How to Motivate Employees to Participate in eLearning Training: 9 Tips

Employees already have many tasks and responsibilities on their plate, so motivating and training employees isn’t always the easiest task. Instead of wasting time and resources on boardroom sessions or quarterly offsites, consider eLearning training to help get your employees excited and engaged.

Why Is It Important to Get Employees Excited About eLearning?

There are many ways to motivate employees to attend training, and offering eLearning is one of them. Without the right offerings and training in place, you may lose top-tier talent to your biggest competitors. In fact, 20% of US workers leave their jobs within the first 45 days of being hired.

The better trained your employees are, the more likely they are to remain loyal to your company. It’s not feasible to consistently replace and train new employees, so it’s best to invest in the right type of training that leads to employee engagement.

Here are some benefits of employee engagement:

• Employees who are engaged are generally happier in every aspect of their lives
• Efficiency and productivity increases
• The more engaged your employees, the better the customer service

Barriers to Employees’ Motivation to Complete eLearning Training

Let’s face it: your employees may not always feel motivated to complete traditional training, but eLearning training gives them a unique opportunity to feel excited about learning again.

There are three major roadblocks that stand in the way of motivating your employees to complete their necessary training:

• Not enough time
• The assumption that the information in the training isn’t relevant to their role
• The company culture doesn’t support training

If you understand how to motivate employees for training, it can make a world of difference for both you and your employees. Here are some ideas to get you started.

How to Motivate Employees to Attend Training

Consider the following training incentives to motivate your employees to expand their knowledge.

Ask Employees What They Need

One of the easiest ways to increase employer engagement training is to simply ask your employees what they need. Rather than implementing company-wide training that doesn’t apply to every employee, consider reaching out to your employees to see what can make their lives easier and what they need to complete their jobs better. This is an easy yet thoughtful way to show your employees that you value their time and opinions.

Show Them The Money

Another tactic to engage employees in training is to provide them with financial incentives. Although there are caveats and limitations to this approach, it can be successful if it is implemented properly.

Be mindful that performance may level out or drop off once the monetary reward is received, so be sure to use this approach with caution. It should only be used once every so often to keep your employees on their toes.

Make It Easy

Nobody wants to feel like they are in school again. The training programs you design for your employees should not be overly difficult or complicated. Consider implementing bite-sized learning sessions referred to as microlearning to deliver short, succinct lessons that your employees will enjoy. You can also consider sending push notifications to your employees to remind them to complete each training session.

Make It Mobile

Did you know that the average worker only has 24 minutes of training time weekly? However, mobile learners study an extra 40 minutes per week using their own time. Making your employee training mobile-friendly is an excellent way to entice them to spend more time with the material, making the learning process that much more efficient and effective.

How to Keep Employees Engaged During Training

Not only do your employees need to find time to participate in training, but they need to absorb the material. Motivate employees to attend training and keep them engaged with the following tactics.

Use More Engaging Training Methods

If you’re using eLearning training courses, make sure to add interactive elements such as triggered animations, navigation buttons, drag-and-drop exercises, etc. You can also incorporate quizzes or games into your training material to help your employees interact with the material in a more meaningful way. Although it seems simple, interactive content will be significantly more exciting for your employees and helps them retain the information better than simply reading text on a slide.

Make Training Part of Your Company Culture

Consider the last time that a leader at your organization participated in a high-quality training session. Leading by example can demonstrate your willingness to participate in training and emphasizes their importance to your employees. This mindset proves that if you’ve been at the company for one day or for one decade, participating in training regularly is the standard and something that all employees should embrace.

Personalize Your Training

Perhaps the biggest reason your employees quickly abandon their training programs is the fact that they’re studying a topic that they already know very well. In reality, who wants to sit through lessons on topics they are already experts in? Instead, try to pinpoint the knowledge gaps that your employees have and build training sessions around them. This can offer more guidance on subjects they may not know about, enticing them to stick around for more.

Give Employees Time and Space to Train

It’s not feasible to ask your employees to use their own personal time to spend on training. Although it may not be your company’s intention, asking this of your employees insinuates that you don’t value their personal time. Factor in the necessary amount of training time into your employees’ schedules or you’ll quickly realize you’re doing more harm than good. The last thing you want is open positions that you’re scrambling to fill.

Tie Training to Promotion and Advancements

Motivate your employees to attend training by tying the training to promotions and monetary bonuses. Those who see a clear path forward and know how to level up in their careers will likely stick around your organization for longer. One way to do this is to work with your HR department to formalize training that employees want to take.

Start Motivating and Training Your Employees Today!

With a few small tweaks and the right custom eLearning courses from Allegro Media Design, your employees will grow to love training again. For more information on how our team can help, make sure to fill out our online form, we’ll be in touch soon!