4 Ways to Improve Employee Engagement Through Learning & Development

Posted by Sophia Duplin

  1. Create an in-house Knowledge Base & Media Hub
  2. Build Excitement with a Guest Speaker Series
  3. Offer Certificates
  4. Implement Leader-lead Development

 

Informational Graphic for Improving Employee Engagement

 

Employee learning  and development should be a high priority in all levels of your company, especially as you evolve and appeal to a young, vibrant workforce. A staggering 87% of Millennials rate “professional or career growth and development opportunities” as important to them in a job. 

 

We are living in a world of free information, and the employees that are driving your business growth expect to be given information to them in a timely, relevant and easily accessible way. Both your company culture and your employee retention rely on Employee Training & Professional Development

 

Within this world of free information, your employees will expect that you not only offer these services, but that the content is quality and important. Providing your employees with strategically-curated learning and development will improve their engagement in their work, loyalty to and productivity for your organization. There are three types of learning webinars / webcasts that you should take note of. Below we’ve outlined 5 ways to improve your employee engagement through learning and development. 

 

 

1. Create an In-house Knowledge Base & Media Hub

You want your employees to be absolute experts in your industry and on your company’s brand, products and services. An easy and efficient way to share that knowledge is to create an in-house Knowledge Base or Media Hub

 

A Knowledge Base is a central location hosted either on your company’s website or a white-labeled external website that has OnDemand content for eLearning. These Knowledge Bases can have sequential learning modules to teach a specific skill or develop expertise on a topic. Your Knowledge Base can also have recorded versions of keynote speakers or professional development workshops that your organization has previously hosted. Track your employees’ progress as they work through your content and maybe even offer them a Certificate of Completion when they are finished. 

 

Check out our blog on Building a Better eLearning Course to learn about how to make your Knowledge Hub as effective as possible. 

 

Media Hubs are very similar to Knowledge Bases, though they often have less emphasis on sequential learning. A Media Hub, or Media Library, is a central location to host your multi-media for OnDemand viewing. Think: video, audio, images, podcasts, webinars, PDFs, slide-decks, brand tool-kits etc. Your employees can have access to all your branded content on a Media Hub, and it will allow them to understand your company’s brand, history, products and services. 

 

Media Hubs avoid the one-size-fits-all model of professional development. You can diversify the content you host and give your employees the opportunity to choose what they would like to learn about, which will keep them interested and engaged. 

 

The ability for OnDemand viewing of this content makes professional training and development extremely accessible to your employees. They can spend a few hours a week or a month educating themselves on your in-house content. When employees are feeling a lull in their productivity or are thirsty for new information, you should meet their needs in that exact moment. Offer instantaneous and accessible services in your Knowledge Base or Media Library. 

 

2. Build Excitement With a Guest Speaker Series

It’s exciting for employees to have the opportunity to connect with industry thought-leaders, professional experts or novel entrepreneurs. These people can bring fresh perspectives and an invigorating energy that can tend to any feelings of disengagement from your employees. 

 

The Manifest outlines 5 Benefits of Hiring Guest Speakers: 

 

Informational Graphic of Guest Speaker Benefits

 

Consider hosting your guest speaker virtually, or in a hybrid setting. Hosting a speaker on a webinar allows you to curate speakers without geographical boundaries. For larger or remote organizations, you are able to broadcast your speakers to all of your employees. For smaller organizations, you can host viewing parties in a conference room during lunch hours. 

 

Build excitement and momentum with these guest speakers by creating a webinar series. Think: the third Thursday of every month your organization will get together and receive an expert lesson on diversified areas of knowledge. 

 

Virtual, or hybrid presentations make it easy to record the content and save it for OnDemand viewing in the future. These recordings can be hosted in your company’s Knowledge Base or Media Hub. 



3. Offer Certificates

There’s nothing a Millennial loves more than posting their life accolades on social media. Give them reason to post on their LinkedIn with Certificates and knowledge endorsements. Working in conjunction with your Knowledge Base, Certificates are the tangible and official accreditation that proves expertise on a specific topic. Certificates give your employees something to work towards and something to be proud of. 

 

Incentivize your employees to hit benchmarks on learning your content and achieving certain certificates. Award or formally recognize employees who are excelling in the content.  Incorporate Certificates into your official training process and get your employees used to utilizing your in-house content from the get-go. 

 

Utilizing a professional development-centered Learning Management System like BeaconLive can help you customize specific requirements for accreditation, track users and issue automated certificates. By using an LMS like BeaconLive, you are also able to incorporate assessments and interactive features. 

 

Consider creating a Continuing Education Strategy for your organization, and work with a CE platform to host all aspects of your professional development in one centralized location. 

 

4. Implement Leader-lead Development

Employees no doubt look up to the leaders of their organization. The experience, passion and expertise of company leaders is often inspiring to employees. However, the goldmine of knowledge from company leaders is often not shared with the rest of the company. 

 

Consider hosting Professional Development sessions hosted by company leaders. Have them explain the company’s founding story, their individual career journey or share wisdom in their area of expertise.  

 

Your employees will feel more connected to your leaders. Leader-led professional development will instill a sense of belonging and loyalty to the brand. Giving your employees a direct and colloquial communication channel to your leaders through Lunch N’ Learns, Fireside Chats or Workshops will make them feel inherently more connected to the brand and more engaged in their work. 

 

Are you interested in offering Virtual or Hybrid Professional Development experiences to your team? Do you want to build an in-house Knowledge Base or monetize your valued content? BeaconLive can fully manage this process in its entirety. Our Team will help you create customized, White-Labeled content. We will help you track your users & issue Certificates. Contact the team at Beaconlive to get started. 

 

Related:

10 Tips for Engaging Your Virtual Attendees

6 Pro Tips to Humanizing Virtual Events


 

Topics: CE Library & Knowledgebase, Certificates, Continuing Education, eLearning, Online Training, Professional Development, Training & Development

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FAQs

What is effective employee engagement?

A productive and lasting relationship between managers and employees can only be achieved through a balance of helping skills, like empathy for example; as well as protective authority. This means that you need both to effectively assist those who are in need while still keeping yourself safe from harm or manipulation.

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is a sense of purpose, belonging and commitment to an organization. Motivation comes as the willpower or drive to act on those feelings in pursuit of it but only if there's engagement first! Employee engagement gives employees their best work opportunity while motivation fuels them with energy needed for action.

What are four types of employee benefits?

Benefits for employees have been traditionally categorized into the four major types: medical insurance, life insurance retirement plans and disability. However, what benefits do they value most? Some experts say that it is time to create a fifth category called "wellness".

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