowledge applies to the real-world. Linking learned knowledge to real-life work situations stimulates immediate engagement amongst most learners. Instructional design teams must, therefore, strive to link course topics to relevant real-world scenarios.

How to do this…

  1. Build scenarios around a real-world work situation that learners will return to upon completing a course – for example, production issues on the factory floor, or continually declining sales revenue of a business division.
  2. In an article titled “Strategies for Learning from Failure”, Harvard Business Review (HBR) recommends building a learning culture around failure. Creating scenarios around past (actual) failures, and soliciting suggestions and recommendations on how to avoid such failures in the future, invariably brings learner engagement to the fore.
  3. One novel way to engage learners is through hind-sight analysis using real-life situations. Though no one likes headline-grabbing notorious tragedies, these situations create engagement opportunities for trainers. L&D professionals could create scenarios around them to produce “teachable moments”. Case in point: Many companies use the Boeing 737 crashes to deliver broader business lessons for their employees.
  • Foster learner “curiosity” and self-exploration: Successful engagement doesn’t necessarily mean you (the trainer) communicating or interacting directly or indirectly (via pre-recorded video content) with your audience. Trainers can foster learners’ engagement by offering content that stimulates curiosity and stirs a desire for deeper self-exploration of a topic.

How to do this…

  1. Build your content around end-to-end learning stories. For instance, how to move from invention discovery, through filing a patent and setting up a manufacturing facility – that learners must interact with. Providing links to useful resources, like the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), or asking learners to search a database to confirm patent status, forces learners to engage with the story.
  2. Embed additional links within your content, to external resources, that learners must explore first, before continuing their journey within your course. This approach forces the learner to embark on a quest to arm themselves with the appropriate (external) knowledge that’ll ensure they progress to the next stage of their learning journey with you.
  • Build engagement through simulation: Simulation, using an approach that takes a situation from one environment (say, a production line or an operating theatre) and “approximates” it as realistically as possible in another (say, in an online training program), is a great way to interact and engage with learners. Simulations challenge learners and engage them in a safe environment that limits the risk, cost, and consequences of failure.

How to do this…

  1. Create role-playing scenarios where learners play opposing roles to gain insight into how others think, react, or respond. For instance, a course on Sales Techniques might have salespeople play the role of prospective customers to help sales teams empathize with their customers’ needs.
  2. A course on software configuration and support might present learners with various use cases, bugs, and issue scenarios, with the objective of training learners on how to assess, troubleshoot, and resolve the issue.

Technology company Dell Computers uses simulation in its training labs to support customers’ training and certification programs.

  • Gamification: When training content gets monotonous, learners tend to disengage. One way for L&D teams to make learning exciting and engaging is by introducing game-based content into the curriculum. Gamification is also a useful way to leverage social and collaborative learning.

How to do this…

  1. Create learning content based on a multi-level quest (maximizing profits, uncovering a problem within a process, etc.). As learners “solve” one leg of the quest, award them points or scores for their accomplishments.
  2. Use multi-player and team-based games to deliver learning objectives. For instance, a business course might have teams of learners compete against each other to create the most efficient business plan. Awarding badges and the use of leaderboards fosters engagement with the learning environment.

In the real world, NTT Data uses its game-based training, called The Ignite Leadership Game, to train its future leadership team on must-have skills such as negotiation, communication, time management, change management, and problem-solving.