How To Increase e-Learning Utilization

A candid look at why people aren’t taking your training

It’s a common question that trainers have … “People aren’t using the e-learning resources that we’re providing. How can we get them to actually take courses?”

This is the wrong question. The right question is, “What do we need to do to make our e-learning more valuable to employees?”

This is a tough-love situation. You have to sit down with your training team and be candid with each other. Look at what you’re offering. Really look at it. Why don’t people take your e-learning? Perhaps … because it’s terrible. Or it’s unappealing. Or supervisors don’t support training. Or maybe all of the above. 

You know what the most demoralizing training experience is? Seeing a notification in the corner of an e-learning screen, “Slide 1 of 122.”

You can provide employees with a giant library of 10,000 courses, and tell management about all the training that’s available. But if the instructional design is screen after screen of boring click-and-read content, then you might as well have nothing.

Look at your usage statistics. There are organizations with thousands of employees who have access to this type of library, yet they’re generating less than one hundred course completions annually. Nobody takes the courses, even if the content is spot-on, because they’re terrible.

The research is clear. The most engaging type of e-learning involves integrating the instructor with the content in a video delivery. It’s what people are used to seeing on their screens. So take a lesson from the Evening News or YouTube and create short, people-centric videos. Duplicate the feel of a live presentation with your e-learning, only with a familiar video format.

Next look at the titles of your e-learning programs. Do any of them look like gotta-have content? Or is it a bland list of topics?

Trainers often chunk up content and present it from their point of view rather than the learner’s point of view. Trainers provide big-picture topical programs rather than activity-based useful programs. The problem is … employees don’t want to become experts on the psychology of conflict, for example. They want to know exactly what to say to angry customers.

It’s the difference between a course titled “Conflict Management for Service Reps” versus one titled “What to do when someone’s yelling at you.” One addresses a topic. The other addresses a task. Which one of the two courses is more appealing to you? Which one are you more willing to fire up and complete?

Employees have defined responsibilities. Specific events are happening to them. When there’s a learning need, it’s because there’s something they have to do and they don’t know how to make it happen. So show them how.

Again, it’s the YouTube philosophy—one task, one video. Get out of the training topic business. Start figuring out what your employees are struggling with, and then provide them with targeted, task-oriented training that specifically helps them do their job better, faster, or easier.

Research indicates that one of the biggest reasons for the failure of training is the lack of support from your learners’ supervisors. They view training as a distraction, time off the job that doesn’t deliver any benefits. Plus, many times supervisors don't even know what’s being taught, so they definitely can’t coach it.

And worst of all, because of this, supervisors tend to extinguish any new behaviors their team learns. The moment subordinates try a new skill and it doesn’t work perfectly, they get their shins kicked by the supervisor. So learners never try it again, and there’s no transfer of learning to the job. Your training, even if it was done perfectly, was a total waste.

Look again at your title list. If you have a “Conflict Management Skills” e-learning title, then where’s the 90-seconds or less supporting e-learning program for supervisors titled “How to coach conflict management skills?” There you give a brief summary of the content or process, and offer some coaching tips. That’s essential if you’re going to have any sort of transfer of learning.

Then it’s a process. When employees sign up for the main course, you then ping their supervisors to watch the associated coaching course. If supervisors have already completed it, great. If they haven’t, you can track their viewing and follow up accordingly.

When an e-learning program is done properly, you don’t have to beg anyone to complete it. In fact, you know you’re doing something right when people are banging on your desk demanding, “When do I get access to those programs?” And their supervisors will be telling you, “My people need access to those programs!”

When that’s happening … when you’re delivering a clear value to the learner, when you’re communicating that value to employees and their managers, and when you’re helping managers reinforce what you’re teaching, then you’ll no longer be asking yourselves, “How can we get people to actually take our e-learning courses?”