5 Ways to Ensure Employee Engagement With Online Training And Development Programs

Improve Employee Satisfaction During Online Trainings

Authentic employee engagement during online training and development takes serious work. Training and development is essential in creating a motivating workplace culture with an emphasis on learning. But did you know it also impacts employee retention? 

According to a recent Gallup survey, 40% of employees will leave a job within five years if they do not receive high-quality training and professional development opportunities. 

If you are responsible for developing training and L&D sessions, you have the critical job of mastering employee engagement strategies to ensure your professional development is effective and well-received.

An overwhelming 87% of millennials feel learning and development opportunities are crucial for a positive employee experience and prevent disengagement with its mission. This means if you do not provide ample, meaningful training and development programs, your employee turnover rate may skyrocket. 

Elearning is a popular choice when it comes to L&D because it makes professional development sessions more accessible and enjoyable. These training sessions are delivered through an online learning management system and customized to fit your employees’ needs and your company’s goals. 

However, with so much time spent in front of a screen, chances are your employees are apprehensive about participating in online training. You’ll need to brush up on your employee engagement strategies to ensure your virtual professional development is a hit. 

Take a look at five ways to increase employee engagement as you create an action plan to implement your learning and development sessions online.  

1. Make Learning And Development A Team Effort

The best way to create engagement is to make learning and development a shared endeavor that brings employees together. You can accomplish this by bringing everyone together in one virtual event, even senior executives, creates a ripple effect that makes front-line employees feel valued and improves employee motivation.

Teamwork promotes a culture of openness and trust amongst employees, and you can build this connection with a successful online training program.

You can make your online event enjoyable and educational by enlisting subject matter experts within your company to help design and lead training sessions. 

Who better to lead your training session on the customer experience than your employee with the best customer service rating? 

Introduce online training activities that develop the ability to collaborate towards a common goal effectively. Use engagement initiatives, such as a themed learning week, to connect different departments and create a company-wide culture of engagement, making L&D exciting for all involved. 

2. Identify the Value of L&D

Unlike in the past, employees at your company or organization have shifted to a continuous learning journey rather than just being the product of one’s education. There is an increasing demand for businesses to provide plentiful opportunities for personal and professional development. 

Now is a great time to meet the new demands and embrace learning and development (L & D) opportunities as a means to increase employee engagement while boosting employee retention and nipping absenteeism in the bud. 

When communicating with your employees about professional development, start with the learning sessions’ goals and share these skills with future-proof the company and their careers. 

Ensure everyone is on the same page when it comes to the importance of learning and development. 

3. Don’t Offer A One-Size-Fits-All Solution

None of your employees are the same, which means you need to differentiate your learning and development strategy to meet all employees’ needs. Administer an employee engagement survey to gauge what learning and development sessions will be well received and plan accordingly.

Offer personalized training courses and the freedom to select their own learning experience. Some employees may prefer a course that allows them to learn at their own pace, while others may want live interactive training programs. 

4. Track Progress In A Meaningful Way

Although this concept seems simple, tracking progress during learning and development is an essential but often overlooked tool for increasing productivity and improving business outcomes. When employees see their progress, it keeps them engaged in their learning and company role. 

Using a virtual professional development platform is an easy way to provide progress tracking. Some easy ways to track learning and development progress are: 

• Dashboard displays Of Finished Content And Certificates 

• Tracking Of Individual Progress 

• Printable Certificates 

• Quizzes, Questionnaires, and Surveys 

Tracking progress through a virtual platform that offers transparency and a noninvasive way for human resources to monitor employees’ progress. 

Keeping an eye on employee progress also allows managers to see which content has been completed and suggest personalized content. 

Because most of these methods are automated, it frees up time for you to focus on creating specific training content rather than printing, signing, and distributing certificates. 

Also, offer achievement incentives by rewarding top performers to increase motivation and encourage professional development. Simple rewards, gifts, or even simple recognition in front of other team members boosts an employee’s self-worth and shows they are valued by their company, which increases engagement. 

5. Use Technology To Enhance Employee Engagement

If you are delivering learning and development sessions online, you are already making use of technology. But how can technology make your professional development more engaging? 

While they are there for the learning experience, it doesn’t mean the fun is off the table. Try some of these engagement strategies to capture your audience’s attention: 

• Gamification: Plan at-home scavenger hunts, trivia games, or incorporate AR-style competitions to make learning fun. 

• Virtual Networking Opportunities: Events like virtual happy hours or a virtual lunch bunch are great ways for employees from different departments to connect and engage. 

• Multi-Media - Incorporate training videos, slideshows, images, PDFs and other interactive multimedia. 

• Social Media: Using your company hashtag, have employees interact with social media through photo contests and prompts like “Two Stars And A Wish.” A bonus is you can track interaction through your hashtag for valuable engagement data! 

Think outside the box when engaging employees online. Providing engagement opportunities in conjunction with learning and development ensures your session’s takeaways are meaningful and lead to employee satisfaction. 

Create Engaging Online Training And Development Programs With BeaconLive 

To increase employee engagement, companies must find new ways of showing their staff that they are the central pillars of the company’s success. Elearning offers flexible, easy-to-track ways for employees to learn new skills while engaging with its mission. 

Offering learning and development online provides the outline for recognition and growth while showing employees that you value their time and efforts. You need a platform that makes online training programs easy to plan and manage. 

Partner with BeaconLive to produce, manage, and issue online PD with automated accreditations, certificate delivery, and user progress. We offer many features that will make the planning process more manageable and engage your employees. 

We help our customers manage content for your audience and offer professional and seamless content delivery and tracking. Our live HelpDesk staff is always on call to help with any IT issues you or your employees may face. 

Contact us today for more information on creating engaging training and development programs that will bring your company to the next level.