Leveraging Mobile Learning To Increase Engagement

Leverage Engagement Via Mobile Learning
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Summary: Mobile platforms are where users spend their digital time. If you want user engagement, you have to meet them where they are. When you want to leverage engagement via mobile learning, it’s important to ask yourself: What problem can I solve for my employees using this platform?

Why Mobile Learning Is The Future Of Engagement

Mobile learning is clearly all the rage; we can hardly get through a conversation about eLearning without mobile learning coming up at least once. All the major LMS companies offer mobile learning options. Not only do users enjoy mobile learning, but it will become incredibly necessary. According to CNBC [1], 72% of people will access the internet using only their smartphones by 2025.

If you’ve already mastered engaging users on more traditional learning platforms, it may be frustrating to devise ways of capturing the attention of users on mobile platforms. But the reality is that technology is evolving at such a quick rate that the way we engage learners is also going to evolve continuously over time. Now is the time to learn about this incredible mode of learning. Knowing the best way to engage users involves a lifelong learning approach.

How Does Mobile Learning Reach Users?

As the shocking statistic above proves, the way people access the internet has come far from logging into a desktop computer. Tablets and phones of all kinds and sizes have become a major way people access online content. Pew Research Center [2] states that 85% of Americans own a smartphone. What’s even more surprising is that more than half of Americans now own a tablet.

Smartwatches, like the Apple watch, are another—albeit limited—way people connect to the internet. While it’s unlikely people will be completing learning modules on smartwatches, people will likely become more dependent on smartwatches to receive notifications and reminders. This is important to keep in mind if you want users to keep up with learning deadlines.

Even users who have access to a laptop or desktop might not be able to access them reliably. These types of devices are often shared amongst family members. They are more likely to have consistent, around-the-clock access to their personal mobile devices.

Mobile device usage makes it clear that if you want to keep consistently reaching users, you need to find them on their smartphones and tablets.

Mobile Learning Gives Users Agency

One of the biggest draws of mobile learning is that training can be completed anytime, anywhere. Some companies see the benefit of that right away. However, other companies might be thinking, “What’s the point? Employees can just complete the training at work when I tell them to complete it. There isn’t much need for training to be completed elsewhere.”

However,  this is missing one of the great ways that mobile learning can engage users. Mobile learning increases workplace flexibility. Flexibility is becoming one of the more important factors employees look for in a workplace. The past year has proven that more employees love working from home because of added flexibility. Employees can give their children more attention, do laundry on a slow day, or work from their favorite coffee shop. They can travel while working during the day, which gives employees more opportunities to, say, visit their parents or other loved ones. According to Forbes, workplace flexibility increases employee buy-in as well as employee morale.

Employee buy-in and employee morale should speak for themselves as factors that increase engagement with learning. If employees feel good about eLearning offerings and believe that they have value, they will be more likely to complete the training and give it proper attention.

Flexibility is not just something nice you give your workers once in a while anymore. It’s a bigger day-to-day strategy to keep employees happy and engaged and efficient. Giving employees more agency and control over their lives—even in small ways—can make them better workers as well as improve their quality of life. eLearning has to be another flexible piece of the puzzle if you want to create a workplace flexibility strategy.

Mobile Learning Is Learner-Focused

Another way to increase engagement via mobile learning is to find ways to meet user needs in ways that only mobile learning can fulfill. After all, the best way to get someone excited about what you have to offer is to show them that it solves a problem in their lives. If you’ve heard the term “learner-focused,” this is what that refers to.

One eLearning strategy that mobile learning uniquely supports is just-in-time learning. Just-in-time learning is short modules or guides that employees consult in the moment of need. For example, if an employee is currently putting together a PowerPoint presentation and they need a reminder of how to make the slideshow ADA-compliant, they will pull up a resource that very moment on how to do so. That’s just-in-time learning, and it can be accessed anytime, anywhere. To meet employee just-in-time learning needs, it’s necessary to have a platform that they can access whenever, wherever. This is especially true for employees who work outside of an office environment. Think just-in-time learning that can be accessed via a smartphone in the warehouse, on the road, or on the sales floor.

When you want to leverage engagement via mobile learning, it’s important to ask yourself: What problem can I solve for my employees using this platform?

If you aren’t sure, it’s a great time to do research into your employee learning needs to ensure your strategy takes their perspective into account during development.

Mobile Learning Is The Future Of Engagement

Before long, it will be nearly impossible to reach most users via traditional platforms on a consistent basis. A desktop-based strategy will no longer be viable if you want to build a learning strategy that engages users on a regular basis.

Mobile platforms are where users spend their digital time. They are the platforms that go everywhere users go. Mobile devices don’t tie people down. They allow users flexibility and agency in their everyday lives. Mobile devices are there for users in their urgent moment of need.

Users are most likely unmotivated to go out of their way to hunt down training. If you want user engagement, you have to meet them where they are. Both in a physical sense and in an emotional sense, mobile platforms are how you can reach users.

References:

[1] Nearly three-quarters of the world will use just their smartphones to access the internet by 2025

[2] Mobile Fact Sheet