Choosing The Most Suitable Approach For Successful Behaviour Change In The Workplace
Here are 3 of my favourite strategies to help your training make the all-important jump to changed behaviour!
1. Use Learning Campaigns
A campaign is a technique borrowed from marketing. It focuses on consistently delivering small chunks of information over regular intervals. This is just perfect for the modern learner!
What Are The Advantages Of Learning Campaigns?
- They’re ideally suited for microlearning
Breaking bigger content up into smaller chunks allows you to maintain engagement with the learning campaign for longer. You can keep releasing new pieces of training and keep the fire of engagement alive! - They’re habitual
Learning campaigns introduce behaviour change by using the method of pattern release. Releasing content at a regular time and day helps build a relationship with your learners, and they’ll soon come to expect content at that time. - They're perfect for mobile
On average, we check our phones every 12 minutes. Mobile phones rarely leave our pockets except to sit on our bedside tables. This makes them the perfect tool to use to communicate with your learners! - They help reinforce knowledge
The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve tells us that we forget 50% of what we learn within an hour, 70% of what we learn within a week, and 90% of what we learn within a month. So, what can we do to fight the "forgetting curve?" We can use the power of knowledge reinforcement! Every time we reinforce information, the rate of decline reduces. You can reinforce through a method called spaced learning. This is where regular breaks are woven in between learning, ensuring the brain strengthens the knowledge before it’s forgotten.
2. Reinforce Your Training With Social Learning
Social learning is the bridge between knowledge and behaviour change. It’s also one of the key pillars of employee engagement along with personalisation and gamification. The celebrated psychologist Albert Bandura developed the theory of social learning in the latter half of the 20th century. He proposed that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. This is an idea that is shaping Learning and Development. Creating a knowledge-sharing culture is a powerful way to not only share knowledge, but create new knowledge within your organisation. When learners come together to discuss topics and learn from each other, everybody wins! But there’s more! The more learners discuss topics, the more likely the topics are to stick in their brains. The continued repetition will help your learners in their fight against the forgetting curve.
How Can You Use Social Learning To Drive Behaviour Change?
Do you want to implement a strategy for behaviour change using social learning? Try using a social learning app that gives space for learners to share their insights on a newsfeed. You can use this functionality to create communities where employees can discuss their training. You can use this feature to create spaces for your team to discuss the learning campaign that’s going on. You can even ask your Subject Matter Experts to champion your cause and regularly share helpful information! Another bonus of a knowledge-sharing culture is that anyone struggling with a problem can ask for help. This means that your learners can get the help they need precisely when they need it!
3. Engage Learners With Gamification
Gamification is the process of applying game mechanics to non-gaming environments. It’s a research-based approach to design that is used to supercharge engagement. These mechanics are known to release feel-good chemicals like endorphins and dopamine in the brain. These feel-good chemicals keep your learners coming back for the sheer pleasure of training. No wonder gamification is such a powerful way to engage learners! The more regularly learners come back, the more training they will complete and the longer the information will stick in their brains.
How Can You Use Gamification To Engage Learners And Drive Behaviour Change?
Behaviour change takes time. This is why you need to make sure your learners keep returning to your training platform. To keep learners coming back you need to be certain they’re engaged! The key to applying gamification is to make sure that you add as much fun as possible. Explore every avenue of your training and ask yourself the question: "How could I make this more fun for my learners?" Here are some ways you can do just that!
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Badges
Use a training solution that lets you reward your lovely learners with badges whenever they achieve something! Whether your learners have watched a video or logged into the platform for the 100th time, badges delight learners however they’re earned. Badges not only make learners feel appreciated, but also evoke learner curiosity. When learners know there are badges to be found, they might go exploring for more.
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Points
On the very best gamified training solutions, you can attach points to anything and everything. This will keep learners on their toes and tap into that inner animal competitiveness everyone has.
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Leaderboards
What is a gamified learning solution if it doesn’t have a leaderboard? 90% of mobile games include a leaderboard, so you can see how popular they are. Leaderboards tap into that competitive quality we all have, they’re a hugely effective engagement tool that spurs us to keep playing.
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Battles
Battles are learner versus learner quizzes that drive competition like nothing else! You can drive behaviour change with battles by using the power of reinforcement. As employees battle with different members of the team, they’ll find that the questions are repeated on a regular basis. This repetition is what will drive the change in behaviour.
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Streaks
A streak is the process of repeating actions to gain a reward. A perfect example would be a coffee shop stamp card, which inspires you to return a handful of times in a row in order to claim a free coffee. Streaks on a learning platform can offer you the same kind of incentive. Depending on your goal, a streak can be a hugely effective way of changing behaviours. They encourage learners to log back in and complete more training. This helps establish neurons in the learner’s brain, which helps change learner behaviour.
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Game Templates
As a kid, did you always dream of designing your own computer games? Well, now you can fill that lifelong desire using game-based authoring tools! You can create platform games, racing games and other arcade favourites for your employees (and yourself, obviously). You can even create game templates directly related to the training in question. These strategies can help you change the behaviour of your learners. But ever since mobile usage overtook desktop usage, mobile training platforms became the obvious choice for behaviour change strategies.
Final Word
There are tonnes of different strategies you can use to drive behaviour change. My favourites are learning campaigns, social learning and gamification. I love them because I've used them time and time again, and I know they work. They're incredibly effective! Of course, there are lots of other approaches you could test. Find an approach that works for you and your organisation. In our eBook Behaviour Change in the Workplace Using a Mobile Learning App, we outline even more strategies you can use to drive behaviour change. If you want to find out how you can drive behaviour change in the workplace then download the eBook today! It's packed full of actionable tips and helpful advice.
If you still haven't had enough and you want your training to really impact your business, take part in the webinar: "How To Improve Performance & Unleash Potential: A Guide To Behaviour Change Via Microlearning Apps". Growth Engineering will break down how you can improve the performance of your staff. You’ll also learn all about their proven model for changing behaviour and unleashing the potential of your learners using a microlearning app.
