Driving employee engagement through interactive learning

Employee engagement, a term used to describe the nature of the relationship between an organisation and its employees, is essential for the development of an organisation. Statistics show that employees with a high level of engagement are 21% more profitable to their organisation and will feel a strong connection with the organisation.

In contrast, those who demonstrate a low level of engagement are more likely to leave their job, decreasing productivity and increasing labour turnover.

One of the greatest challenges that HR departments face in modern times is employee engagement. Maintaining employee engagement should be a top priority for any organisation to thrive, and what better way than engaging training?

However, in today’s busy world, traditional training is not nearly as engaging as it should be, and learners easily become “bored” with training, leading to disengagement. The challenge for organisations: how do you foster learner engagement while at the same time also delivering a fun, successful training program?

Fortunately, there are countless ways to provide a successful training solution. One such solution is through the use of interactive learning. Given the times we live in, interactive learning has become more relevant than ever in driving employee learning and engagement.

What is interactive learning?

Interactive learning is an approach to deliver a virtual learning experience that exceeds traditional passive learning where learners listen, view, and take notes and instead use newer approaches such as sound, vision, and touch to deliver extensive interactive learning experiences. Through modern technology and the right training platform, content can easily be customised or personalised to deliver engaging training to your employees, and it offers opportunities for micro and adaptive learners.

By embracing interactive learning and making learning fun and easily accessible to your employees, you can increase employee engagement for your organisation. Interactive learning comprises several benefits, such as engaging, motivating and stimulating employees. Whether it’s an interactive training session on a virtual meeting platform with personalised exercises, or a streamlined online virtual learning environment, packed full of exciting virtual training, interactive training is flexible, fun and engaging.

Statistics on the importance of interactive learning show:

• That 65% of all people are visual learners
• People retain 80% of what they see, 20% of what they read, and 10% of what they hear
• Most people process visual content faster than plain text

Interactive learning is often overlooked because of its “newness” in the workplace. However, you need to employ new learning strategies, such as interactive learning, to improve employee engagement. There are various ways to provide your employees with engaging learning experiences:

1. Create engaging and relatable training content

When employees can relate to a scenario, they tend to be more engaged. Therefore, you should make your scenarios as realistic as possible. Similarly, if the training content is interesting, employees will be more captivated. You can develop engaging training content by using videos, interactive games, podcasts, webinars, animations and many more. Using interactive training content, especially short and engaging videos, are more likely to increase employee engagement than reading documents, emails or articles.

2. Incorporate employee activity

An interactive learning experience requires more than just some text on a few slides. To deliver an impressive interactive training learning experience, you need to include opportunities for feedback, interactivity, experimentation and collaboration. In addition, by offering an interactive experience, you encourage employees to grow and expand their mindset, which allows employees to enjoy a better learning experience.

3. Make it fun

It’s a well-known fact that employees are more eager to learn when they have fun during the process. The gamification of learning content adds a degree of fun and challenge to the learning process and allows you to offer compelling interactive training combined with rewards to the training experience. Studies show that if the lines of learning, work, and play are blurred, interactive training can spark an infectious engagement and improve an employees’ work performance.

4. Incorporate interactive video-based learning

We know the saying, “Sit back, relax and enjoy the show.” However, sitting back while completing training can lead to disinterest. Using interactive videos can be a great way to combat this disinterest and improve engagement. Interactive videos have multiple purposes, such as improving employee retention and providing an immersive experience where employees need to control the outcome based on their decision-making.

5. Provide different interactive training solutions

There are a variety of different materials and mediums that can be used to offer a training solution. These include videos, podcasts, animations, webcasts and many more, making the training more engaging and effective. In addition, a combination of text and visuals help make training engaging and efficient.

A well-designed interactive learning experience can improve your employees’ engagement and increase their knowledge absorption and retention. With all of the benefits listed, improving employee engagement with an interactive learning experience should be your key priority.

Contact Lesson Desk at learn@lessondesk.com for a fun, engaging and interactive training experience, or visit our website to see how we can assist with all of your training needs.