Putting learning to work: 12 ways for L&D to enhance digital learning

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Rachel Sweeney, Marketing Executive

Moving learning online and digitizing content was an inevitable consequence of lockdown and remote working. But how do you make a virtue of necessity and improve your digital learning for the future?

Working assets

The challenge is to get digital, online material, to work for your employees. Being proactive in the development, delivery, and deployment of training makes digital learning more engaging and effective.  It puts L&D on a sustainable footing to build for the future.

Top ways to enhance your digital learning

1. Use learning platforms: LMSs and LXPs provide a repository for a wide range of digital learning assets that can be deployed across devices with mobile connectivity.  They capture learner and performance data outputted in reports and dashboards to give a more accurate view of what’s working (and what isn’t).  LMSs and LXPs support a mix of learning strategies and concepts.
2. Try microlearning: Offering learning in bite-size chunks allows people to learn while they work. This is just-in-time learning that gives learners more control over how they learn and when.  Existing material can be broken down and repurposed and new chunks quickly added to fill any gaps.
3. Create pathways: People have different learning goals and differing levels of experience. Develop personalized pathways that map out learning for individual development instead of making everyone sit through the same training.  Learning tailored to individual needs make it more relevant and more likely to stick.
4. Mix media: Learners respond better when they’re offered it in a variety of formats. Video is a particularly powerful and effective learning medium.  People have become used to watching quick, direct how-to videos on social media. Video records tasks as they are performed and makes learning easier and more accessible.  
5. Experiment with gamification: Learners respond well to challenges. Introducing elements from games like role plays and timed assessment into training programs helps motivate people to learn.  Recognize achievement with digital badges and certificates.  Use leader boards to encourage competition or record personal best scores to stimulate individual attainment. Progress bars allow learners to see where they are and what lies ahead.  Pop-ups with messages can be included to encourage and help sustain them.
6. Use AI: Artificial intelligence helps in the automation of routine L&D and HR tasks such as enrollment, progress tracking, reminders, notifications, certification, and deactivation.  Recommender systems help personalize learning by making suggestions for new content based on the learner’s history and preferences.  Intelligent search enables people to find what they need when they need it.  Chatbots support and mentor learners.
7. Customize: Ensure the digital training you buy can be adapted to suit your organization’s needs.  That can mean displaying the company logo right up to including content and scenarios that are relevant to your business.  Make sure it can be easily edited to reflect changes and repurposed for different use cases. 
8. Increase access: Establish mobile connectivity to ensure that your people can access learning wherever they are on their own devices.  And make the content itself accessible: personalized, relevant to job roles, easily digestible, constantly evaluated and updated, and available in the workflow.
9. Be learner-centered: Always put the learners’ needs at the heart of anything L&D designs and delivers.  Consider what your people need to know and where they need it.  Ask for learner feedback and respond to what the data from your learning platform tells you.  Encourage your people to create their content so that their experiences can be shared.
10. Enable social learning: Being learner-centered is about encouraging learners to be part of the solution.  People need to learn as well as work together or learn.  The social media features of learning platforms and project management apps offer learners a space to collaborate whether that’s by posting messages, making recommendations, or sharing their content.
11. Develop a learning journey: Learning starts at the onboarding stage and continues through compliance and performing.  You need to have a strategy that embraces continuous learning and makes sure your digital learning starts with inducting new hires and extends to up-and re-skilling opportunities for established employees.
12. Evaluate: It’s the final stage of every project but is often neglected.  Build-in metrics and desired outcomes in every piece of training you create.  Use the analytics features of your learning platform to monitor interest and uptake.  Measure the impact on job performance and be ready to adapt and evolve digital learning to meet demand.  

Introducing these elements makes your digital learning flexible, engaging, and ready for the L&D challenges ahead.

To find out more on how you can help your organization move forward to the post-pandemic era, get in touch now.