In the age of AI and technology, training and development strategies need to be agile, innovative, and aligned with the evolving needs of your learners. As a recent college grad and newbie to the corporate workplace, I thought it might be interesting to directly hear that perspective.
Don't be passive.
I remember one of my first training experiences was when I was still in college and I swore to myself that I’d never work in the restaurant industry again. I got my uniform and was shown around, only to be sat in front of a computer for the first two days of my employment. I wasn’t learning how to take inventory, manage the floor, or any of the daily tasks that needed to be done for the upkeep of the store. Instead I was watching training videos for hours on end.
It’s understandable that videos and passive learning is the most efficient way to present your employees with the essential information to get started, but is it the most effective way?
In a generation that grew up around the rapid advancement of digital technology, it isn’t enough to make cartoonish videos and expect your employees to be engaged. You need to create interactive content that allows your employees to engage, learn, and ask questions. Leveraging interactive content fosters a culture of continuous learning and offers opportunities for upskilling and reskilling regularly. Interactive quizzes in the forms of knowledge checks can be customized for adequate accommodation of various learning styles. By leveraging gamification for a heightened learning experience, your employees will feel both motivated and provide better results overall.
Gamify your interactive experiences.
Your employees likely all learn differently at different times. A one-size fits all approach should no longer be the industry standard. That’s called “good enough” and by no means is that what we’re trying for. Create an adaptive learning model to respond to the user’s input and adjust the difficulty or style of content accordingly. When this approach is mixed with interactive quizzes and assessments with instant feedback, your learners will be engaged and gain a deeper understanding of their progress. More importantly, make your learning experience fun! It doesn’t have to be hard. Simple motivation techniques like leaderboards and badging will give learners the sense of accomplishment and achievement.
Fish Food for Thought
Did you know that goldfish have an average attention span higher than humans? Since 2015, the average attention span of a human is 8.25 seconds…and that was a statistic taken almost 10 years ago. No wonder it’s so hard to keep your learners and audience engaged. The rise of short form videos has definitely worsened these attention spans as a whole, and contributed greatly to the generation of attention deficit.
What does this mean for learning content? It means you’re constantly fighting to re-attract your learners’ attention. How do you do this? It’s actually simpler than you think. Bring an interaction (a click, a choice, etc.) to the scene, or change up a design (maybe a new animation) from the usual learner flow and break up your learning experience into micro-sessions.
Find the recipe for success.
At CredSpark, we don’t think training has to be viewed as a chore. With the right approach, your learning and talent development programs can not only produce the actionable data and outcomes you need, they can actually enhance your employees’ experience and contribute to a vibrant, learning-focused corporate culture.
We specialize in both gamification methods for motivating employees, alongside micro-sessions for breaking up your learning experience. For every micro-concept, CredSpark lets you add 1-2 question checkpoints with feedback to generate further understanding and insight. Pretty cool, right? We think so, too. Reach out and let’s talk about gamification.
