In an increasingly tense context, the question of Learner engagement is central for training professionals. It makes it possible to make your modules attractive and effective, and thus, to remain competitive against your competitors.
The rise of digital learning, and in particular of Blended Learning, in addition, encourages the participant to be more and more active in their learning. The creators of devices Learning Must now Put the student at the center of their educational paths.
Learner engagement is therefore a key element. in the construction of your training courses. But what exactly are we talking about? And how do you develop it in your business? We answered all of your questions in this article!
The new challenges for businesses
Over the past few years, The job market is changing. Between economic crisis and recruitment difficulties: human resources managers are not spared.
This is reflected in a tense competitive climate between companies. The objective? Get THE talent before your competitors. Candidates are aware of this situation and formulate more and more specific requests, sometimes difficult for businesses to satisfy.
So the challenges of the coming years for recruiters are:
- To make talented people want to join their teams by focusing on the employer brand;
- To welcome new hires properly through a complete onboarding;
- To succeed in keeping these employees over the long term, by offering a real increase in skills, adapted training or internal mobility programs;
- To encourage these employees to become ambassadors of the brand, and develop a strategy”Employee Advocacy”.
Faced with these new challenges, recruiters may feel overwhelmed. It is a completely normal reaction! However, this evolution of the economic context also offers new possibilities.
The impact of digitalization on corporate training
The change in working methods has brought a lot of changes in business. And among them, the digitalization of vocational training.
Training managers had to adapt to the new demands of their teams. Goodbye top-down learning, in the classroom, with a physics trainer. It is now time for digital training! But what does that mean?
- Innovative tools for apprentices and trainers
- Digitized classrooms : 100% remote (with e-learning) or hybrid format (in Blended Learning).
- The evolution of the role of the trainer who becomes a learning facilitator (rather than a single source of knowledge)
- Varied supports : on a tablet, mobile, or computer (with the Mobile learning)
- Shorter formats and adapted to these new mobile learning materials.
These changes are causing trainers to adopt a different teaching approach, which is also a challenge for learners who need to adjust their learning methods.
How can you maintain your motivation under these conditions? How can we assimilate all these concepts remotely? This is where learner engagement comes in!
What is learner engagement?
Since its theorization, learning engagement has always been complicated to define accurately. Basically, it's about the involvement of the learner in the learning process. So this concept is closely linked to Learner motivation. To put it simply, it would be about the time and energy he devotes to all the educational activities offered to him.
But when is learner engagement considered? Can registering for a training course in itself be considered an act of commitment? Yes. If the participant has registered for a module himself, his commitment is already recorded.
However, commitment may also include: A continuous dimension, involving intellectual, emotional and social investment throughout the training.
What are the characteristics and challenges of learner engagement?
Characteristics of learner engagement
The commitment calls for cognition, feelings and personal relationships, thus mobilizing specific mental processes. But how do you assess it in your business? There are several factors to observe.
First of all, check the relevance of your training in relation to the expectations of your learners. If they find meaning in what they are learning and in achieving their goals, it's a win.
Then, make sure that your participants are experimenting with new teaching methods. This is generally a good indicator of their commitment. Moreover, this goes hand in hand with their autonomy!
Within the learning community, strong relationships are also a positive sign. Exchanges of ideas and experiences, knowledge sharing, collective emulation, desire to move forward as a team: observe all these behaviors.
Then ask yourself if your learners are able to take a step back from their training path and if they apply the knowledge they have acquired.
Finally, the desire of your teams to push their limits and to Seek the help of colleagues to acquire new skills testifies to their investment in training.
Why is learner engagement essential for businesses?
Commitment to training is not only an advantage for the learner. It is also a real strategic lever for the company. Engaging your employees allows:
- To optimize The return on investment of your in-company training.
