To help you drive eLearning engagement in your own remote space, we spoke to Angeliki Bekyra, a customer success associate for TalentLMS, the training platform designed to help great teams grow
How remote work changes the rules of eLearning engagement
Many companies have been thrown into a learning lurch. COVID-19 has forced many companies to quickly switch to a remote model, leaving little time for business leaders to prepare. But even seasoned remote companies can often overlook the ways remote work changes engagement. Angeliki draws from her experience with TalentLMS clients to lay out two areas where the remote environment impacts engagement.
In-person training methods may no longer work
Simply put: Traditional in-person, face-to-face style training sessions don’t always integrate well into a remote environment. According to Angeliki, this has manifested in a few ways.
While companies going remote were moving their training online, their initial thought was to train users with video-conferencing tools such as Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams. But companies soon realized that online training shouldn’t mimic the original on-site experience.
As a result, what started as video calls slowly turned into webinars and complete virtual training sessions. Instructors were now not only able to train learners but also assess their knowledge, monitor engagement, and check metrics that would help them understand what works and what doesn’t.
Rewards drive remote learning engagement
“Remote experiences require digital solutions. And digital solutions thrive when rewards are present,” Angeliki noted.
A rewarding experience is one that gives satisfaction and brings benefits. It’s something alive that you have to feed consistently. Luckily, in this digital world, you can easily set up the process.
You can create a rewarding learning experience through the gamification of courses or entire learning systems.
How L&D pros can create engaging training in a remote workplace
Traditional in-office training methods alone won’t work in a remote training environment. Couple this with the importance of a rewarding experience, and you’re left with quite the task: creating an engaging training environment in a remote workplace. Fortunately, Angeliki has the secret sauce.
Level-up training with gamification
One of the best ways to motivate your learners and increase eLearning engagement levels is to offer them “battle-tested” gamification techniques: points, badges, levels, leaderboards, and rewards. In fact, a survey from TalentLMS revealed that 89% of people feel they’re more productive when gamification is present.
“You set up gamification once and let it do the work for you. Users will receive congratulatory messages for logging in, badges for completing courses, leaderboard rankings to compare their performance to others, and so on,” Angeliki says.
Humanize eLearning with video
It’s easy to lose the human element when dealing with remote environments and eLearning. Angeliki says to use more video to add a human face and element to your training program. This could be in the form of a live-action video training course, animation, or a one-on-one follow-up session with your team.
Not only will videos make your eLearning experience more human, but videos also drive engagement. For example, Angeliki told us one client at TalentLMS used only presentations and traditional content in their learning hub. Their engagement was just shy of 12%. Earlier this year, they replaced their content with videos. The result? A 55% increase in engagement levels. This TalentLMS dashboard shows just how much the addition of videos can help with engagement
Here’s an example of a spy-themed scenario created for cybersecurity training:
This video is available as a template here.
Webinars are another type of content to consider here. Webinars allow you to do a deep dive on a topic while maintaining the human element. During a live webinar, it’s also possible to see your viewers and determine who’s engaged, who might be struggling, and who has questions. This gives webinars an agency traditional videos lack, making them an ideal format for complex topics.
Follow remote training best practices
According to Angeliki, there are several industry-standard remote training best practices to follow. For starters, initiate conversations with your audience either through your training platform or during a training session—training shouldn’t be a one-way road.
It’s also important to send reminders—or market your training— to keep the training spirit alive. Training (yes, and friendship) is like plants: If you don’t water them, they die.
Lastly, follow these additional best practices to ensure you’re creating eLearning content that your team engages with, and to keep from falling behind others in your niche.
Drive engagement with thoughtful LMS features
Companies and training providers should keep in mind that learners are human beings. And like all humans, they appreciate emotions like excitement and eagerness. The right LMS will empower you with the features you need to create and host powerful and engaging eLearning materials.
Angeliki points out that a feature-rich training platform can make use of emotional drivers like these in TalentLMS:
- Videos: Instructors can search and use YouTube videos, upload their own material, or even shoot a video directly on the platform. This makes it a total cinch to incorporate video content.
- Instructor-led training (ILT): ILT is a conventional training method where an instructor conducts the lesson in a virtual environment as though they were in a classroom. Learners are notified in advance about their upcoming session and attend without switching tools.
- Notifications: “Notifications,” is one of the most commonly used TalentLMS features. Notifications makes it possible to track inactive users and send an email to re-engage them.
- Interactivity: Sharable Content Object Reference Model (aka SCORM), cmi5, and xAPI are much cooler than they sound. Think of them as very interactive presentations, which include clickable links so users can navigate the course’s environment while listening to audio or even watching animations.
- Gamification: Points, badges, levels, leaderboards, and rewards. You set them up once and let them do the work for you. Users will receive congratulation messages for logging in, badges for completing courses, leaderboard rankings to compare their performance to others, or even discounts when they reach certain points or badges.
Animate your courses and engage your audience
Remote work—voluntary or not—may have changed how we measure, track, and improve engagement, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. TalentLMS makes it easy to store your courses and serve them to your audience in a fast, reliable way. Pair TalentLMS with a powerful animation tool like Vyond to create videos and drive record engagement for your eLearning courses.
