Top Ten Tips for Learning - on National Learning at Work day

Thursday 17 May is National Learning at Work day, with events promoting Learning at work happening across the UK. Here at Lumesse, to support the day, we’ve created these Top Ten Tips for Learning to help and encourage business to make learning fun and relevant:

Motivating and engaging employees through learning – 10 Top Tips from Lumesse

1) Make learning social – Make learning fun and interactive through a community, whether you have a classroom, e-learning or blended learning approach. Use social networking to connect remote learners and share knowledge, experience and results.

2) Know your learners – one size does not fit all. Understand your learning community, how they want to learn and what motivates them, because people learn best when they are comfortable with the learning environment. Build up a menu of learning models that include learning for IT-phobic as well as IT-literate staff.

3) Keep it simple, keep it easy – User engagement should be your primary focus at the start of your learning in the workplace journey. Developing a learning interface that is clear, simple, easy to use and ‘wows’ your learners is the key to engaged learners.

4) Think about the channel – Design your learning content to reflect the learning environment. What works in the classroom may not translate into an engaging e-learning programme. For example, if you’re building a mobile learning module, keeping it short, sharp and punchy will make it effective.

5) Learn like a child by making it fun with gamification – research shows that children learn quickly because game-based learning strategies are powerful motivations for education. It helps make learning compelling and engaging – adults are competitive too. Earning points, simulation, role playing and opportunities to win prizes aren’t just strategies for the kids!

6) Celebrate success – motivate and engage further learners by promoting key achievements within the learning community that encourage others to follow suit or complete an e-learning assignment.

7) Use mobile learning for quick wins – Short learning courses designed for smartphones and tablets, such as quizzes and games, can be developed specifically to push out to the learning community to reinforce your core learning programme.

8) Create an experience, not just a course – make your learning an entire experience and not a one-off course. Create an online and offline learning experience that is stimulating, easy to navigate and visually compelling.

9) Keep it relevant – Adult learners appreciate immediate relevancy, so create learning that can be applied right away day-to-day work life. Learning taken and not applied quickly by the learner is wasted learning.

10) Keep it personal – Remember that adults have a breadth of experience, so ensure learning includes extra resources for personal exploration. Videos, podcasts, resources and references provide an opportunity to construct knowledge in a way that is personal for each learner.

And finally – Don’t do learning for the sake of learning – align learning with your employees’ goals and personal development plans.