Anyone can make music, but only John, Paul, George, and Ringo had the chops to write the record-setting, game-changing hits they did. The same goes for eLearning. Anyone can make a course, but it takes something special to craft training that learners love and inspires change. Want to amp up your eLearning courses? Take a cue from the Fab Four and use this playlist of eLearning best practices to make better training that gets better results.
I Want to Hold Your Hand
eLearning best practice: Establish clear learning goals up front. No decoder ring needed to figure out what John wants in this song. Take a cue from him, and give your employees clear learning goals. Connect the dots from goals to jobs so employees know exactly how eLearning benefits them, whether it’s getting new clients or extra cash in their pockets.
Act Naturally
eLearning best practice: Talk like a human. Robotic corpspeak is a sure-fire way to send your employees into a learning coma. Be conversational to avoid a training snoozefest. Say money instead of capital. Change do not to don’t. Make a point with five words, not 15. Everyday language is the stuff of great training.
A Day in the Life
eLearning best practice: Infuse your eLearning with your company’s culture. Personality-filled content engages your learners and makes them feel part of something unique and exciting. Welcome new team members to the family by sharing your company’s mission, values, or an inside joke or two. Is microwave popcorn your office pet peeve? Call it out in an Our Story 101 eLearning, and offer a cash reward for the first employee who invents an odor-eliminating microwave.
Come Together
eLearning best practice: Weave in activities to practice new skills and behaviors. Learning doesn’t exist in a vacuum, nor is it a one-and-done thing. Discussion and application are necessary if your training is going to stick. So after you introduce content through an eLearning, bring hands-on training into the picture. Have employees role play a tough conversation with a customer or pitching a proposal to a prospect. After they wrap up, have them discuss what they learned from the activity and how they’re going to put those lessons into practice on the job.
Help!
eLearning best practice: Encourage learners to collaborate with their peers. Sometimes the best training comes from a peer who’s been there, done that. That’s why it’s important to give your team the opportunity to learn from each other. Let those who have mastered a key skill or behavior take the lead and share their expertise with their colleagues, whether it’s offline or via your social learning management system. They can even step up and participate in peer mentoring. No matter the method or modality, this collaboration will increase your training’s overall stickiness factor.
I Am the Walrus
eLearning best practice: Find outside-the-box inspiration for creative eLearnings. Not sure what this song means? Neither do we, but it’s pretty catchy (goo goo g’joob). The Beatles sought inspiration in more ways than we’d recommend, but you don’t have to study transcendental meditation in Bangor to get creative with your content. Borrow ideas from that legal thriller you’re reading to spice up a compliance eLearning, or visit your favorite ice-cream parlor and take notes on the service. You can’t force inspiration, but you can look for it everywhere. Make space for it. Be open to it. Because when you do, you’ll be on your way to wowing your learners with delightful training. At Unboxed, we get by with a little help from our friends. What do you think it takes to make training stick? Share your Fab Four-inspired eLearning best practices in the comments below.
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