- To gain a competitive advantage significant
- To notice motivated candidates, looking for opportunities for improvement
- To obtain individual performances and increased collective
Investing in the active participation of your employees in their training is also a very good way to involve them fully in their development. They are no longer in a passive position, with a hierarchical relationship between trainer and learner, but are actively involved in their learning. It is this subtlety that will make it possible to obtain much more significant results in the long term. So, what role should the trainer play in order to accelerate learner engagement?
The role of trainers in optimizing learner engagement
The importance of the relevance and quality of your training
To ensure optimal learner engagement, trainers and managers play a central role in the creation of relevant and high quality training programs. Relevance is crucial because it ensures that the content of the training is applicable to the professional context of learners, thus generating interest and a better participation rate.
The quality of training, for its part, is based on effective teaching methods, interactive supports and frequent evaluations. By investing in quality training, trainers and managers contribute to creating an environment conducive to lifelong learning and professional development.
Blended Learning and Mobile Learning: Flexible Solutions for Engagement
Recourse to Blended Learning, (hybrid face-to-face sessions with online modules), as well as at Mobile learning, (training on all types of media) offers flexible solutions to stimulate learner engagement.
These approaches allow better accessibility to training courses. They adapt to learners' time and location constraints. In fact, they are very good solutions. for teams in the “field” (salesmen, workers, cooks...)!
These methods also incorporate interactive elements and online discussions. They thus promote active participation and strengthen The impact of training programs. These are good ways to meet the diverse needs of learners while optimizing their engagement!
5 steps to strengthen the engagement of your learners
1. Define your learning goals
To measure the level of learners' engagement, you have to make sure that they understood The challenges of vocational training and that they are motivating for students.
It is also essential to set deadlines to promote activity. In fact, autonomy and motivation are strongly linked to the concept of time. Thus, by setting deadline dates for certain activities (and making them meaningful), the level of learner engagement will increase.
2. Involve the group
In a learning process, the concept of group is important, at the level of participants but also at the level of hierarchy.
First of all, Involve managers so that they participate in the development of concrete operational objectives. Proximity to learners is also a way to strengthen learners' engagement.
Then, in any learning process, It is important to fully understand the influence of the group on the motivations of the learner. Its extrinsic motivation symbolized by a parallel progression of the group, and an intrinsic motivation that is found in belonging to a learning community and asserting itself as an individual within it.
3. Know the learner
Today, the time allocated by learners to training programs has been reduced. According to a Bersin study by Deloitte, The time spent by a learner on a video before dropping out is 4 minutes. He accesses the training from his PC, tablet, smartphone and can develop a culture on many topics using various formats. It can also express themselves publicly or within targeted communities in relation to resources found on the web or courses taken.
Training must therefore consider the “learner of today” in order to remain relevant and to understand the expectations, behaviors and relationships to information of each person trained.
4. Use the game and gamify its content
Modern pedagogy involves integrating games into one's training plan. This technique is used by many training organizations that use games as educational materials despite the many assumptions that are still present in some companies. However, The game remains the first source of commitment and motivation for learners, whether it's creativity workshops, face-to-face role-playing games or online games like Serious Games.
5. Use collaborative work and peer coaching as levers of engagement
It may be interesting to apply The principle of Peer coaching, a method of acquiring skills that is the result of the intersection of two other methods: coaching and Social Learning. In this method, each individual takes on the role of coach for one of their peers in order to help them develop their skills. The implementation of this pedagogy thus makes it possible to build learning communities which will last long after the last day of training.
What to remember
In an economic crisis context, learner engagement appears as a crucial strategic lever to ensure the competitiveness of businesses.
Commitment, although complex to define precisely, finds its essence in The intrinsic motivation of learners. Numerous studies show that this commitment promotes meaningful learning.
To improve learner engagement, you can follow these 5 key steps :
- Set clear goals
- Promote the involvement of the group
- Understand the specific needs of each learner
- Integrate gamification elements into training
- Encouraging collaborative work
These elements act as essential levers to stimulate engagement and create a favourable environment to dynamic and participatory learning.
