Factors To Consider Before Formulating Your Nudge-Learning Strategy

Nudge-Learning Strategy: Key Points To Consider
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Summary: In the modern-day workplace, L&D stakeholders have a greater and bigger responsibility than ever before. The need of the hour is to help employees by providing them with effective learning solutions that cut through the noise.

Integrate Nudge-Learning Into Your Organization

Nudge-learning, indeed, has the potential of solving some key modern-day workplace issues. But before you get into formulating your nudge-learning strategy, it is imperative to consider the 7 key aspects listed below.

1. Differentiate The Sound From The Noise Early In The Game

At times, it is very easy to get buoyed by trending fad words. Simply the fact that the sound of nudge sounds interesting doesn’t imply that you have to jump on the bandwagon. Nudge-learning could be a good way to solve challenges, but it is important to identify if it fits in your organization’s overall learning strategy. The question to ask is, "Is it good enough to solve a specific challenge for you, your team, and your organization?"

2.Tie It With Your Organizational Goals

Ensure that you have identified the sweet spot for implementing nudge-learning in your organization. Some questions to ask here would be, "Is it solving a particular business challenge? Can the outcome of nudge-learning be tied to any organizational goal(s)?" One such case that exemplifies this comes from Google, wherein they nudged their managers with bite-sized content to foster a psychologically safe team culture. They called it the "whisper" courses.

3. Don’t Overlook Change Management

If nudge is something new that you are planning to implement in your organization, then the last thing you want to do is overlook change management. In principle, the majority would recognize that change is necessary. They might support it theoretically. But once it comes to the implementation stage, you can expect to hit a wall of resistance. So, before you go down this path, it is important to strategize about how you aim to bring about this change with a majority buy-in.

4. Leverage The EAST Framework

The Behavioral Insights Team came up with a framework known as EAST (Easy, Accessible, Timely, Social) as a simple way to apply behavioral insights. You need to look for ways that help you successfully leverage this framework. It literally has to be as simple as it sounds—easy, accessible, social, and timely. This framework talks about making the learning accessible, as easy as possible, in a timely manner, and with the flexibility to collaborate socially.

5. Define The End Goals And Key Performance Indicators

Since you have already contemplated about what you want to achieve with nudge-learning, set the strategy up for success by clearly defining these goals. Relevant, specific, and well-defined goals will take you one step closer to achieving them. Goals are also an important component of monitoring success. The right performance indicators defined at the outset will help you determine how you are performing on your goals.

6. Find Your Sweet Spot

It is important to find your organization’s sweet spot to implement nudge-learning—an area that can create substantial business impact and has measurable results. Let’s take the case of Virgin Atlantic and see where they found their sweet spot. They used nudges to steer pilots toward conserving fuel, and it produced results. Simply informing pilots that they were participating in a study of fuel usage was enough to save about 3 million pounds and reduce carbon dioxide emissions significantly. The Virgin case demonstrates that people don’t need a shove to adopt desired behaviors. A nudge can be enough to achieve the desired results.

7. Don’t Overdo It

An important principle around which nudge-learning pivots is the principle of least coercion. Remember that the success of nudge-learning lays in the fact that it is not intrusive. It allows the modern-day learner to learn in the flow of work. We should respect this and ensure we do not overdo it.

A lot is already out there in the context of nudge that has been successfully practiced. You can simply build upon it. Just pick and choose what suits your situation best. To know more or to have an insightful discussion around nudge-learning, you may reach out to the Harbinger Interactive Learning team. Harbinger has been instrumental in building and implementing nudge-learning successfully for many global organizations. Feel free to share your thoughts, suggestions or any other factors you might want to point out through the comments below.

Originally published at harbingerlearning.com.