Industry Research: Engage the Disengaged Learner

In Intrepid’s “State of High-Stakes Learning” 2019 survey of over 1,000 learners, the overwhelming majority of respondents, 90%, gave positive answers to the question “What’s the relationship between your personal development and the company’s critical business initiatives?” This is great news! And comes despite CLOs admitting that nearly ¼ of them don’t actively communicate this link at all (State of High-Stakes Learning Survey in conjunction with Human Capital Media).

 

However...more than a few learners said things about the relationship between personal professional development and the organization’s bottom line along the lines of:
 

 
Collaborative online learning experiences — with plenty of opportunity for peer-to-peer interaction and learning — can help give these folks the feeling that the company not only cares enough to provide quality learning experiences but can easily explicate how individual roles contribute to the overall business picture.
 
Take a global consumer goods manufacturing firm in the midst of launching a bold new strategic plan. The challenge for L&D: to deliver the change initiative details to every professional in the company so that they understood how to execute it in their everyday jobs—and felt empowered and excited to do so.
 
The company’s leadership was clear: they didn’t just want to “launch” the strategic plan, but to truly drive employee adoption of these changes throughout the entire organization. So, the learning team wrapped third-party business school leadership content with company-specific context and applied learning in order to drive the concepts home.
 
For example, the CEO himself was an advocate of the program. His vocal support and enthusiasm highlighted, within the course content, the criticality of the culture change the company was working to create. Motivation and prestige were added to the business school’s rich content by incorporating recorded video segments from other senior executives relating to each module’s focus. Company leaders also served as online community coaches by participating in discussion forums for each module, answering questions, pre-recording video segments, providing general support and, most importantly, encouraging learners to complete the program.

The program’s assignments were also entirely about applying learning on the job. Each module concluded with a mission challenging learners to transition insights gained throughout the course into tangible action, such as a written plan detailing the steps they will take to implement new learning, share insights with their teams, and make real change in their segment.

Discussion forums centered on real work too. For instance, one discussion thread called “What Keeps You Up at Night?” asked employees to reflect on what aspects of the business strategy concern them most.

This program not only won 2 CLO Gold Learning in Practice Awards (Excellence in Learning, and Excellence in Technology Innovation) and a Silver Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning award (for Best Program Supporting a Change Management Transformation Business), but garnered learner feedback such as:
 

“Very well done, best training I have ever participated in. Every aspect of it was relevant to what we need to be doing everyday.”
“Love the opportunities for interaction... really engaging!! Thank you.”
“I am a face to face person...but got everything I needed this time.”
“I have already gained insight into the drivers of the business and I am looking forward to the next module. I can see where this learning will help my decision-making process in the future.”

Talk about engagement with the company’s new strategy and goals! Employees, management, and executives noted an immediate cultural change in day-to-day approaches based on learners’ new understanding of the company’s big picture. Not just from already-engaged learners, but all learners.

A leadership development cascade such as this example is just one way that quality online learning can engage the disengaged. Although it’s true that most learners understand the link between their personal development and the organization’s goals, don’t leave any disengaged employees behind—give them intuitive, contextualized online learning options and see those “we’ll soon be a well-oiled machine!” responses roll on from all fronts!