eBook Release: Behaviour Change In The Workplace Using A Microlearning App

Behaviour Change in the Workplace Using a Microlearning App
StunningArt/Shutterstock.com
Summary: As an L&D manager, you are often looking to change a work culture for the better—sometimes, the goal is to help adjust a specific individual's behavior. And preferably, that behavioral change would have a permanent effect instead of a mere temporary one. But how do you make it all last?

Taking Your Behaviour Change Journey To The Next Level

The change that ensues when a methodology of behavioural change is exercised or a successful strategy has been applied, is generally characterized by changes in thinking, interpretations, emotions, and, ultimately, by a change of actions. The question of how to facilitate processes of change and change management so there is a significant shift in the long term remains. Because we all know what constitutes transformation, and we all know what desired behaviour outcomes are. Changes in behaviour are realized easier towards negative behaviour than towards a positive one. Saying that employee behaviour change for L&D is important is, perhaps, the biggest understatement one could make. You could go as far as saying that the only and most meaningful goal of L&D within an organisation is, in fact, behaviour modification! It's a complex topic and contains several layers of significance. It's very complex to understand how behavioural change is realized.

eBook Release: Taking Your Behaviour Change Journey To The Next Level
eBook Release
Taking Your Behaviour Change Journey To The Next Level
uncover the science of behaviour change and learn how you can use it to supercharge the impact of your training

About The eBook: Behaviour Change In The Workplace Using A Microlearning App

If what you do—the visible action of your doing—can be observed by another human being, we could go as far as saying that this determines and defines behaviour, from conducting very basic behaviour for everyday interactions required and attained to achieving business goals and helping people get their jobs done. This is why employee behaviour change is so important. If you want the goals of training to be realised—to have a meaningful impact on your organisation and to have a long-lasting effect—you need to understand extremely well what is necessary for your employees so that they can adjust the way you do things. It goes without saying that employee behaviour change is much easier said than done. You can’t simply put on an educational movie, or give one lecture or speech to later install a new behaviour which is everlasting. You need time and lots of (preparation and) repetition to be able to guarantee a progressive change.

As GE puts it:

Employee behaviour affects everything inside and outside the workplace. (In fact, it just affects everything!) It affects how employees fit in with company culture, it affects employee engagement, and it affects motivation levels.

If there is an inability to adapt, that will inevitably mean it (the product/company) will cease to exist. If an organisation proves to be unable to help modify the behaviour (and the performance) of its employees, it doesn't provide a very solid base for the future. It's setting yourself up for failure. Whereas if you encourage a work mentality amongst your employees that’s open to change and willing to work at it, it will undoubtedly help your organisation achieve their goals.

What It All Means And Entails

This eBook does a great job of observing the different ways that behaviour and implementation of change can positively impact your business. Amongst other things, they elaborate on three specific ways that employee behaviour change impacts business.

One of those ways is that it increases happiness in the workplace. Growth Engineering proclaims that investing in staff training is a great investment altogether. The indirect Return On Investing in your employees is that they will feel more empowered. They will feel more confident and stimulated to take more proactive decisions. This behaviour change will, in turn, help decrease sick days, staff turnover and staff tension. Who loves doing something they aren't good at? No one. So educated, empowered and enabled staff are indefinitely going to give it their all.

The second, indirect result of investing in staff training and realizing it is a great investment is because it increases profitability. Let's say you have a high performing sales organisation, a transparent and stimulating strategy towards change of employee behaviour saves money, as it means they are twice as likely to provide ongoing training compared low performing ones. This is because training changes behaviour and improves effectiveness!

Besides the metric of profitability and happiness, there are also very significant fluctuations in relation to time. A substantial change in the management of time can dramatically improve the efficiency of your team. Let's say, for instance, that an employee wastes a significant amount of time, dealing with IT issues. You could design a training course which enables those employees to alternatively spend precious time on work instead of solving issues at hand, heads on. Across an organisation, this can have a dramatic effect on profitability.

Perspective Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

Now that we have a clear perspective on what the valuable contribution of employee behaviour change is, we can take some time to have a look at the consequence of not being able or not willing to implement behaviour change. So what happens to an organisation on a macro level if employee behaviour never changes?

Let's say you worked at a company which, against all odds, decided to never change and always stick to their old customs of work. No new innovation, no desire for behavioural change, very slow computers, smoking in the workplace and so forth. An organisation which progresses along with time will have all the advantages of not being stagnant. As stagnancy causes decline, to put things forcefully, the fact that you have progressed along with ideas surrounding work culture and behaviour change will mean there will be a considerable shift and positive effect for the company.

Halfway the eBook, the author digs deep into the 6 stages of behaviour change:

They cover all 6 stages, which are the following:

  1. Pre-Contemplation
  2. Contemplation
  3. Preparation
  4. Action
  5. Maintenance
  6. Relapse

What Growth Engineering does on the level of employee behaviour change is that they, as research-backed learning experts are focused on creating engaging online-training solutions that result in meaningful business impact. In this case, offering a mobile learning app to realize employee behaviour change.

Be The Behaviour Change That You Wish To See In The World

Mobile apps have become an essential part of our everyday lives. We use them for every aspect of our lives; private, social, work-related, efficiency, goals. We pay bills, book taxis and much much more. There is a world of knowledge which we can access through our phone. Humans are always eager to learn new things. If there are apps that can be used to drive behaviour change in the workplace, it sure is helpful to be able to filter out which one is the best. Whether it’s an app for mastering a different language, or an app to teach you the complexities of a particular science, wherever there’s an appetite for knowledge, there’s a learning app.

Some learning apps can be used to drive behaviour change in the workplace. If you want to know how effective they are, and how they can be used to maximum effect, then I would strongly advise you to take a look inside the eBook Behaviour Change In The Workplace Using A Microlearning App!