5 tips for L&D Professionals to Address Roadblocks in Creating Effective Learning Programs

It’s not easy being an L&D professional.

As companies want employees trained for skills they should have hadyesterday, it is upto L&D teams to satisfy the learning and development goalsat the speed of innovation.

Besides, every learning initiative has to get a resounding endorsementfrom senior management, steady involvement from managers, and engagement fromlearners. While all this is already challenging, the pandemic hasn’t made lifeany easier!

As an L&D professional, you may be putting your best foot forward to survive in a rapid-growth climate, but it’s easy to lose sight of the priorities. In this blog, we bring to you 5 of the best tips to overcome the recurring obstacles and create an impactful eLearning program:

1. Offer Personalized Learning Experiences

In the era of Netflix and personalized content suggestions for everything from food to shopping, modern learners no more want a “one size fits all approach” in anything and that includes training and development. As L&D professionals, you can get a lowdown on the unique expectations and needs of learners and create employee training courses that are personalized for them and are centered around their goals. Today’s workforce is also well aware of the skills they need to advance and are eager to take up the courses that will help them get there.

How to do it:

You need to focus upon creating on-demand courses in engaging formats like video to help employees meet their professional goals.

2. Leverage Social Learning and Knowledge Collaboration

Learners these days often depend on social media for garnering knowledge. While formal training is important, it also helps to bring in informal learning initiatives that encourage sharing of knowledge. You can leverage social learning tools that enable learners to interact with their peers and colleagues to get direct answers which will create a culture of learning and knowledge sharing across the organization.

How to do it:

Tools like discussion forums, social networks, internal podcasts and other interactive ways are what can set your courses apart from the non-engaging content.

3. Explore Mobile Learning

Mobile learning is increasingly becoming a popular way to deliver and access employee training initiatives through mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Employees are a busy lot today and mobile learning offers a host of benefits, particularly to remote workers. Giving learners the ability to access learning content anytime, anywhere allows them the chance to engage with flexible learning as per their convenience in a location and time that suits them. People can complete their training on-the-go, at home, while travelling or any other time they think is suitable. Learning via mobile devices helps people learn at their own pace and in their own style.

How to do it:

‍You can leverage the benefits of mobile learning that allows to incorporate diverse media like videos, visuals, podcasts, quizzes etc. in training and development programs which can help create content to suit different learning styles.

4. Incorporate Gamification in Learning

One of the more preferred employee engagement strategies that has emerged in recent years is the gamification of learning. Since most people love playing games, gamification aims to use game-like modules in learning initiatives to achieve learning outcomes with some fun formats. Applying gamification techniques to learning solutions can touch different emotions in learners like engagement, sense of achievement, improvement and perhaps a bit of healthy competition. Employees who dislike training and development programs that are slow and boring will find gamified learning much more fun.

How to do it:

‍Gamified learning allows an efficient combination of storytelling, exploration and investigation to spark the interest of learners.

5. Deploy Microlearning videos

Using videos to create learning content is nothing new in today’s L&D world. But it’s pointless to include long, boring and bland videos that hardly generate any interest among learners. The key is to use Microlearning by deploying short, crisp videos that are far more effective than longer ones. Microlearning is a strategic learning and development approach that moves away from traditional, long-drawn training sessions and instead focusses on specific learner content delivered through short bursts.

How to do it:

Less than one to 10-minutevideos that are easy-to-digest work great for learners whose attention spans are short.

In Conclusion

When done right, an L&D strategy has the potential to fetch good ROI, increased engagement, and enhanced employee productivity. You can consider incorporating the above-mentioned tips into your learning strategy to accomplish key business goals and drive organizational change through learning.