Why e-Learning Motivates Employees

By 2025, 75% of the global workforce will be millennials (anyone who reached adulthood by around 2000). And if you don’t think that’s significant in terms of your business, you couldn’t be more wrong. Millennials are practically a different species – or at least a mutated version. They’re so different because they’ve been weaned on technology; it’s second nature to them, like breathing. This has altered the way they think, learn and process information. According to Bentley University’s PreparedU Project, Gen Y is highly ambitious too. Knowing all this, plus the fact it costs an average of £16K to replace a millennial, it’s worth knowing that e-learning motivates employees and helps to retain them.

Thirst for Knowledge

Whereas many of the previous generation saw gaining a degree as the end of their education, Gen Y sees lifelong learning as a no-brainer. With the world’s knowledge at their fingertips, they have become information junkies, seeking out continual fixes for their addiction. This extends to the workplace, which means if you don’t offer regular CPD, they’ll leave their job faster than you can say Skillsanywhere. Offering opportunities to gain new skills and knowledge relieves boredom and lets them know they’re valued, which are powerful motivating tools, particularly as these employees are hungry to climb that career ladder. Knowing you value both them and what they do will have a direct effect on productivity. But even if you do offer training opps, the content and method of delivery is crucial for engagement and completion.

Delivery and Content

The key requirement to training Gen Y is flexibility. They need to learn on-demand, from multiple devices, whether they’re tech-savvy or not. Staff should be able to learn via their phone or tablet, wherever they have an internet connection – and even when they don’t. Sharing content and receiving support via a mentor, coach or forum is vital, both in and out of work. Delivering training in bite-size bursts via concise modules of content is perfect for millennials. All this means you will need an adaptable LMS capable of handling these requirements.

Content needs to be well-written, relevant and tailored to an individual’s needs. If it’s passive and one-dimensional, you’ll find engagement is low. You need to turn traditional learning documents into a fun and interactive elearning experience, including video, quizzes, images, text and even games. And if research on GRN is anything to go by, gamification is now a hot feature in training content, which is why it’s increasingly used in corporate modules. It makes sense, as Millennials relate to scores and playing for rewards, whether coins, avatar features or getting to a new level. Social media is also an integral part of Gen Y, so why not let them share their achievements / scores on Facebook or Twitter? By allowing them to get a virtual high-five, you’ll raise self-esteem and create better overall relationships with your employees.

Encouraging your employees to be productive and happy in their jobs can and should include perks such as acting on their suggestions and mentorship, but the key thing to remember is e-learning motivates employees by developing their skills and knowledge. Find out how Webanywhere can take the guesswork out of creating innovative content for your CPD training.