How To Align Your eLearning With People-Centered Goals In Just 3 Steps
We’ve all come across eLearning that induces eye-rolls and furious clicking, just to get to the end as quickly as possible and get that box ticked. There are a lot of sad things about this situation. For one, the wasted time for the individual and the business. Also, the experience will have had no lasting impact for the individual (or business) other than to create a skepticism about the next eLearning course that comes their way. That doesn’t sound like a people-centered experience that’s been designed with the needs of the user and the goals of the content in mind!
So how can you produce eLearning experiences that genuinely motivate, engage, and enthuse people? Experiences that deliver real and positive impact for both individuals and the organizations they work for? It boils down to getting a good handle on the goals of your project or strategy.
Get the 25-point checklist to see how your team could be more people-centered.
How Do Personal Learning Goals Fit With Your Business Goals?
It’s common knowledge that an organization can only be as effective as its people. Supporting your workforce and equipping them to meet tomorrow’s challenges is key to remaining competitive and successful.
Taking a people-centered eLearning approach to this challenge starts with getting clear on the business goal and working back to identify where and how eLearning can help.
3 Questions You Need To Ask About Every New Project
- What exactly are the business goals?
What is the business trying to achieve and what does that look like? This could be anything from filling a leadership skills gap to growing recurring revenue from existing customers. - How can eLearning help with this business goal?
Not everything can be solved through learning (although a lot can). Even where it can help, it may be only part of the solution. If you want to increase recurring revenue from your customers, it could be that you need additional products or services to offer. But it could also be that your account management team could get better at identifying and developing opportunities to grow accounts. The latter is an area where some great eLearning could help support people in a way that clearly aligns with the business goal. - How can you ensure your eLearning makes a difference where it matters?
Ask why. Asking why will help you get to the crux of the issue. What exactly is it that’s getting in the way of success or progress? Once you know what that is, you’re able to look at what people need to do or know to start moving the needle on the business goal.
Sticking with the account management example, it may be that the team is unclear on the signals that show an account may be ready for an upgrade. Helping them to spot these flags in conversations or in how people use the product, will help to open up more upsell conversations.
Once you know the answers to the above, you and your team will be in the best position to plan learning content that makes a difference in a way that will have the greatest impact.
Get Real With Your eLearning Goals
If you follow the 3 steps above for each of your projects, asking ‘why’ at every stage, it will become clear that each piece of learning content will be different.
Remember that producing people-centered eLearning may not always be the practical "how to do X better" type courses. You may also identify that to really have an impact on organizational goals, your eLearning could make the greatest difference in areas like employee motivation or encouraging a culture of reflection.
A Final Tip
Don’t make assumptions about your audience—get insight and feedback about how you can best help them, from them.
And if you’re confident that you’re having a big impact on those all-important people-centered goals, it’s also important to demonstrate this value to key business stakeholders. Here are 2 useful resources:
