Creating engaging online courses for busy employees is not that complicated. You just have to make sure that your training courses are focused and curated enough to catch their attention.
According to reports, 8 out of 10 HR leaders revealed that employee experience is very important to the success of their organization. To improve this experience, these HR leaders are making an effort to invest in training, better workspaces, and providing rewards. Of the three, it is in training that organizations will be focusing more.
When you train employees, the organization will benefit from the improved knowledge and skills that they will develop. However, there is one thing that you need to consider. How can you engage them if they are too busy completing their daily tasks? How can you ensure that they will go through the course with their full attention and commitment?
Here are some of the things that you might want to do.
Give time to process information
Cognitive overload is a serious problem in elearning. If you want online courses to be successful, you need to avoid this. Giving employees enough time to process the information they just learned is a great way to avoid this. If they are busy, it might seem like a good idea to cram everything in a short time. But that usually backfires so try not to do that. Give them the right dose of information and allow enough time for the lesson to sink in before proceeding to the next.
Be clear on its real-world value
If you want busy employees to pay attention to your online courses, you have to make sure that they understand the value of the lesson in the real world. If they think it is not valuable, they will not give it the time of the day. It has to be more valuable than their daily tasks. It is usually a good idea to relate it to their usual work. How will it improve their daily routine? If you can point out how it can make their lives easier, they will be more willing to engage in the online courses.
Allow the learners to explore
Another thing that you need to consider is giving employees time to explore. Make sure the instructions in the course are clear. Not only that, allow them to go back and forth in the lesson. This will allow them to go back to lessons that were not clear. Not only that, you should also give them links to resources that will help them learn more about the course. Provide links to interesting topics that will increase their knowledge about the subject. Encouraging them to gather information on their own will help develop lifelong learners out of them.
Provide feedback
Whether it is good or bad, you need to give the learners constructive feedback. If they made a mistake, let then know and guide them on what they should do to correct it. If they did something right, then use it to encourage them to learn more about the topic. Make the feedback personalized – it is more effective when phrased properly.
Make it accessible
If you have to choose an LMS for your online courses, make sure it is accessible. While you want them to concentrate on the course and limit it to desktops, you have to remember that your learners are busy employees. You have to give them the option to access the course through their mobile devices. Most of the time, new learning management systems can be easily converted to mobile courses. Make sure you take advantage of this.
To create engaging online courses for busy employees, it is important for you to get to know the employees. This is how you can create the perfect course that are valuable and relatable to them.